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.^WE•UNIVERy/A

GENESIS OF QUEENSLAND,

'^y:^kM^^^6i^

THE

GENESIS

QUEENSLAND:

AN ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST EXPLORING JOURNEYS TO

AND OVER DARLING DOWNS :

THE EARLIEST DAYS OF THEIR OCCUPATION;

SOCIAL LIFE;

STATION SEEKING;

THE COURSE OF DISCOVERY, NORTHWARD

AND WESTWARD;

/ AND A

RESUME OF THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO SEPARATION
FROM NEW SOUTH WALES.

WITH

PORTRAIT AND FAC-SIMILES OF MAPS, LOG, &c., &c.

%n\w Mnnvt Eussfll

TURNER & HENDERSON.

rilDCCCLXXXVIII.

MtXikuitti

TO THE MEMORY OF

HENRY HUGHES,

Worcester, England,

AND

Westbrook, Darling Downs, Queensland.

" By heaven ! I cannot flatter,

— but a braver place

In my heart's love hath no man."

PREFACE.

But for respect to prescribed custom, I should leave this book
to be ushered into public presence under the countenance of
Patrick Leslie's silent introduction.

A preface, however, does shape itself into an easy chair for
the scruples of the most self-distrusting occupant from which he
may address himself in tendering the payment of a debt always
incurred by ordinary men to their neighbours in the attainment
of an end.

For my own relief I use it, therefore, for thanking those who
have, in all courteous sympathy, helped me to a short review of
times synchronous with the detachments of story to which this
first one hundred of Australia's years of self-assertion under the
Union Jack has committed her. By tradition of the past, in a
measure, Australia's habit may be characteristically caparisoned
in the future.

To the late Michael Fitzpatrick (awhile Premier of New
South Wales), and then to the unreserved and hearty
acquiescence of Henry Halloran and Deputy-Surveyor-General
R. D. Fitzgerald, in obtaining for me the perusal of many
official documents, a preface gives room for my grateful acknow-
ledgments. These may have forgotten ; I have not.

Among the amenities of private intercourse, I am glad
to thank Philip Gidley King for enabling me to produce
Journals of Allan Cunningham, of which a record in full had
been long fallow among his family preserves ; also the widow of
the noble Carron, to whose manhood 1 wish to pay tribute, and
by her to his memory ; and her also who has honoured me
by the permission to place this neophyte beneath the tutelary
presence of the same Patrick Leslie.

To the boon of a public library, its able and energetic Chief
Librarian, R. C. Walker, and his considerate, cordial, and
courteous coadjutor, D. R. Havvley — not forgetting the
politeness of the active officials therein — I have now a chance
of bearing warm testimony.

To the FRIEND to whom I dedicate this redemption of a
pledge given to himself when in life, and who procured for me
the accompanying specimens of Cook's Log and handiwork, it

viii. Preface.

is too late to address myself. Those who inherit his cherished
name may accept my meaning and regret.

The chagrin shared with others now gone, that the days of
" our" Darling Downs, on which we breathed a then new
element, and revelled in the elastic aspirations of the squatter of
the olden time, should fade out of the freshness of their dawn ;
the aim, that objects wrought out by single enterprise should be
fixed to the right name ; the fear, that as years fall farther and
farther back, the impress of many a notable occurrence, whether
affecting time, place, or person, the progress of squatting
exploration or that of locality, might fall back with them into the
haze of forgotten or irrecoverable things, or, what is more
fretting, into the fogs of future distortion and assumption — have
all spurred this "small chronicler of his own small times" to
present himself to the "some few" yet living to whom the
recital may yet bring reflection, whether of personal interest or
not ; and to those who follow, mindfulness of some worthies gone
before, whose names may plead the claim of whilom companion-
ship and attachment in bush or town, prosperity or adversity.

Out of the sunny years of HER who called our Queensland
into her lot, have the purer rays been shed upon it which have
lit up the latter, the happier half of Australia's age.

May not the last, the youngest branch of Australia's growth,
bud out in hope, yet more loyally grafted upon the name of HER
who gave it as the days consolidate its own Centenary ?

Henry Stuart Russell.

North Willoughby,

Sydney, N.S.W.

CON TENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Early Explorers — Fernandez de Quiros — Torres — Torres Straits —
(."ook — Galamp de la Perouse — Delangle — The Times —
Byron's Birth — Norfolk Island — Lieutenant King — Bass —
Richard Dove — Atkins — Sydney Gazette — Flinders — Memor-
able execution — South Head Lighthouse ^ — Fort Macquarie —
Territorial Seals — Commissioner Bigge — Allman — Lang —
H.M.S. "Britomart." ..... 17

CHAPTER II.
Newcastle — The "Mermaid"- — Port Macquarie^ — Oxley's coast
survey — Ports Bowen and Curtis — Moreton Bay — Strange tale
of bewilderment at sea — The River Brisbane — Habits of coast
natives — Sir Francis Forbes — John Stephen- — John Carter —
Gonlon Bremer — Port Essington — Melville Island — Oxley in
the " Amity " — The "Australian" — Trial by Jury — Cunning-
ham — Amity Point — Oflficial visit to Moreton Bay — John
Macarthur — Francis Stephen — Red cliff Point — Edenglassie —
Fort Dundas — Raffles Bay — The Cobourg Peninsula — Patrick
Leslie- — Darling Downs — Leichhardt — The "Lady Nelson" —
P'irst despatch from Melville Island— George Miller — Port
Essington again — Bremer in H.M.S. "Alligator" — Letter to
Sir George Gipps — Owen Stanley — H.M.S. "Rattlesnake" —
A Cape York rescue — Collapse of North Coast Settlements —
Keppei in H.M.S. " Moeander." . . . 21

CHAPTER III.

Retrospection — Prospects — Thomas Hobbes Scott- — Rex v. Robert
Cooper— Van Dieman's Land — Governor Darling — Major
Lockyer — Military Discipline — Captain Bishop — Maurice
Charles O'Connell — Surmises respecting our Watersheds
— The River Macleay — Captain Logan — Stradbroke Island —
■ South Boat Passage — H.M.S. " Warspite" — Sir James Brisbane
— The River Tweed — First " Daily " — Logan's Walk — " Isle
of Stradbroke " — Dunwich — Rous Channel — The River Logan
— Captain Philip King in the "Mermaid"- — Thomas de la
Condamine — Henry Grattan Douglas — Fort Wellington —
Rev. C. P. N. Wilton — Allan Cunningham. . . 48

C: H A P T E R IV.
Fate of La Perouse — Thomas Livingstone Mitchell — Gallows in
1828-9 — The River Clarence — Colonial Botanist Frazer —

X. Contents.

i'AC.E

Swan Port — Stapylton — William Grant Broughton — Allan
Cunningham — Leslie — Leichhardt — Port ^Macquarie Free —
Commandant Logan — " Surprise " and " Sophia jane " —
Runaways — Agricultural Company at Newcastle — " Specials '"
— Lord Howe's Island — Benjamin Sullivan's Scheme . 60

C H A P T !<: R \' .
The "Squatter" — -Our First Bishop — E. Deas-Thompson — John
Blaxland — A. McLeay — The "James Watt" — Doubly
Wrecked — Lang's " Minerva " — German Clerics — Presbytery
of Moreton Bay — Sir Maurice O'Connell — Captain King
— Crown Lands Police — Squatting Bill — Withdrawal from
INIoreton Bay — Major Cotton — Commissioners of Crown Lands
— Confusion of names ..... 70

CHAPTER Yl.
Allan Cunningham's Journals — Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth
— Blue Mountains — Hovell and Hume — Segenhoe — Potter
INIacqueen — Macintyre — Dartbrook — River Page — Dividing
Range — Liverpool Plains — Oxley's River Field — INIelville Hills
— Goulburn Vale — Barrow's Valley — Lushington Valley —
Vansittart Hills — Mitchell's River — Cod Catching— Effects of
Drought — Buddie's River^ — Wild Cattle — Stoddart's Valley —
Oxley's Peel — Drummond Ranges — Carlyle's and Little's Hills
— The " Cone INLasterton " — The River Dumaresq — Macintyre's
Brook — Indians — The River Condamine — Darling Downs —
Peel's Plains — Canning Downs — Harris Range — INIount
Dumaresq — Millar's Valley^ — Logan Vale — Mount Warning
— The "Gap" — A Glimpse Eastward — Homeward Return —
Anderson's Brook — -The River Burrell — Shoal Bay . . jj

CHAPTER VII.
Cunningham on the East — Logan — Brisbane — Limestone Station
— The "Gap" — Eraser — Mount Warning — Cowper's Plains-
Canoe Creek — The River Logan — Birnam Range — Letitia's
Plain — " High," or " Flinder's" Peak — Mount Dunsinane —
Mount Warning — Innes Plain — Erris Vale— Ascent of Mount
Lindesay — Macpherson's Range— Coke and Borough Heads
— Glen Lyon — The River Richmond — Mount Clanmorris —
Hughes' Peak — Mount Hooker — View of the Sea — Mount
Shadforth — Wilson's Peak— Minto Craigs — Mount French —
Knapp's Peak — Dulhuniy Plains — Rattray Plain— The River
Bremer — Logan returns to Brisbane — Limestone Hills — Starts
in search of the " (iap " — Mount Forbes — Bowerman Plain —
Finds the " Gap's " Eastern Face — Threads the " Pass " —

Contents. xi.

PAGE

View of Darling Downs — Mount Mitchell — IMount Sturt
— Tempest in the " Gap "' — Return— Bainbrigge Plain — Mount
Fraser — Mounts Edward and (jreville — Arrive at Limestone
— Remarks — Lockyer's Boat Excursion — Cook — -Cunningham
— Arthur Hodgson — Patrick Leslie — Leslie's Diary — Dobie —
Peter Murphy — Falconer Plains — Walter Leslie — New England
— The River Clarence — Admiral King — Garden and Bennett's
Station — Toolburra — Glengallan Creek — Canal Creek —
Bannockburn Plains — Fresh Start with Stock — Wyndham's
— Condamine — Further I^xploring of DarlingDowns — Hodgson
— Etonvale — King and Sibley — Fred Isaac — Leslie's Recol-
lections . . . . . . .127

CHAPTER VIII.

Petty's Hotel — Letters of Introduction — Aldis' Cigars — Arthur and
Pemberton Hodgson — Todd — Buying a Horse — Brown the
Saddler — Major Barney — Disadvantage of a Name — Sydney as
it seemed to me — Australian Club — En route to New England
— -Newcastle — ^Cox's Hotel — Paddy Grant — Lettsome and
Archibald Boyd — Black Creek- — Hughes and Isaac — Colburne
" Old Soldiers " — Patrick's Plains — Cullen's Inn — Singleton's
— Muswellbrook — Skellatar — Bengalla — Overton — Nagoa —
St. Heller's— Cox — Allman — Aunty Bell — Nowland's Inn —
Aberdeen — Potter Macqueen — Scone — ^Chivers' Inn — The
River Page — Denny Day — Currabubbula — Charles Hall —
Killalla — Salisbury — Hodgson's Highwayman — Denne's Station
— Cashiobury — " Cocky" Rogers — Back to Sydney — Reverend
Robert All wood . . . . . .172

CHAPTER IX.

John Allman — Arthur Maister — Dr. Bland — Owen Stanley —
H. H. Browne — Gilbert Elliot — Rape of the Coat-tails —
Boydell — Owen Macdonald — Ride to the South — Murrum-
bidgee — Sharp — The Station Sold — ^Cavan — Hallelt, of Oriel
— Yass — Road back to Sydney. . . . 185

CHAPTER X.
Tatrick Leslie — The s. "Victoria" — Henry and Alfred Denison — ^
Edward Hamilton — Hodgson and Elliot — Frank Forbes —
Archibald Bell — Stephen Ferriter — Glennie — Dr. Bowman —
Loder's — Allan Macpherson — Charles Hall again — River Peel
— Stubbs and Irving — Dalzell — Milne — Rusden — Werris" Creek
— St. Aubin's — Captain Dumaresq — Denny Day and Frank
Allman — Magnus McLeod — Butler — St. Heller's — Henry
Denison and Paddy Grant— Pemberton Hodgson — " Tinker "

xii. Contents.

PAGE

Campbell — Cameron — McAllman — George Gammie — Bergen-
op-Zoom — George ^lacdonald — Captain O Connell — Cash's —
The River Bundarrah — Clark and Ranken"s — Wyndham's —
Eraser's Creek — Gregory Blaxland — Leslie's Marked-tree
Line — The Severn — The "Fiver'" — A. Hodgson and Fred.
Isaac from Darling Downs. , . . . 191

CHAPTER XI.
The Condaminc Grass Trees — Cocky Rogers again — Exploring
Etonvale Creek — A Yahoo — Cunningham's "Gap" — West-
brook — Hodgson's " iNIy Word ! " — Limestone — Arrest —
George Thorne — George Thome's Wife- — Pleasant Quarters. 199

CHAPTER XII.
Owen Gorman — John Kent — Dr. Ballow — Andrew Petrie — Eagle
Farm — Stephen Simpson — William Henry Wiseman — Mrs.
Gorman — Logan's Reign — Cunningham's Gap— Joe Archer
— Gorman's Gap — Baker or " Boralcho " — The Drummer's —
Toolburra — Clifton — Novel Watch-pocket — Dalrymple — A
Headlong Meeting — Blacks at Lockyer's Creek — Hell's Hole
— Etonvale — Elliot — Shearing — Black I'ommy. . . 210

CHAPTER XIII.
George Leslie — The first Clip^ — Trip to Brisbane — Arthur Hodgson
again — Mosquitos — Thorne and Cunningham's "Gap" —
Plough Station — Ralph Gore — To Sydney with Hughes —
Henry and Fred. Isaac- — Westbrook and Jock ^Maclean —
Gowrie — Denis — Scougall — Coxen — Myall Creek — Jimbour —
Samuel Stewart — Wingate — Tummavil — Rolland and Taylor
— Yandilla — Talgai — Ellangowan — George Mocatta — Tent
Hill — Helidon — Somerville — Fred, and Francis Bigge — Evan
and Colin INIackenzie — jNIcConnell — Balfour — My Brother
Sydenham — Run to a Rencontre — How Syd. trumped a Trick —
Frank Allman — Pagan — Skellatar — Milburne Marsh and Miss
]\Iarsh — David Scott — Bengalla Races — Helenus Scott—
Glennie — Bundock — John Cox — " Dick " Glover — INIatthew
and Charles Marsh — Darby and Goldfmch — Morse — Armidale
— Ben Lomond — Horses Lost — Etonvale — INIurray — Rose —
Brooks — Frank Hodgson — Arthur's Round Table — Frank
Forbes — Search for a " Run '' — Cecil Plains — Back at Betty's
Hotel, in Sydney — John Allman — Campbelltown — Captain
Allman — John Hurley — Sir Thomas INIilchell — Dr. Wallace 222

CHAPTER XIV.
The "Shamrock" to Moreton Bay — Governor and Suite — JollifTe
— Milburne Marsh's Flying Shot — Cleveland Point — First

Contents.

Queen of May on Darling Downs — Dr. Goodwin — James
Canning Pearce — Fife — Aikman — Simpson's Homceopathy — ■
Quixotic — Chambers' "Edward " — Pinis Petriana — An Agree-
ment. .......

XIU.

242

CHAPTER XV.
Boat Trip to Wide Bay — Edward Baker — Walter Wrottesley — Jolliffe
— Mocatta — The River " Alorouchidor'' — •" Petrie's Head " —
Aboriginal Doctoring — Bracefell — -Brown's Cape — The " Stir-
ling Castle"^Wreck — A "Tourr"— Mrs. Eraser — Her Escape
— Boppol — Southern Entrance into Hervey's Bay — Capsize —
A Chorus — A Eog — -Sheridan — Puzzled — Fire-flies — "Gam-
mon Inch "...... 250

CHAPTER XVI.

Bunnia-Bunnia Range — JoUiffe's Beard — The River Monoboola (now
" Mary") — Difficulties on nearing Mount Boppol — " Old Bill"
— Arthur Hodgson in the " Canopus" — Derhamboi — Strange
Scenes — A Watch Found — Back to Brisbane — Pamby-Pamby's
Good-bye— " Makromme" — Derhamboi's Au Revoir ! — Life
with the Ginginbarah — Native Character — Shells for my
Sisters in England — The Hunting Phocoena — My Leaf Written
in Gaol — Hopes of the Forlorn — ^ Cannibalism — Cooking — ■
Stolen Pleasures ...... 270

CHAPTER XVII.

Narratives of the " Stirling Castle's" Wreck— Death by Torture —
Gathering Doom — Choice of Two Horrors — Garbled Account
of Rescue — -Base Ingratitude — Bunnia-Bunnia — Arniicaria
Bidwellii — Female Cannibal Priviliges — The Bundinavah —
Courting on the Monoboola — Contract Sealed — Character of the
Contract — -Aboriginal Domestic Habits — Natural Learning. 300

CHAPTER XVIII.
Patrick Leslie — Denny Day — Sir Thomas Mitchell — Stapylton —
Execution of His Murderers — The " Piscator" — Leslie and
Darling Downs — Lettsome and Boyd — The River "Albert" —
Moreton Bay Progress — Glover, from Bathurst — Peter Quack
— John Hill and Christopher Gorry — New Road Over the
Range — -Francis Bigge Shot — Overland to Wide Bay — Eales'
Sheep — ^Superintendent Last — A Christmas Eve Night —
Overland to Port Essington — Orton — Black Jemmy — The
"Gulf Stream" — A Comet — -Bell and Cameron — -Thomas
Sutcliffe Mort — Cooranga— Blacks Surprised — Henry Denis
— A One-eyed Murderer . . . . . 317

xiv. Contents.

CHAP T E R X I X.
Sir Charles Malcolm — Glover — Sydenham Russell— Letters — Cecil
Plains— Burrandowan — A Day and a INIonth of Dying — Com-
missioners Macdonald and Rolleston — Cambooya — Pot Luck
—Hodgson a Butcher-Boy — Pie-bald Strife — " Gourmand's "
in Brisbane — Egg Txic\.— Table-d' -hole in Queen Street — The
Horse " Mentor '" — Benedict Bracker. . 342

CHAPTER XX.
I.iulwig Leichhardt — Our First Meeting — G. K. Fairholme — Pipe
Ponderings Over — Port Essington — Sandy Blight — The
Doctor opens our eyes, and his own are fixed X^orthward —
I\Iy Stockman, William Orton — Deliberations — Leichhardt Pre-
pares himself in Sydney — Return — Route — Ruin — Resurrec-
tion — Reaction — Second Start — Swan River— Sickness — Third
Start — Fading away . . . . . 359

CHAPTER XXL
Robert Little — Kearsey. Cannan — Contemporaries — Duncan —
Thornton — Sheridan — Brisbane Celebrities — Ralph Gore —
Invitation to Bustard Breakfast — An Unforgotten Rebuke — The
Loss of the "Sovereign" — Waste Lands — Port Curtis Settlement
— Wickham — Moretoii Bay Courier — Darling Downs Gazelle
— Brisbane v. Cleveland — A Visit by Night — Brisbane Race-
courses • — Butterflies — Caterpillars — Land — Wentworth —
Labour — Tea-fight — Burnett — H.INLS. "Orpheus" — Dr. Lang's
Emigrants — The Close of my Darling Downs Days. . 377

CHAPTER XXIL

Edmund Kennedy — P>om Sydney by Sea to Rockingham Bay —
Thence by land starts for Cape York — William Carron's
Journal — Bad beginning has a worse end — Carts useless and
left behind — Horses dying are eaten — Terrible Obstacles —
Rain — Food filched — Watching Stores — Party left at
Weymouth Bay — Doom's Dallyings — A Skeleton Remnant —
Carron and Kennedy — -Kennedy's Death — Jacky's "Ariel" —
A Canoe Chase — Dust and Ashes — Faithful to the end . 399

CHAPTER XXIII. ^

Xc-.v South Wales' Leap Year — Her growth — Charles Kemp —
Spectre of Separation — Ghost of Ruin — Prevention — A
Continuance Bill — Sir Robert Peel and Vernon Smith — Power
of a Word — Londo7i Colonial Gazelle . . . 427

Contents. xv.

C \\ A F T E R XXIV.
A iJay with the " Separation " Pack — Lang and Lowe at the
Meet — PhiHppic from Port PhiUip — Lang- and the " Lima" —
Hobson's Choice — A Hook for Separation — Moulding for a
new Cast — Lang impeaches Grey — Lang's aim at Separation —
His Land Orders — Lang's portly President — Lang's League —
— Lang for Sydney — Henry Parkes for Lang — Lang elected —
" In the name of the Prophet Figs !'' . . . 444

CHAPTER XXV.
Patrick Leslie and Separation — Separation Strifes — Grey's odd
trick — Leslie and Lang — Sydney Wrath^Five to three against
"Jackeroo" — -Hodgson on Separation — Public Sentiment —
Apology for " Exiles " — New Constitution Bill — Clauses
fifty-one and fifty-two — Denunciation — Indignation — Exultation

-Termination.

473

CHAPTER XXVI.
Aspiration. ....... 508

APPENDIX A .

Extracts from Cook's Journal (Hawkesworth). — Cape Byron —
Mount Warning — Points Danger and Look-out — Moreton's
Bay — Cape Moreton — Glass Houses — Double Island Point —
From Bustard Bay to Cape Townshend— Thirsty Sound —
Conway — Gloucester — Whitsunday — Grafton to Cape Tribu-
lation — Coral stricken — ^The Endeavour River — Capes Bedford
and Flattery — Breaking through the Barrier Reef — Providential
Channel — Weymouth Bay — Bok Head — Sir Charles Hardy's
and Cockburn's Isles — Cape York — Newcastle Bay- — Possession
Island — -Cape Cornwall — Booby Island — Return by Timor,
Batavia, and Cape of Good Hope — Lands at Deal. . 513

APPENDIX B.

Extract from Flinders' Journal. — Epitome of his Introductory
Review of Early Discoveries — WhatFlindershad todoin thesloop
" Norfolk " — Sugar Loaf Point — Shoal Bay — Point Skirmish —
X* Pumice Stone River — Hervey's Bay^H.M.S. "Investigator" —
Do Wide and Hervey's Bays join ? — Gatcombe Head — Port
Curtis — Keppel Bay — The "Lady Nelson " — Parts company —
Threads the '' Needles " — The Gulph garnished — "Xenophon"
will not Retreat — Sink or Swim with the "Investigator's"
Rottenness — By North and West Coasts round Cape Leeuwin
in his rotten Ship — To Port Jackson. . . . 543

xvi. Contents.

APPENDIX C . PA6E

Journal of ax Kxcursion up thp: River Bkisbwe in the Year
1825, by Edmund Lockver, Esq., J. P.. late Major in His
Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot .... 589

A P P I<: N D I X D .

General Order. — With respect to the Military posted at Penal
Stations.

Government Order. — Coasting Service.

Proclamation. — Port INIacquarie, Moreton Bay and Norfolk Island
as Penal Settlements

La Perouse's Relics. — Brought to Port Jackson by Captain Dillon,
commanding the Honourable East India Company's ship
" Research."

Government Order. — Major Mitchell's appointment as Surveyor-
General.

Government Order. — The Rev. W. G. Broughton, Archdeacon,
Member of the Legislative and Executive Councils.

Proclamation. — General Thanksgiving.

Proclamation. — Port Macquarie open to Settlers . . 602

A P P E N D I X E .

Account of Logan's Mi^rder.^ — -The Funeral — Captain Clunie's

Letter. , . •. . . . . 610

APPENDIX F.

Proclamation. — Checks upon Excessive Punishment of Convicts 615

APPENDIX G .

Major Campbell's Journal. — -Record of Settlements on North

Coast — Melville Island — General Description. . .616

APPENDIX H .

Proclamation. — Boundaries of the District of Moreton Bay —

Stephen Simpson appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands 634

APPENDIX J .
First Sale of Land at Brisbane. — Buyers and amounts. . 635

A P P E N D I X K .
Extract Sydtiey Gazelle. — Arrival of the horse St. George and

Stock from Bathur.st. ..... 636

CHAPTER I

King Arthur made new knights to fill the gap

Left by the the Holy Quest. — Tennyson. (The Holy Grail.)

Assuredly the gallant Pedro Fernandez de Quiros must have
been possessed by some of the " sacred madness " of
King Arthur's bard when as he first gazed, as he thought, upon
the coral-gripped coast of the new land which King Philip of
Spain had sent him to seek, he shouted in reverent joy with
doffed sombrero: "Australia del Espiritu Santo!" But was
"Australia" the utterance, or was it "Tierra"? 'Twas not for
de Quiros to discover his own error. Choosing one course for
further discovery, he directed his Lieutenant to take another in
the second ship, and so they parted in 1606. Superstitious
dread prevailed over the discipline of his own, and he was
compelled by his mutinous men to return to Peru, which he
reached in disgrace, ever attendant upon failure. His
Lieutenant, Luis Vaes de Torres, soon found that the Admiral
had saluted but an island — probably one of the New Hebrides —
continued his course westwards, bore away along the south coast
of New Guinea; unwittingly fixed his eyes upon the true "Tierra
Austral "; upon the "very large islands" which the Cape, since
called York, presented to his bewildered sight, ere he stood
away to the north, threading his way through the mazy channel
which exposed his commander's mistake.

Torres had unconsciously fulfilled the Holy Quest. The
memory ofand monument to his name are baptised and bathed
by the isle-fretted waters which bear it.

In John Bull justice did a native of our own British island
stamp " Torres" with his hand of authority as hydrographer to
the Admiralty upon that strange channel which had already
begun to be the promise of a grand highway claimed by, but not
destined for the sovereignty of that flag under which Torres had
sailed.

The most authentic registration of Queensland's birth was
thus declared from the far north ; her future growth was
nourished and confirmed from the far south. Among the first
forms of a new shore brought to light, she has derived her
existence from that which was delivered last by the labour of

1 8 Genesis of Queensland.

our Yorkshire countryman, James Cook, Into the arms of our
glad motherland.

But through what throes has the first colony planted in this
our Australia been nursed to its stature, that it may bear its own
part, and send forth its own offspring to bear theirs on the great
stage upon which in these years of grace, 1887-8, it and
they are summoned to enact the several characters allotted to
them, and as yet rehearsed by the help of the common prompting
of religion, race, kindred, and country.

It is by the finger-posts of incident in colonial life that the
tracks of a community's social rise and progressive ability may
be faithfully followed and run out, irrespective of the governing
element. Whether of good or evil, worthy or unworthy, noble
or ignoble report, the course of events proves a people's
character ; whereas a religious and political history, even of a
new country, compiled from a mass of wrestling opinions, can be
taught and learnt but by the commonwealth's outcome up to a
present — a present which can find no end while the Avorld is.

The former — my task — is an easy one : the latter, one which
only rare ability and genius dare challenge. Yet the one may
allure the interest and amused attentiveness of the many, who
do not care to dig up or into the thirsty ground of theory, nor
sink into the quicksands of inquiry which cannot be solidified.

For instance, who that dwells in this land of bright token
can take up an almanac, and fail to exult in his secret soul that
on the 20th day of January, 1788, our fellow countryman,
.\rthur Phillip, had saved it for us "Britishers" but by a few
days from becoming the rightful refuge for the Frenchman's
" folies "; that two days after he had taken possession of the
country in the name of the United Kingdom, established his
head-quarters on the bay-sporting waters of Port Jackson, and in
all chivalrous courtesy "fended off" "I'Astrolabe" and "la Buffole"
with their gallant commanders, Jean Francois Galamp de la
Perouse, and his friend Delangle, to the less hospitable shores on
which they met their sad fates ? Is the fact that the same month
of the same year — 1788 — hailed the birth in our realm of a
people's new and giant power — the power of the press, the
fourth estate — in a dingy room at Printing-House Square, whence
on the first of its days issued forth the first cry of^the infant
Times, now stalking forth in strength equal to a nation's
leverage, worth no grat(-ful glance ? Can the nascent glow of

Shadows of a Substance. ig

Australia's poetic aspirations bear no reflective companionship
with the spark which kindled the simultaneously new-born
Byron's genius ? Are all incurious to the fact that Norfolk
Island was made a dependency of New South Wales on the 13th
day of the month following, under Lieutenant, afterwards
Captain, and then Governor King?

Is it not worth a glance that on the 26th of September, i 791,
Lieutenant-Governor, afterwards Governor King, had arrived in
the "Gorgon," having received our territorial seal, with authority
to grant pardons absolutely or conditionally ? Nothing to any
housewife that in 1796 coals were being received in Sydney from
Newcastle ? nor to the admirers of sea-bred pluck that Dr. Bass
had thrown open the straits which wear his name, and returned
in his whaleboat thence to Port Jackson in February, 1798 ? Are
there none now who would be surprised that until December, 1800,
no copper coin was in circulation in the colony? None now
living who may read with namesake interest the first noteworthy
death in New South Wales, that of Judge-Advocate Richard
Dove ; none to lift up their eyebrows at the recorded name of
his successor, Richard Atkins ?

And then, a smart step onward on March 5, 1803, The
Sydney Gazette aiid Neiv South Wales Advertiser, published
" by authority," coupled with the drawback — important enough
in those days — of the report brought to Sydney by him to whom
the coast of New Holland had become so much indebted for
development, Matthew Flinders, of the loss of the " Porpoise"
and " Cato," upon his arrival within the Heads on September 8th,
in an open boat.

Is there no sensation attendant upon the announcement of
horrors presumably lawful (in the type of the period), and ten-
dered in a somewhat cynical regard for authority one day of this
year : " Memorable execution (!). — Joseph Samuels, for burglary,
was three times suspended ; first, the rope separated ; second, it
unrove at the fastening ; third, it snapped short ! The Provost
Marshal, Mr. Smith — a man universally respected — compassion-
ating the criminal's protracted suffering, represented the case to
the Governor, who was pleased to' reprieve him"?

Was there no thought for defence in those troublous days of
antipodean wars ? Nor for light in those days of darkness ?
There was; for on the i8th of July, 181 6, Governor Macquarie
laid the first stones of the tower which makes his name redoubt-

20 Genesis of Queensland

able, and of the South Head Lighthouse, pulled down not long
ago, and then put up again the brightest beacon of the seas !
The old Seal, too, worn out, not probably by the frequency of
pardoning, but by ceaseless attachments to hanging warrants,
was replaced by a new Territorial Seal, sent with a warrant, by
the clemency of the Prince Regent, in the November following.

Why should we decline to refresh our knowledge of the
stirring times during the chaotic reign of Governor Bligh for one
year, five months, and thirteen days ; or mark the record of a
new era which set in with the arrival of John Thomas Bigge, the
Honourable Commissioner of Inquiry, consequent upon Bligh's
eviction, in the ship " John Barry," with his secretary, Thomas
Hobbes Scott, on the 25th September, i8ig? Or, beginning
already to creep away to the northward, to mark that a gallant
officer of the 48th Regiment, Captain Allman, whose name is still
held high in Campbelltown esteem, and in our midst, in memory
of a fine old soldier and impartial magistrate, was sent forth to
establish a penal settlement at Port Macquarie ?

Coming apace to household names of our own years, the
preaching of his introductory sermon by Dr. Lang in Sydney, on
June 8, 1823, will surely make many prick up their ears.

And how strangely it sounds now that on the 8th of the
preceding month Thomas McVitie was magistrate for the week !
That the harbour of Port Jackson presented " a novel and gay
appearance on the Sunday before, as six vessels were under sail
at once ! Five to go through Torres Straits, Captain Peach, of
H.M.S. "Britomart," being commodore of the squadron; that this
smart vessel saluted Point Piper en passant, which was promptly
answered by our respected naval officer (and postmaster),
Captain Piper "!

CHAPTER II

For not this man and that man, but all men make up mankind, and their
united tasks the task of mankind. How often have we seen some adventurous
and perhaps much-censured wanderer light on some outlying, neglected, yet vitally
momentous province, the hidden treasures of which he first discovered, and kept
proclaiming till the general eye and effort were directed thither, and the conquest
was completed ; thereby, in these his so seemingly aimless rambles, planting new
standards, founding new habitable colonies in the immeasurable circumambient
realm of nothin_gness and night. — Carlyle. (Sartor Resartus).

How fast within our first half century did the necessities of New
South Wales, with respect to the classification of her criminals,
and the infliction of secondary punishment, compel her in her
apparently dismal destiny's fulfilment to w^ork out under such
degrading associations her sad course ; blindfolded to all
considerations but those by which she could render service to the
old home by relieving it of the presence of outcasts and ne'er-do-
w-eels. The establishment of these very depots of guilt became
the direct guidance to the exploration of this land. Let us see.
Newcastle was the first afifiliated prison-house ; but on the nth
of September of 1823 the Government cutter " Mermaid " — which
plays so frequent a part on the north coast henceforth — sailed
with stores to Newcastle, from which dependency about forty
prisoners were to be transferred to that of Port Macquarie, as
the former is to be no longer considered a "place of banishment"
for our felons; and on the i6th of October, the Surveyor-General,
John Oxley, had received instructions from Governor Brisbane,
upon the advice of Commissioner Bigge, " to proceed northward
as far as Port Bowen, Port Curtis, and Moreton'Bay; to examine
them, and report as to forming in each spot, if fit for the purpose,
a new settlement, to which all the convicts not usefully employed
on the old settlements, as well as the refractory and incorrigible,
were to be removed, and employed in the clearing and cultivation
of land, &c., with the view, further, of removing to them, or any
one of them, the prisoners then stationed at Port Macquarie,
which from the excellence of the soil, the fineness of the climate,
and its convenient distance from Sydney, the Governor was
desirous of throwing open to free settlers.''

And so, accompanied by Uniacke, the Sur\eyor-General
proceeded to Port Macquarie, which they found flor.rishing after

22 Genesis of Queenslmid.

its two years' occupation; a town laid out in "streets of straight
lines, handsome esplanade, barracks for 150 soldiers, neat
commodious officers' quarters, comfortable huts of split wood,
lathed, plastered, and white-washed, for prisoners, garden
attached to each ; fruit trees, maize, and sugar-cane growing very
luxuriantly," and natives of exceptionally fine mould mixing with
the whites in a most friendly manner, who in consideration of
being " victualled from the King's store," perform very efficient
duty as a constabulary, especially in pursuing and bringing back
runaways '' dead or alive."'

Their next visit was to Port Curtis ; here they were not so
well pleased: harbour difficult, vegetation scanty, timber none but
what would do for firewood. They found no fresh water nearer
the shore than twelve or fourteen miles, in a rapid river which
they named the Boyne, up which they came to a succession of
rapids, the banks " highly picturesque, the hills covered with
wood, and the plains well grassed. The result, however, was
that the place was unsuitable, and that convict labor there would
be wholly thrown away."

So, on return, they entered Moreton Bay, discovered by
Cook, and visited by Flinders. Dropping anchor, a number of
natives rushed down to the shore, among them one who appeared
much larger in frame and lighter in colour than the others, who,
advancing to a point opposite to the " Mermaid,'' hailed her in
English. A boat was sent off, and as it drew towards them, the
natives showed many signs of joy, hugging this man, and dancing
wildly around him. He was perfectly naked, daubed all over
with white and red ochre. He was soon discovered to be an
Englishman, and so bewildered that little could be made of him
that night. However, on the morrow Uniacke took down his
narrative in writing, and this is by far the most curious and
interesting paper in Barron Field's collection. His name was
Thomas Pamphlet ; had set out with three others — Richard
Parsons, John Finnigan, and John Thompson — from Sydney in
a large open boat for Illawarra or the Five Islands (at that time
the popular name for that place) to get cedar ; met with a
violent gale whic:h last(,'d live; days, which drovt^ them, as they
imagined, to the southward as far as Van Dieman's Land. Under
this delusion they kept to the northward, suffered terribly from
want (jf wal(M' for twenty-one days ; John riu)m])son died ol
thirst ; then were wrecked on Moreton Island, w hich they still

Cedar Traders at Sea. 23

believed to be to the south of Port Jackson. Parsons and
Finnigan insisted some six weeks before upon another attempt
northwards for Sydney ; he had gone with them about fifty miles,
become too foot-sore to proceed, but got back to this tribe-
Parsons and Finnigan having quarrelled, the latter also had
returned, but was away at present on a hunting excursion
with the chief. Parsons had not since been heard of."^

Finnigan came in the following day ; and, guided by their
information, Oxley proceeded in the whaleboat to examine the
mouth of the river which both had assured him ran into the
south end of Moreton Bay. By sunset of that day they had
ascended this river about twenty miles. The next day the
satisfaction they had at first felt increased. Oxley felt
"justified in believing that the sources of this river were not
to be found in a mountainous country, but rather that it flows
from some lake which will prove to be the receptacle of those
interior streams crossed by me," he observes, " during an
expedition of discovery in 181 8."

In a review upon three works which were published in
London in 1826, viz., by W. C. Wentworth (1824), Edward Curr
(1820), and Barron Field (1825), appears the following: "The
name given to this important river is the Brisbane. That it
derives its waters from the lake or morass into which the
Macquarie falls, and from those numerous streams which were
crossed by Oxley in 1818, all running to the northward, seems
a very reasonable supposition. He was able to trace its course
forty miles from its mouth, and he could see in the same
direction, viz., in the south-west, the abrupt termination of the
coast range of mountains ; and the distance from Moreton Bay
to the lake or morass of the Macquarie is not more than
300 miles. The discovery of this river may cause those to
hesitate who so positively assert that none of any magnitude
fall into the sea from New Holland. Captain Cook discovered
Moreton Bay ; it was well known to Captain Flinders, who
anchored his vessel both above and below the mouth of this
river, and passed it twice in his boats, but it was concealed from
him by two low islands."

Pamphlet said that nothing could exceed the kind
attention paid by the natives to the shipwrecked seamen ;

* It will be seen, however, that in January of next year Parsons was
discovered.

24 Genesis of Queensland.

they lodged them, hunted and fished for them, and the
women and children gathered fern root for them, painted them
twice a day, and would assuredly have tattooed their bodies and
" bored " their noses but for their dislike to the process. Not
only did these Moreton Bay natives deal with them so kindly,
they met with similar treatment among all the tribes with whom
they had met in their wanderings to the north. Of the habit of
boiling water they all seemed to be ignorant. Pamphlet had
saved a tin pot, in which, on one occasion, he had heated some
water ; it began to boil, and the anxiously-watching savages
took to their heels, shouting and screaming. They would not
draw near again till he had poured it away ; nor were they, in
his sojourn, ever reconciled to the operation. Each aboriginal
had the cartilage of the nose pierced ; many wore large pieces
of bone or stick (supplanted in after days by the white man's
pipe) thrust through it. The women, as at Sydney, had all lost
the first two joints of the little finger of the left hand, but the
adults had not, as at Port Jackson, one of the front teeth
extracted. The women were daily busied in getting "dingowa,"
fern root, for subsistence, and making bags of network from
rushes. The men made the fishing and kangaroo nets from the
bark of the kurrajong (hibiscus heterophyllus) . The fishing
stations and grounds of each tribe were some few miles apart ;
and they would change from one to another as the fishing or
game began to fail. Their huts were of wattle bent into an
arch, interwoven with boughs, covered with the bark of the tea
tree (melaleuca armillaris) and impervious to rain. Some would
hold ten or twelve persons. Pamphlet declared that during a
sojourn of seven months he never saw a woman struck or ill-
treated ! The men would quarrel — their fights were frequent,
often ending fatally. The common usage was for a champion
on either side to fight it out fairly in a ring made for the occasion.
He saw one, he said, of these duels. At a spot chosen was a
circle about twenty-five feet in diameter, three feet deep, and
surrounded by a palisade of sticks. The two combatants entered
it, parleyed awhile with violent gestures, plucked their spears
from the ground; one was pierced through the shoulder; he fell,
and was carried off by his friends, the lookers-on departing with
loud shouts on all sides. Reconciliation succeeded, and that
again was hailed with loud shouts, dancing, and wrestling, after
which they all joined in a general hunt for a week.

Sir Francis Forbes. 25

Instrumental in the discovery of the river Brisbane, these
white castaways have thus appeared upon the scene. Let us
now return to Port Jackson. We shall, for the first time, hear
of one whose name became a household word, not only
in this colony, but through his sons, in years after-
wards, on Darling Downs. In the person of Sir Francis
Forbes, the bench attained the honour of a Chief Justice
who, by the brilliancy of his talents, shed new light upon
its records, as his estimable character and broad philanthropy
did upon the darker pages of the history of New South Wales.
It was the beginning of a new era in colonial being.
Captain Johnson, in his good ship the "Guildford," did deliver
upon these shores our first Chief Justice, his wife and family,
on the 5th of March, 1824. The same day the formal
promulgation of His Majesty's New Charter of Justice for the
Colony of New South Wales took place at the Government
House, the Court House, and the Market Place of Sydney, and
the Chief Justice took his seat on the bench. The nth of the
August following proclaimed — as effacing what may be termed
the martial control — a Legislative Council, established by Royal
sign-manual, as being in existence under the hand and seal of
the Governor-in Chief ; and in the same month was hailed the
advent of the first Solicitor-General and Commissioner of the
Court of Requests, John Stephen, with his family, in the
" Prince Regent," and the first Master-in-Chancery, John Carter,
with his family, in the same ship.

Another spurt Northward, Ho ! through Torres Straits
this time, encircling Queensland and all that she contains,
commemorates the month of August, 1824, for H.M.S.
" Tamar,'' commanded by Captain Bremer, C.B., accompanied
by the " Countess of Harrington," taking a civil and military
establishment, sailed for the north coast of " Terra Australis "
on the 24th, for the purpose of founding a new settlement in
the vicinity of Melville Island, which, with Port Essington,
becomes so much identified with a Queenslander's retrospect,
that the energies expended upon that spot should not, with the
settlements themselves, be abandoned through exhaustion. Who
can forget that Port Essington, at least, was Leichhardt's refuge ?

Pending the Melville Island expectations, let us see again
what part Moreton Bay is preparing to take in our Australian
programme.

26 Genesis of QtLeensland.

In September we find our indefatigable Surveyor-General,
John Oxley, again at work. He has sailed in the brig "Amity "
with a civil establishment, prisoners, and stores, to plant a new
settlement somewhere in Moreton Bay. As a guard, a
detachment of the 40th regiment, the officer in command
Lieutenant Butler. The Commandant-elect, Lieutenant Miller
of the same regiment ; his suite completed by a storekeeper,
subordinate officers of various designations, and a number of
volunteers. The King's Botanist, Cunningham, accompanies
the Surveyor-General. Upon John Oxley falls the responsibility
of fixing upon the site most eligible for this new dependency.

What says October of 1824 to the credit of our country?
Liberty of the Press! thanks to Sir Thomas Brisbane. The
publication of an independent weekly newspaper — the
Australian, on the 14th.

Trial by jury on the same day obtained in the Quarter
Sessions Court.

Did these boons follow in the Chief Justice's train ?

Its 2ist day brought back our brig "Amity," Captain
Penson, with the Surveyor-General and King's Botanist. Our
new settlement was established for the while on the very shores^
of Moreton Bay, at a spot called Red Cliff Point, on its
northern margin. It was deemed peculiarly eligible, although
it had drawbacks from want of safe anchorage. Oxley went
thence up the river about forty miles beyond the place he had
ascended it in December last. He then gave his opinion that
the river communicated with the interior waters, and it was to be
regretted (it was then said), that no proof of that being a fact had
been yet obtained. However, his party found fish hitherto know^n
only in the western shed, and that circumstance afforded a strong
presumption of the surmised communication. The tree now
known as the "Moreton Bay" Pine (Araiicaria Ctinnh^ghaviii) ,
was much noticed. The King's Botanist, Cunningham, made ex-
tensive collections, and it is remarkable " that most of the plants
were of genera hitherto supposed to be exclusively troj)ical."

It will be remembered that by the cutter " Mermaid " last
year had been rescued two men wrecked on Moreton Island, and
that they had spoken of one, Parsons, who had left them, and
not re-appeared. About a month before the arrival of the
" Amity " on this occasion, this man had returned to his old
friends at the mouth of the Pumice Stone River. He had been

Moreton Bay — Expansion. 27

wandering among the tribes of Hervey's Bay and the coast north
of Moreton Bay ever since he had left his comrade in misfortune.
For two years his dwelHng among the blacks was an interesting
story. In all respects he declared he had been well and kindly
dealt with.

Upon her return the " Amity " passed through the southern
passage into Moreton Bay, which took its name as the " Amity
Point Entrance," she being the first craft to make use of it. The
discovery of this approach shortened the distance by about fifty
miles to the river Brisbane."^

The colony must have made a fresh start on the ist of
November, when the first Court of Quarter Sessions was held in
Sydney; and Moreton Bay must have been on "tip-toe" in the
expectation of a vice-regal visit, for on the nth the same staunch
brig " Amity " conveyed His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief
(Sir Thomas Brisbane), the Chief Justice, and the Surveyor-
General to sea en route to the new settlement, followed by her
tender, the " Little Mars." Captain John Macarthur and
Francis Stephen, Clerk to the Council, completed the pleasant
party ; pleasant, doubtless, in spite of the weather, which in a fit
oi ill-humour kept them fourteen days on the passage. The
heavy gales and thunder-storms were spoken of as terrible day
after day, and night after night. They entered the Bay by the
north passage. The Governor and Chief Justice went up the
river some twenty-eight miles, were much struck by the size of
the trees on the banks, and pleased by what they saw. The
natives were beginning to be troublesome at Red-Cliff Point, by
continual thefts of tools, &c. Sir Thomas had decided upon
removing the settlement to a spot about nine miles up the river,
which would be more convenient for shipping. The Chief Justice
had named the new site Edenglassie (Brisbane?). The "Amity "
went to sea by the southern passage, and returned to Port
Jackson in four days, on the 4th December.

In August of the year 1824, Captain — afterwards Sir James
John Gordon Bremer — in command of H.M.S. "Tamar," and
accompanied by the "Countess of Harcourt," Captain Bunn, left
Port Jackson for the north coast of Australia, and established
the first settlement thereon at Fort Dundas on Melville Island.

* Until the loss of the steamer " Sovereign," in 1847, it was the usual
entrance, except in very heavy weather ; after that catastrophe it was for many
years " tabooed."

28 Genesis of Queensland.

Melville Island and Raffles Bay were the outcome of this attempt
for a few years, and afterwards Port Essington. The idea of
such an extension may be best expressed by the concluding
paragraph of Major Campbell's journal in the appendix. Clothed
in such an opinion, common sense, which thus weighed the
probabilities of the future, would hnd herself much out-at-elbows
in these days of democratic hatred of Indian, Chinese, or
Islander service. If she were suffered to look at herself in the
glass, she would hardly recognise her own features, and would
shrink from the ugly mask which some " larrikin-spirit " hand
has bedaubed them with during her long nap.

We know how spasmodically — spasms of mercantile and
monetary panics — the eyes of Sydney used to be fascinated by
the enticement to hook on to the chain-trace which nature has
stretched across the Indian Ocean from our neighbours in the
hemisphere opposite.

To Queensland the existence of a settlement on the
Cobourg Peninsula has been, I think, an unappreciated boon as
yet. Not embraced by the area of her possessions, yet in
reviewing the track by which she came to where she is, Port
Essington becomes much identified with her career.

It was the suggestion of a direct overland connection with
it which at times so highly stimulated the appetite for its
realisation. The occupation of Darling Downs by Patrick Leslie
gave fresh strength to the desire : the question of such a consum-
mation became lively in town and bush. Port Essington was
the northern magnet of which the attraction energised the
gallantry of many an ambitious heart. Leichhardt would not, I
think, have so promptly tempted the intervening wilderness but
for the refuge ready for him at the end of his way.

So, out of Patrick Leslie's hands sprang the baby colony
into the cradle of Leichhardt's chevaleresque design; that design
was sketched perspectively through the focus which concentrated
Port Essington's distinctness of welcome. The Cobourg
Peninsula may yet have a grand part to play for the benefit of
the land of the south.

It was admitted that the object of the Government of that
day in despatching this expedition was " to open and preserve
an intercourse with the Malay coast, so as to encourage and
facilitate the spice trade." The latitude of the proposed
dependency was about 12 deg. S., and 130 deg. E. To be con-

Gordon Bremer. — Digesting the Coast. 29

veyed thither by Captain Gordon Bremer were Captain Barlow
of the 30th Regiment (Buffs) — upon whom the superintendence
was eventually to devolve — Ensign Everard, twenty-four non-
commissioned officers and privates of the same regiment ;
Dr. Turner, medical officer ; George Miller, commissariat clerk
in charge of the duties of that department : George Wilson,
whose assistant was George Tollemache ; and forty-four
prisoners of the crown as workmen and mechanics. The
Government colonial brig " Lady Nelson, ""^ John, master,
accompanied the " Tamar " and " Countess of Harcourt."

In the following March, 1825, the " Philip Dundas " from
Mauritius, brought news to Sydney that the " Countess of
Harcourt," after landing her stores at Fort Dundas, Melville
Island, had called at the Isle of France, en route to England ;
had reported " all well " with Captain Gordon Bremer and the
new settlement so far. Houses sent in frame from Sydney had
been put together, a fort finished and seven guns mounted,
soldiers and prisoners well " hutted," the commissariat officer
Miller, getting a store completed. The official despatch from
Captain Gordon Bremer gave the following particulars : " Having
completed everything necessary for the expedition, sailed from
Port Jackson on the 24th of August, 1824, the ship 'Countess of
Harcourt,' and the colonial brig ' Lady Nelson ' in company.
On the 28th, passed Moreton Island with a fair wind ; from this
period running down the east coast, anchoring occasionally, until
the 17th of September, when we passed Torres Straits, and on
the 20th at Port Essington, of which port and the coast between
129 deg. and 130 deg. east longitude, I took possession in the
name of the King. On the 21st, at daylight, began examining
the surrounding shores of Port Essington, and despatched four
boats in search of fresh water. On the east side the country was
much burnt up, the soil sandy and thickly interspersed with red
sandstone rock, probably containing iron ; trees of no great
height, mostly like those of New South Wales ; no water found
this day. On the 22nd the search was again unsuccessful, but
on the western side the soil was better, the country more open,

* The " Lady Nelson" was a brig of 60 tons, brought from England by
Lieutenant Grant, R.N., in 1800; built with sliding keels, came out of Deadman's
Dock, London, on January 13th, 1800; laden at Gosport on February 9th, had
freeboard but 2ft. gin., and looked so small for such a voyage that she got the
name of His Majesty's " Tinder Box."

30 Genesis of Queensland.

and the trees of magnificent height. On Point Record a hole
was found fenced round with bamboo, containing a small quantity
of thick or rather brackish water, evidently the work of Malays,
as the bamboo is not indigenous in New Holland."^ Traces of
natives were also found everywhere, but none made their
appearance. Our parties had penetrated in various directions
considerably into the country, but never found any water ;
however, there is no doubt that by digging deep wells it might
be obtained, yet the present apparent scarcity much diminished
the value of Port Essington.

" It is, nevertheless, one of the most noble and beautiful
pieces of water that can be imagined, having a moderate depth,
with a capability of containing a whole navy in perfect security^
and is well worthy of His Majesty's Government, should they be
pleased to extend their establishment to this coast. On the 23rd,
as water had not been met with, and the season was advancing^
weighed and made sail for Apsley's Strait. On the 24th, made
Cape Van Dieman, and on the 26th entered the Strait and
anch'ored off Luxmore Head, when formal possession was taken
of Melville and Bathurst Islands. On the 27th, 28th, and 29th,
boats were despatched in search of water, other parties sinking
wells on both islands, without success. The wells produced a
small quantity muddy and slightly brackish.

" On the 30th I had the good fortune to find a running
stream in a cove about five miles to the southward of the ship,
the south-east point of which presented an excellent position
for the settlement, as it was moderately elevated and tolerably
clear of timber. The ships were immediately moved down to
this cove, which was named ' King's Cove,' after the first
discoverer of the straits and islands; the point determined on
to form the settlement ' Point Barlow': and the whole
anchorage ' Port Cockburn,' in honour of Vice-Admiral
Sir George Cockburn, one of the Lords Commissioners of the
Admiralty.

" On the 1st of October parties were sent on shore to clear
the ground and lay the foundation of a fort; and as it was
probable the Malays would visit the place in grt'at numbers,

* In the seventh chapter of Explorations in North Australia, which appears
in the Sydney Morning Herald of the 7th May, 1887, by the Rev. J. E. Tenison-
Woods, mention is made of bamboo as indigenous, "which," however, "only
grows on a few Northern rivers," he observes.

Black and White. 31

and as much hostility might be expected from the natives, who
were, as we could judge from the number of their fires on both
sides, very numerous, I was determined to render the fort
as strong as the means of the expedition would admit.
Thermometer 84 deg. to 88 deg.

" On the 8th, began a pier for the purpose of landing
provisions, guns, &c. From this period up to the 20th the
various works were carried on with such zeal, that the pier, one
bastion, and the sea-face of the fort were completed, and I had
the satisfaction, on the 21st of October, of hoisting His
Majesty's colours under a royal salute from two nine-pounder
guns and one twelve-pounder carronade mounted on ' Fort
Dundas,' which I named in honour of the noble lord at the
head of the Admiralty. The pier is composed of immense
heavy logs of timber and large masses of sandstone rock ; it is
sixty-four feet long, eighteen wide, and thirteen high at the end
next low-water mark, and from the solidity of the materials
will probably last many years.

" On the 25th of October I had been several miles up a
small river in Bathurst Island, and on my return, near the
entrance, was surprised by the sudden appearance of ten
natives, who had waded — it being low water — across the river
nearly to a dry sandbank situated in its centre. They were
armed with spears, and at first seemed disposed to dispute the
passage with us. On our approach they retired towards the
shore, which was thickly covered with mangroves, and throwing
down their spears, spread their arms out to show us they
intended nothing hostile, accompanying the action with great
volubility of tongue. I rowed towards them, but they hastily
retreated. However, after some time they gained confidence,
and advanced so near as to take a handkerchief and some other
trifles from the blade of an oar, which was put towards them.
1 called the river, consequently, ' Intercourse River,' and the
point ' Point Interview.'

" The same afternoon two of our men, cutting timber and
reeds, were in an instant surrounded by a party of the natives,
who seized them, but offered no other violence than wresting
their axes from them. They had probably been watching some
of our parties in the wood, for they appeared to have a correct
idea of the value and use of the axe. As soon as our men were
at liberty they ran towards the fort — an alarm was given — the

32 Genesis of Queensland.

soldiers seized their arms, and the savages would have suffered
had they not hastily retreated. I immediately went on shore
with Captain Barlow, and after going some distance, came up
with the natives, in number eighteen or twenty, with whom
we soon established communication by making signs of peace.
They threw down their spears and came forward with confidence ;
they, nevertheless, kept some of the youngest in the rear, whose
duty seemed to be to collect the spears ready for action. We
offered them handkerchiefs, buttons, and other trifles, which
they accepted without hesitation, but after having satisfied their
curiosity they threw them away. They made many signs for
axes, imitating the action of cutting a tree, and accompanied it
with loud vociferations, and almost inconceivable rapidity of
gesture. They were given to understand they should have axes
if they came to the settlement, and so drew them near the
fort, but no inducement could get them into the clear ground or
inside the line of cottages. They had, I found, stolen three
axes, but as we were anxious to establish friendly relations, no
notice was taken of the theft ; and three others were given to
them, at which they appeared highly pleased, especially the
chief, to whom a broader one than the rest was given, and who
immediately examined the edge, and with much delight showed
his fellows that it was sharper than theirs. They retired, and
made their fire about half a mile from us.

" On the 27th the same party re-appeared, accompanied by
a youth evidently of Malay origin, but even lighter in colour
than those people generally are. In his manners he was exactly
like the rest, and most probably had been taken by them when
very young. They seemed very anxious that we should notice
him, thrusting him forward several times when near us. I found
they had surprised two of our men, and taken from them an axe
and a reaping hook. These articles were of some value to us;
our stock was limited, and it became necessary to check the
disposition for theft. Therefore, on their making the usual signs
for axes, they were given to understand that we were displeased
and that none would be given.

" The young Malay, having the reaping-hook in his hand, it
was pointed to, and after some hesitation'was given up ; but the
axe was gone. I retired towards the fort. Poinding they could,
not get the only object that they seemed to value, and our
sentinels being on the alert with fixed bayonets, of which they

Natives. 33

were much afraid — they retired ; but it was evident from their
brandished weapons they were dissatisfied and probably meant
mischief. We saw nothing of them until the 30th, when our
boat at the watering-place was surrounded by some twenty who
sprang from the bushes, but hesitated to attack on seeing the
arms the crew had. At the same moment another party equally
numerous suddenly appeared at a cottage in a garden which had
been made by the officers at a small distance from the water. It
appeared that only one of the young gentlemen and a corporal
of marines were in the house. They attempted to retreat, but
were opposed by the natives. The affair began to look serious,
and they preparing to throw their spears the corporal fired over
their heads — (I had given positive orders that except in cases of
absolute necessity they should not be fired upon) — upon which
they drew back and offered an opportunity for retreat. The
corporal loaded as he ran, firing repeatedly until the young
gentleman reached the boat, when a shower of spears were thrown
from both parties of the natives, some of which went into the
boat, and one grazed the midshipman's back. For the sake of
sparing bloodshed which would have followed another discharge
of spears, the corporal then selected the chief for punishment,
and fired directly at him ; he Immediately fell or threw himself
on the ground — which several others Instantly did on seeing
the flash — but it was most probable that he was struck, for he did
not rise so quickly as the rest, and the whole party ran Into the
wood. None have since been seen in the neighbourhood.

" These people were above the middle height, their limbs
straight and well-formed, possessing wonderful elasticity ; not
strongly made, the stoutest had but little muscle, their activity
was astonishing, their colour nearly black, their hair coarse but
not woolly, tied occasionally in a knot behind, and some had
daubed their heads and bodies with red or yellow pigment. They
were almost all marked with a kind of tattoo, generally in three
lines, the centre one going directly down the body from the neck
to the navel, the others drawn from the outside of the breast and
approaching the perpendicular line at the bottom. The skin
appeared to have been cut in order to admit some substance Into
it, and then bound down until It healed, leaving small raised
marks on the surface. The men were entirely naked, but we
saw at Bathurst Island two women at a little distance who had
small mats of plaited grass or rushes round the body. Their

34 Genesis of Queensland.

arms were the spear and waddy. The former is a slight shaft
well hardened by fire, about nine or ten feet long ; those we saw
generally had a smooth sharp point, but they have others which
are barbed — deadly weapons. One of them was thrown at us,
and I have preserved it ; it is very ingeniously made, the barbs
being cut out of the solid wood ; they are seventeen in number,
the edges and points exceedingly sharp ; they are on one side of
the spear only. As they had no iron implements or tools it is
wonderful that they can contrive to produce such a weapon. We
saw but few of these barbed spears, and it is probable that they
cost so much labour in making that they are preserved for close
combat or extraordinary occasions. They did not use the
wommerah or throwing-stick, so general in New South Wales.
The waddy or short pointed stick was smaller than those seen in
the neighbourhood of Sydney, and was evidently used in close
fight as well as for bringing down birds or animals for food. They
throw this stick with such wonderful precision that they never
fail to strike a bird on the top of the highest tree with as much
certainty as we could with our best fowling pieces. In their
habits these people much resemble the natives of New South
Wales, but they are superior in person, and if the covering of the
women is general it is a mark of decency and a step towards
civilisation perfectly unknown to the inhabitants of the east
coast. The hallowing and decoration of a sepulture is such an
acknowledgment of a supreme power and a future state that it
appears evident that the notions of this people on this subject
are by no means so rude and barbarous as those we have been
accustomed to find amongst the New Hollanders generally.

" On Bathurst Island we found the tomb of a native ; the
situation was one of such perfect retirement and repose that it
displayed considerable feeling in the survivors who placed it
there ; and the simple order which pervaded the spot would not
have disgraced a civilised people. It was an oblong square open
at the foot, the remaining end and sides being railed round with
trees seven or eight feet high, some of which were carved with a
stone or shell, and further ornamented by rings of wood also
carved. On the tops of these posts were placed the waddies of
the deceased ; the grave was raised above the level of the earth,
but the raised part was not more than three feet long. At the
head was placed a piece of a canoe and a spear, and round the
grave were several little baskets made of the fan palm leaf,

Work. — Climate. 35

which from their small size we thought had been placed there by
the children of the departed. Nothing could exceed the neatness
of the whole ; the sand and the earth were cleared away from its
sides, and not a scrub or weed was suffered to grow within the
area.

"The pier having been finished on the 21st, the party
employed on that service and the whole strength of the expe-
dition was directed to the fort, and completing the different
works.

" On the 2nd of November commenced building a magazine.
On the 7th the Commissariat store-house was finished ; and by
the 8th the whole of the provisions, stores, and necessaries were
landed from the ' Harcourt,' and properly secured therein.
This store-house is built of w^ood, well thatched, and fully equal
to the occasion until a more regular and substantial one can be
built. It contains nearly eighteen months' provisions. The fort,
which commands the whole anchorage — the shot from it reaching
across to Bathurst Island — was completed (with the exception of
the ditch) on the gth of November. It is composed of timbers
of great weight and solidity in layers live feet in thickness at the
base ; the height of the work inside is six feet, surrounded by a
ditch ten feet deep and fifteen feet wide ; on it are mounted two
nine- pounder boat guns to shift on occasion, and to be put on
board the ' Lady Nelson ' when it is necessary to detach her to
the neighbouring islands or for other purposes. Those guns are
provided with fifty rounds of round and grape, and are part of
the upper-deck guns of this ship. The fort is rectangular, its
sides being seventy-five yards by fifty : in this square are the
houses for the commandant and the officers of the garrison, and
a barrack for the soldiers is to be put into immediate progress.
The soldiers and convicts have built themselves good and com-
fortable cottages near the fort.

" The climate of these islands is one of the best that can be
found between the tropics : the thermometer rarely reaching
88 deg., and in the morning at dawn sometimes falling to 76 deg.
Nothing can be more delightful than this part of the twenty-four
hours. I was obliged, by necessity, with the whole of the
ship's company, to be constantly exposed to a vertical sun, but
fortunately few have suffered, and none very severely.

" The soil of this island appears to be excellent. In digging
a deep well for the use of the settlement we found a vegetable

36 Genesis of Queensland.

mould about two feet deep; then soft sandstone rock, occasionally
mixed with strata of red clay, until the depth of thirty feet, when
we came to a vein of yellow clay and gravel through which an abun-
dance of water instantly sprang, and rose to the height of six feet.

" It is probable that this soil is capable of producing most
— if not all — the tropical fruits and shrubs of the Eastern Islands.
The plants brought from Sydney flourish luxuriantly, particularly
the orange, lemon, lime, banana, and sugar-cane. Melons and
pumpkins spring up immediately, and the maize was above
ground on the fourth day after it was sown.

'' We found the stream of water first discovered to run into
several ponds near the beach — which affords to ships an easy
mode of watering — and, no doubt, valuable rice plantations may
be formed in their neighbourhood.

" Amongst the trees, some of which are of noble growth, I
found a sort of lignum vitae, which, probably, will be valuable for
block-sheaves ; and several others, which appear to be calculated
for naval purposes. The forests are almost inexhaustible. A
sort of cotton tree was also found in considerable numbers, but
not being certain of its produce being valuable, I have sent a
sample to E^ngland for inspection. We likewise found the
bastard nutmeg, and a species of pepper highly pungent and
aromatic. The trepang has not been found here. The fish
taken in the seine are mullet, a sort of bass, and what is most
abundant is that which seamen call the 'Old-Wife.' Our supply
of fish is very precarious, being sometimes a week without
taking sufficient for everybody. At Port Essington, on the
contrary, we always filled the seine at a haul.

" The animals we have seen on this island are the kangaroo,
the opossum, the native dog, the bandicoot, the kangaroo rat,
and the flying squirrel. The birds are pheasants, quail, pigeons,
parrots, curlews, a sort of snipe, and a species of moor-fowl.
The venomous reptiles are few : some snakes have been found,
which, from the flattened head and fang, were evidently
poisonous ; centipedes, scorpions, and tarantulas are by no
means numerous. The mosquito, as is usual in all new and
tropical countries, is exceedingly active and troublesome ; and
a sandfly not larger than a grain of sand is so extraordinarily
venomous that scarcely anyone in the ship or expedition has
escaped without bites from these insects, which have in many
instances produced tedious and painful ulcers.

Settled. — George Miller. 3y

" Port Cockburn Is one of the finest harbours I ever saw,
and is capable of containing ahnost an unlimited number of
shipping of any draught of water, and is completely secured from
every wind that blows.

" On the loth of November, the defences of Fort Dundas
being quite equal to an attack from much more formidable
enemies than the natives of Melville Island, I determined to
proceed in the further execution of the orders I had received
from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. I gave charge
of the settlement to Captain Maurice Barlow, and placed
Lieutenant Williamson and his detachment, of Royal Marines
under the command of that officer.

" Weighed and dropped into the fair-way, and was saluted
by fifteen guns from the garrison, which was returned from this
ship.

" On the nth and 12th employed getting ready for sea, and
finally sailed from Port Cockburn on the 13th, the ship
' Countess of Harcourt ' in company : the latter for Mauritius
and England : H.M.S. ' Tamar ' for India."

I may here gratify myself at least by bearing witness,
through documents of authority, to the value of an old friend in
the public service, whose merits — at so great a distance from the
seat of authority — were so tardily and scantily acknowledged ;
and when acknowledged, were so shabbily waived. Smith, of
London, had better friends there than George Miller, of New
South Wales.

Extract from " General Orders."

" Head Quarters, Sydney, Tuesday, 17th August, 1824.

" The following appointment in the Commissariat Department will
take place from this date : —

" Mr. George Miller, Commissariat Clerk (Treasury Appointment),
is to take charge of the Government duties of the settlement about to be
formed at the north-west coast of New Holland.

" R. Snodgrass, Major of Brigade."

" Commissariat Oflice, Sydney, New South Wales,
" 30th November, 1825.
" Independently of the above considerations I beg to recall their
Lordships' attention to my letter of the 28th March last, No. 301, in
which, without being apprised of their intentions, I had taken the
opportunity to recommend that that gentleman (George Miller) should
be promoted to the rank which their lordships rightly deem befitting the

38 Genesis of Queensland.

office to which such a station is entrusted. The sentiments of approba-
tion which I expressed upon the occasion have been strengthened by
every account that has been received since ; and, if opportunity offered,
would, I feel assured, be confirmed by the testimony of Captain Barlow,
the Commandant. I respectfully request permission, therefore, to
renew my former solicitations in Mr. Miller's favour, and to add that
my confidence in his integrity still remains unshaken.

" W. Wemyss, Deputy Commissary-General.
" George Harrison, Esq.,

" Treasury Chambers, London."

" Sydney, 13th October, 1828.
" The Lieutenant-General is pleased to direct that Mr. George
Miller, Treasury Clerk, shall proceed by the first opportunity to relieve
Mr. Smith* in the charge of the Commissariat at Port Macquarie.
" By command,

" C. Sturt, Acting Major of Brigade."

" Treasury Chambers, London,
" 13th April, 1829.
" Sir, — The Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury
having had under consideration your letter, transmitting a memorial
from Mr. Commissariat Clerk INIiller, praying for promotion, I am
commanded to acquaint you that their lordships will bear in mind the
testimonials which they have received of Mr. INIiller's services and good
conduct, but that in the present state of this department they cannot
comply with his request.

" (Signed) C. J. Stewart.
"Deputy Commissary-General Laidley,
" New South Wales."

In order to keep the doings on the north coast in sight, I
must make a hop from 1824 to 1838. Captain Sir Gordon
Bremer, in command of H.M.S. " Alligator," accompanied by
Lieutenant Owen Stanley, in H.M.S. " Britomart," the latter
having arrived in Port Jackson on the 15th July, 1838, had
received instructions to make another effort to make a per-
manent military dej)6t at Port Essington. The gratifying intel-
ligence was hopefully discussed again in Sydney ; commercial
prospects brightened.

The names attached to the address presented to the com-
mander of the " Alligator," on the 22nd of August, may

♦ Afterwards Sir John Smith, Commiisary-General-in-Chief, in London.

Port Essingtun. — Sydney Hopes. 39

recall many a familiar face and pleasant acquaintance. Two
only, perhaps, are yet amongst us. It was presented to
Sir Gordon Bremer, on the quarterdeck of H.M.S. " Alligator."
" To Sir J. J. Gordon Bremer, Captain R.N., K.C.B., C.B., &c.
"We, the undersigned merchants and gentlemen, residing in this
colony, take leave to congratulate you on your second visit to our shores,
and to offer you our sincere good wishes for the success and prosperity
of the new settlement at Port Essington, for the purpose of founding
which you have been again selected by His Majesty's Government, and
to express our admiration of the zeal and enterprise which have induced
you, under many trying circumstances, to undertake this arduous
adventure.

" We need hardly assure you of the deep interest we naturally feel
in the formation and progress of another dependency in this vast
continent ; its welfare promoted by the auspices of our parent state, and
supported by the industry and capital of Great Britain.

" But we desire to convey to you more especially our hope that the
settlement which you are about to re-establish may speedily emulate in
prosperity this old appendage of the British Crown, and the conviction
that she will also become a very important entrepot for the products of
trade with the islands of the Eastern Archipelago.

" That your health, and that of the officers and men under your
command may be preserved through the trials always attendant upon
the formation of a new settlement, and that you may be eventually
rewarded by its complete and permanent success is the sincere wish of
" Your obedient and faithful servants and friends,
" Richard Jones, M.C. Robert Campbell, M.C.

Alexander McLeay A. B. Spark

H. H. Macarthur, M.C. John Jamison, M.C.

P. de Mestre Wm. Walker and Co.

J. Blaxland, M.C. W. Lithgow, M.C.

Thomas McQuoid S. A. Donaldson

Edward Aspinall Alexander Berry, M.C.

John Campbell Lamb and Parbury

Edwards and Hunter William C. Botts

Samuel Ashmore G. L. P. Living

R. Duke and Co. R. R. Mackenzie

William Gibbes J. S. Ferriter

J. Nicholson, Harbour Master John Lord and Co.
A. Mossman Geo. Cooper, Col. Customs.

Brown and Co. John Gilchrist

A. B. Smith and Co. Willis, Sandeman and Co.

R. Campbell, junr. and Co. Thomas Smith

W. S. Deloitte and Co. W. Dawes

40 Genesis of Queensland.

Kenworthy and Lord Thomas U. Ryder

P. W. Flower Robert How

John Tooth Ramsay and Young

Betts Brothers George Weller

Alexander Fotheringham Cooper and Holt

J. T. Manning Geo. Miller

Edye Manning Hughes and Hosking.

" Sydney, August 22, 1838."

In honor, it may be presumed, of the occasion, our old
friend " Isabella" becomes wedded to the new settlement, and
sails thereunto, in duty bound, as the " Essington," ahead of the
squad of vessels belonging to the expedition, in September.

The most interesting (being autographical) memorial of the
second attempt at consolidating an establishment at Port
Essington after the abandonment of its neighbours on the right
hand and on the left that I have preserved is that contained in a
letter from Sir Gordon Bremer to Governor Sir George Gipps.
Port Essington itself was abandoned soon after it had done one
good service to the country in sheltering and resuscitating
Leichhardt and his band. As soon as New South Wales had
obtained the gratification of her desire of years, its object was
effaced. The interest which its name once so roused lies
dormant: nursing, perhaps, but the occasion to fulfil the promise
which Port Essington once held out, the future may yet have
that occasion in store.

"Victoria, Port Essington, March 17, 1839,
" My dear Sir George,

" You will doubtless wonder that you have been so long without
accounts from me. Our communication by the 'Orontes" (the transport)
on which I dwelt as a certainty, was cut off by the wreck of that ship on
a reef some distance from the entrance of the harbour. As usual with
these sort of craft, neither lead or lookout. The crew are still with me
here. The master and his wife are departed for Coepang, en route to
India. The ' Essington' schooner sails to-day for the Islands, thence to
Coepang, and finally to Sydney, but as I have it in serious contempla-
tion to visit you the moment the arrival of the 'Beagle" or any despatches
will open my views a little, I forbear to send you any public letters. They
must necessarily be voluminous, and I hope to be at Sydney in ten or
twelve days after the schooner. 1 am anxious to confer with you on so
many points connected with this valuable and important addition to our
colonies, that I feel the necessity of personal communication. You may
remember that I sailed on the 17th September; on the 20th October

Cape York. — Port Essington Work. 41

Cape York was taken possession of and the Queen's colours hoisted. I
had always supposed this to be a barren land ; I was therefore delighted
to find a country actually beautiful. The summit of the Cape is about
500 feet high ; on the S.E. side the ascent is rough and vegetation has
as usual been stunted by the constant winds, but looking down on the
western, a plain about six or seven miles wide and extending far south,
presented a scene which reminded me of some of the finest portions of
India ; it seemed teeming with luxuriance. We landed in a beautiful
bay alongside a natural pier, with three and four fathoms water — close
to. The ship lay in nine fathoms about two miles off, but she might
have approached ad libihcm. The Albany Islands seem adapted for cattle,
having even then at the very end of the dry season abundance of grass
and few trees ; this will ultimately be an admirable position for a
settlement, in the direct route through the Straits close to New Guinea,
and surrounded by a group of islands, which must possess valuable
articles of export. On the 2 7lh I reached this place, and commenced
our anxious search for that indispensable requisite — water. It was also
important to fix on a position suitable as to approach from ships, and
for landing our guns and stores. It was not, therefore, until the
3rd November that I had finished my inspection of the harbour and
decided on this spot. It is a very pretty piece of land of considerable
elevation. The north head, which I call Minto Head, is seventy-six feet
above the sea, with a steep rocky point. On it I have placed a battery of
four eighteen-pounder guns, two mortars, and a block house of twenty feet
square with a pivot eighteen-pounder. The south head is fifty-five feet high,
also unapproachable from the sea ; on it there are already four eighteen-
pounders. These heads form the widest portion of a neck of land which
gently falls towards the interior — the area w^hich is enclosed in it is just
eighty-five acres. The soil all around us is as fine as can be imagined,
indeed in many parts exceeditigly rich from the immense quantity of vege-
table matter decomposed yearly. The trees in our immediate neighbour-
hood are not large, and scarcely one is perfectly sound ; this I ascribe as
much to the thick shade as to the effects of the white ants, which are in
swarms, but we find that they diminish as w-e clear the ground.

" It is astonishing to witness the rapid change which is daily dis-
coverable. Our Hospital, store-room, my own house, and officers'
quarters are finished and inhabited ; they form very pretty buildings. 1
have a pier extending to low water mark, 140 feet long; and it is really
a surprising work. I have a dock-yard, with boat-houses, blacksmiths'
shop, mast-house, and I am now getting on with a provision store.
The marines have built as pretty cottages as an English village can
shew; several of the officers have also their cottages, and in all I
encourage the cultivation of garden ground — we have not yet derived
much benefit from our public garden. I fear my botanist is too great a

4 2 Genesis of Queensland.

gentleman (in his own opinion) to grow cabbages and pumpkins, but
the latter are becoming abundant in the gardens of the men. By means
of the ' f'ssington' we have been tolerably well supplied with fresh meat.
I hope she will come up to us again.

" Port Essington is certainly one of the finest pieces of water in
the world. In the inner harbour the 'Alligator' lies in nineteen feet
at the lowest spring tide within hail of the pier. About two miles
ofT is the anchorage capable of containing fifty sail of the line in seven
fathoms.

" As regards fresh water, we have an abundance, and of delicious
quality. I have four wells already in work, which supplied us amply
before the rains, and are now overflowing ; there are several pretty
streams within a mile or two, and the flats or meadows which almost
surround us are now considerably flooded. They would produce rice in
extreme abundance, while spices, cotton, and almost all tropical valuable
articles, I am convinced, may be cultivated with success. The climate
is certainly extraordinary; we have not had one case of actual sickness
since we came here. The 'Britomart' has buried two men ; one of them
was consumptive when he left England, and would have died ; the other
went off in an apoplectic fit. The heat in the middle of the day is
sometimes extreme, reaching 95 deg., but it is the least oppressive I
have ever met with — it is a pure ethereal heat, while the nights and
mornings are generally delicious. I write to you at half-past seven, the
thermometer before me stands at 76 deg., while the last of the land wind
brings its sweets from flowers, which at this season are beautiful. One
large boat is constantly surveying. On her passage to Rafifles Bay to
ascertain the condition of the old settlement, she entered the opening
between Point S?)ii/h and the N.W. point of Rafifles Bay, which Captain
King had not opportunity to examine. The lieutenant discovered that
It is the entrance to one of the finest harbours in Australia, which has
been admirably surveyed, and to which the ofilcers have been kind
enough to give my name, calling it Port Bremer. The bottom and west
side of this harbour is not more than three miles from Table Head, in
Port Essington, the country between them excellent. The west side of
Raffles Bay is also not more than two miles from the east side of the
port, so that we are as it were a continuous chain of harbours. I have
no doubt that good anchorage, if not a good harbour, is to be found in
Trepang Bay. In short, the capabilities of this noble place are daily
developing.

"1 have just returned from a most interesting cruise in the ' Brito-
mart,' having visited the islands Moa, Letti, and Kissa (I was twice at
the latter). There was subject of infinite pleasure. I found the Dutch
missionaries very excellent men, and apj-arcntly labouring with abundant
zeal in the good cause ; they are, however, grievously neglected by the

Island Missions. — Timor. 43

Dutch Government, having been upwards of two years without the
shghtest communication, even with Coepang. It really was a distressing
thing to witness the thankfulness with which these men — European
gentlemen — received the slop shoes and stockings I supplied them with,
together with wine, needles, thread, and, in short, every article of
comfort I could discover they required. The population of Kissa is
upwards of 7,000, 1,500 of whom are Christians. Letti contains
6,000, of whom 900 are Christians ; while Moa, the largest and
most beautiful of the islands, has only 500 persons of our faith. Their
churches are neat little edifices, reminding me of some of the very old
places of worship in the north of England.

" After leaving Kissa, I proceeded to Dilly, in Timor, where I was
received by the Governor with every possible respect and attention. I
was fortunate in this visit, as a vessel about to sail afforded me an
opportunity of writing to Mr. Bonham at Singapore, requesting him to
forward me during the N.W. monsoon all papers, letters, &c., by way of
Dilly. I find the communication perfectly easy, and you will be
surprised when I tell you that by means of the Singapore papers I had
extracts from the London News of the 12th September, 1838, on my
table here on the ist February, 1839 ; this is easily accounted for by the
rapid flight of letters and papers from England to Bombay, and thence
to Singapore. I receive from the Dutch residents most complimentary
letters and offers of service, but from private information I am led to
think they view us with extreme jealousy.

" The desire for British calico goods, for brass wire, iron, and other
hardware amongst the islands is astonishing. They have abundance of
cattle, fruit, fowls, yams, &c., and some corn. I established a regular
market. For our cotton handkerchiefs, value 6d., two fowls ; for four
inches of brass wire, a good pumpkin or melon; for four yards of coarse
calico, a pig, and so on ; but they have tortoise-shell, wax, and other
valuable articles. I learned that a man saved from the schooner
' Stedcombe,' wrecked on Timor coast several years ago, was seen and
spoken with in February, 1838. He told the person (who was the
master of a small schooner) that two Dutch men-of-war brigs had visited
the island ; that he had endeavoured to excite the compassion of the
commanders, but they refused to listen to him although he repeatedly
told them he was an Englishman. I have, in consequence, sent the
' Britomart' thither to reconnoitre the place, and have directed my first
lieutenant who is in her to use his discretion in taking means to recover
the man, and as the natives are very numerous and very fierce, not to
hazard an attack. I will put them to rights in the ' Alligator,' if neces-
sary. The 'Britomart' then proceeds to the Arra Islands, which have
probably never been visited by English vessels, certainly not by ships of
war, and I anticipate a most interesting account.

44 Genesis of Queensland.

" One subject of high satisfaction to me is that we have never had
even an angry word with the natives ; they are constantly about us in
numbers, and are useful to us, bringing fish, grass, honey, and a sort of
bean — their confidence in us is astonishing.

" One of them went with me in the brig, and another is now in
her on her present voyage. In conclusion, my dear Sir George, I
cannot but congratulate you, and myself, on the complete and perfect
success of my undertaking — this place cannot fail to become most
valuable; in truth, I anticipate that in a few years it will be the Singapore
of Australia. I look forward with great pleasure to the prospect of
meeting you. I have an infinity of important matter to discuss with you.
I only await the arrival of the ' Beagle,' or other vessel to determine
me.

" I hope that the middle of June will afford me an opportunity of
repeating that, I am,

" Dear Sir George, your Faithful Friend,

" J. J. Gordon Bremer.

" I forgot to mention that I had named my city-in-embryo: Victoria.
I believe it to be the first Colony founded in Her Majesty's reign."

Sir James John Gordon Bremer, K.C.B., created 1841 ;
K.C. and Knight Bachelor, created 1836; married in 181 1
Mrs. C. Glasse, of Rochester; was made lieutenant in the navy
in 1805 ; commander in 1807 ; in 181 2 captured the " Bon Genie,"
privateer; in 1 81 3 took an American letter of marque of 280 tons ;
became post-captain in 1814; was appointed to the " Comus," 22
guns, in 1816, which was lost off Newfoundland in October of that
year; to the " Tamar," 26 guns, was despatched to form a
settlement on Melville Island; returned to England in 1827;
was appointed to the " Alligator," 26 guns, on the East India
station, in 1837.

So closely is Owen Stanley associated in my first recollec-
tions of Sydney with Port Essington, that I cannot keep his
name apart from that of the settlement, of the prospects of
which Sir Gordon Bremer makes so high an estimate in this letter.

Owen Stanley had been promoted to the rank of commander
on the 26th of March, 1839, and had aided, in the " Britomart/'
in forming the new colony on which Sydney afterwards built
such grand hopes. He was a son of the then Bishop of Norwich,
born on the 13th June, 181 1 ; entered the Royal Naval College
5th August, 1824 ; embarked as volunteer in the " Druid " frigate,
8th January, 1826, and in the following March was midship-
man on board the "Ganges," 84, then fitting for the flag of

Owen Stanley. 45

Sir Robert Waller Otway, commander-in-chief in S. America,
whence he was removed in December, 1829, to the "Tartar," 44.
In January, 1830, he joined the "Adventure," sloop, Captain
Philip Parker King, employed in surveying the Straits of
Magellan. On his return to England the following November,
he became mate to the " Belvidere," 42, and to the " Rainbow,"
28 — Captains, the Honourable Richard Sanders Dundas and
Sir John Franklin — both in the Mediterranean in 1831 ; then to
the " Kent," 78 ; the " Procris," 10 ; the " Malabar," 74 ; and the
" Mastiff," 6, in succession, all in the Mediterranean. In 1836,
nth May, he was appointed to the "Terror," and on the 21st
December, 1837, to the command of the " Britomart," in which
he remained until the 27th April, 1843. In the interval, having
aided at Port Essington, he made a track survey of the Arafura
Sea, &c. He then became post-captain in 1844, on September
23rd, since when he commanded the surveying ship " Rattle-
snake," in which he made many valuable additions to hydro-
graphy, especially in the examination of Simon's Bay, the inner
route through Torres Straits from Dunk Island to Bligh's
Farewell ; his last work being the survey of the south-east coast
of New Guinea and the Louisiade Archipelago. F.R.S., F.R.A.S..
Captain Stanley died at Sydney on the loth March, 1850.
Before his coming into Port Jackson, he had heard at Cape
York of a brother's death : on anchoring, of his father's. He
was buried in the North Shore cemetery.

While lying at Cape York in the preceding October, a
watering party from the "Rattlesnake" brought off a white
woman and some of a tribe who had come over from Prince of
Wales Island to the mainland. Upon coming on board, she
could scarcely make it understood that she wished to be rescued
from the natives, as she had almost forgotten the English
language. Her maiden name had been Barbara Crawford,
daughter of a tinman, a Scotchman residing in Sydney, who had
arrived in the "John Barry" as an immigrant: had married a
man named Thompson at Moreton Bay, which she left with him
and some other men in a small cutter called the "American " for
Port Essington, where they wished to settle. They were cast
away on Prince of Wales Island, and all but herself drowned.
The natives had treated her very humanely for the five years she
had been with them, but refused until now to allow her to
communicate with any passing vessels.

^6 Genesis of Queensland.

Having seen the "Rattlesnake" anchored at Cape York,
she induced them to take her on board, saying she wished to
shake hands with her countrymen. Captain Stanley rewarded
the blacks liberally. From her much information was received
as to the manners and customs of the islanders of Torres Straits.

Port Essington had been discovered by Captain P. P. King,
in the cutter " Mermaid" (84 tons, 56 ft. in length, beam 18 ft.
6 in.), on the 23rd of April, 1818, and so-named in honour of the
" late Vice-Admiral Sir William Essington, K.C.B."

" As a harbour," writes Captain King, in his narrative pub-
lished in 1824, " Port Essington is equal, if not superior, to any
I ever saw, and from its proximity to the Moluccas and New
Guinea, and its being in the direct line of communication
between Port Jackson and India, as well as from its com-
manding situation with respect to the passage through Torres
Straits, it must, at no very distant period, become a place of
great trade, and of considerable importance."

How little the pledges of success given by the reports made
about the settlements on the Northern Coast of South Australian
Territory have been redeemed, twenty-five years after the first
stick had been cut and laid for Fort Dundas, on Melville Island,
proved in a manner unpalatable to the promoters of the early
schemes for extending trade. It remains for Port Darwin,
which may claim to be one of the group, to bring about in due
time the honour so long deferred to each flattering earnest.
There is something to wonder at, and attract to the spot at
which our Mercury takes his first sub-marine plunge upon our
Australian errands. In sombre contrast with the gay colouring
of Sir Gordon Bremer's descriptions do we find the shadows
which had successively fallen upon each nest of dwelling-places,
which spoke of the building, but from which the birds had flown,
in the year 1847. On the 9th of November, Port Essington
was declared by Captain Stanley — according to Macgillivray's
Narrative — to be insalubrious ; to give no hope nor promise of
improvement : men sick ; provisions bad and scanty ; the site
of Victoria injudicious and unhealthy. The first step had been
taken by Captain G. Bremer on the 20th September, 1824, in
H.M.S. " Tamar," at Port Essington. For want of water he at
once had gone on to Melville Island, and founded Fort Dundas,
on the Apsley Strait. Four years afterwards — 31 March, 1829
— this had been deserted. Government still persisting in the

Port Raffles. — All Abandoned, 47

desire to plant firm foot in these quarters, Captain Stirling, in
H.M.S. "Success," had the gratification of finding a nook in the
neighbourhood which seemed to be, and proved to be free from
disadvantages which had as yet impeded the progress of the
past speculations. This had been at Port Raffles, and was
denoted by the erection of Fort Wellington — on i8th June, and
when the kernel of this Colony had begun to mature into a
really flourishing state of sound health, sudden orders —
unexpected and unaccountable — had been received for its entire
abandonment, which had been effected by the 29th August, 1829.
Eight years afterwards Government had a fourth time
resolved upon an establishment on the north coast with the
twofold object of affording " shelter to crews wrecked in Torres
Straits, and endeavouring to throw open to British enterprise
the neighbouring islands of the Indian Archipelago." Thus had
Captain Sir G. Bremer been again sent forth on the 27th
October, 1837, ^^ re-form a settlement at Port Essington,
whence he wrote the letter given already. Subsequently, the
" Alligator " having left. Captain John Macarthur, with a
subaltern and forty men of the Royal Marines, was left in charge.
The "Britomart" remained several years as a tender to the
military post, and was succeeded by H.M.S. " Royalist."
In October, 1845, ^^^ remains of the original party, which
had been there for seven years (including also a small
detachment sent down from China), were relieved by a draft
from England of two subalterns, an assistant surgeon, and fifty-
two men of the Royal Marines ; Captain Macarthur still
remaining in charge; ''and now" says Macgillivray, "after the
settlement has been established for eleven years, they were not
even able to keep themselves in fresh vegetables." And so
Port Essington was finally abandoned on November 30, 1849,
when all was removed to Sydney by H.M.S. " Mseander,"
commanded by Captain the Honourable H. Keppel.

CHAPTER III.

Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat ;
Nor strong tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeons, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit. —

Shakespeare. (Julius Caesar.)

The year 1825 brought forth the triumphant cry, " Freedom of
the Press." Hitherto there had been a mild censorship exercised
by the Colonial Secretary ; such surveillance was abolished and
the papers of the day were jubilant. And good reason there
was for gladness over the harvest of the past year : the new
Charter of Justice: the formation of a Legislative Council : trial
by jury : the liberty of the press : a quadruple alliance beginning
to equip itself for an onward march. The sinews of war were
beginning to stiffen in the young life: capital was turned towards
us substantially : the Australian Agricultural Company was
girding itself for the work of development : a new era was
dawning. The Gazette affirmed that " Posterity will do every
justice to the year that is gone."

On the 17th of March the vessel first mentioned as having
been sent to Moreton Bay for the sole purpose of supplying it,
returned in a leaky condition. Her name was the " Nancy."
In the following May we have the Rev. Thomas Hobbes Scott
on the scene, by the ship " Hercules," as our first Archdeacon,
and holding his primary visitations in the Church of St. James
on the gth of June.

In the train of our civil enlargement follows the inevitable
harlequin, Agitation.

The unwonted summons, the novel scene of empanelling a
jury for the first time, on the 12th of last February, to dispose
of a case (such cases having hitherto been disposed of in a very
summary manner), such as that of "The Kingz;. Robert Cooper,"
our great Australian distiller, in whose favour a verdict was
recorded, may have been sensational enough to cause further
fermentation. In August began the exciting claim for repre-
sentative government: the question grew warmer as it proceeded
through September into October. The Gazette shot out its
leading articles with plenty of powder, and Governor Brisbane

Major Lockyer. — Strain on Discipline. 49

had publicly avowed that the time was come when such rights
should be bestowed. Van Dieman's Land also now came to the
front: was declared independent on the 8th December. Lieut. -
General Ralph Darling was sworn in as its first Governor, who
then resigned the reins into the hands of Lieut. -Governor
Arthur.

But Moreton Bay had not been lost sight of in the turmoil
of Sydney emotions. Major Lockyer, of the ' 57th Regiment
(whose name, in the early days of Darling Downs, was a terror
to the bullock drivers, in its adoption by the creek which
stopped their way on the old road to Brisbane), had started off
— for his shooting, maybe — on the ist of September, by that con-
stantly requisitioned craft, the cutter " Mermaid," in company
with one of our pilots. Gray, to explore the river Brisbane to its
source. Lockyer's journal, attached to these memoranda, can
best speak for itself. His conclusions are interesting. One
extract will amuse nowadays : " I think it very probable that the
large swamp into which the river at Bathnrst loses itself,
occasionally overflows, and is the cause of the tremendous floods
that at times take place in the Brisbane RiverT The first
payment made for the new settlement at Moreton Bay by the
Colonial Fund startles inquiry: "Paid, Oct. 6. 1825, P. Quigley
for ^8 razors, 2X is. 2^d. each, 11 Spanish dollars 60 cents"!
The establishment does not appear to have been guilty of
extravagance.

The monotonous routine of duty at the outlying penal
settlements, at the beginning of the year 1826, had drawn
attention to its evil influence upon the military detachments
so stationed ; for on the 2nd of January a general order
was issued which betrayed some cause of fear as to the result of
the distasteful duty of watching and guarding prisoners. There
existed, indeed, an apprehension lest soldiers so isolated, and
cut off from so much of social relaxation, should become
inoculated with the virus of the atmosphere which they
breathed, in functions exacted by such unmilitary demand for
loyal service. (See Appendix.)

More stringent regulations were established also with
respect to the Government vessels passing to and from the
different settlements, as shown by the Government Order
(appended) of February 13th, while another of the 21st in-
structed commandants " at the several stations and settlements,

50 Genesis of Queensland.

to keep a journal " of all proceedings of a public character. In
March our old friend the " Amity " was busied in the convey-
ance of the relief company of the 40th regiment, under Captain
Bishop, by one of the 57th, and another batch of fourteen
prisoners, and in the same month the name of a young Australian,
one since so much esteemed in the annals of Queensland,
and not long since snatched from her public life, will lighten up
our recollections' of Maurice Charles O'Connell, the eldest son
of Colonel O'Connell of the 73rd regiment, by his being gazetted
as ensign in the same regiment, in his 15th year. His mother
was the relict of Captain Patland, R.N., and daughter of our
late Governor Bligh.

Five and twenty years after the establishment of New South
Wales, a road had been found through the hitherto impenetrable
barrier of the Blue Mountains — the dividing range. It was
afterwards pierced by two other routes preferable to the first,
and the western country began to be a sensational subject of
conversation and inquiry this year. Bathurst and Liverpool
Plains ; the rivers Castlereagh and Peel opened large views of
a probable future and profitable venture. Strange that the
hankering after the eastern discharge for the whole water
system thus being developed existed among our folks then, and
continued to do so, until a precise knowledge of the sources of
the river Brisbane so many years afterwards. There was the
relic of the same adhesion to our sea-board, in the dragging away
even of the Condamine to Wide Bay. There was evident hope
in the moot question of this year — "Where do these streams
go ?" for again and again we were promised that if " these waters
should unite in the Brisbane river recently discovered to fall into
Moreton Bay, Liverpool Plains and the country through which
all these streams hold their course will become of the utmost
importance to the wealth and prosperity of the colony."

Notwithstanding Governor Brisbane's wish to withdraw the
" banpenal," from Port Macquarie settlement three years
ago, Governor Darling proclaimed it, with Moreton Bay
and Norfolk Island, as a place to which offenders convicted
in New South Wales " shall be sent," in August this year.
(Appendix.)

The record that the " country was indebted " to a black
native for what was "ranked amongst the most valuable of our
late colonial discoveries," in the laying open to our view and use

Captain Logan. — Sir James Brisbane. 51

the fertile banks of the Macleay recently, was somewhat in
contrast this year with the crimes imputed to those whose
hunting-grounds we had usurped. In October, Captain Logan,
commandant at Brisbane, had distinguished himself by adding
another stream — to which he had given the name of " Darling" —
to our coast waters in the southern nook of Moreton Bay ; a
name, however, which has been in this case superseded by that
of " Logan." To our commandants, at least, if in any way
within the scope of their inclinations or energies, the interesting
work of exploration must have presented an agreeable
distraction from the monotony of life, whatever may have
been the effects of such seclusion upon their subordinates
on these outposts. Captain Logan was pre-eminent in pursuits
which came to an unhappy end only with his career in the public
service. On this, the third of his efforts in that district, he set
forth in a boat, and came to the mouth of the stream in question
about fifty miles south of that of the Brisbane, and ascended it
until stopped by trees lying across the channel. It was described
as " infinitely superior in point of soil and water to that of the
Brisbane" — in these days we may think such comparisons
"odious." Its "situation is immediately under Mt. Warning,"
and the conclusion was justified in Sydney that we need not
" yet despair of some inlet into the interior being found out that
will solve the mysteries of these Australian water-sheds," when
the matter was reported.

Hitherto, Stradbroke Island had been looked upon as part of
the mainland, for we were suddenly told "that a passage for small
vessels had been discovered between Mount (Point?) Danger and
Amity Point which will in future prevent the necessity of rounding
Amity Point, since the latter now proves only to be an island."

The closing of the year 1826 was marked by the arrival of
the first seventy-four that ever entered an Australian port, on
the 19th of October: that of H.M.S. " Warspite," commanded
by Sir James Brisbane, C.B., accompanied by Lady Brisbane and
the two Misses Brisbane on their way from Trincomalee to South
America. The mention of this occurrence cannot be impertinent
to any group of events, in which interest in the name of Brisbane
is prominent, especially when intensified by the following
coincident announcement.

* Evidently in allusion to the "boat passage" between the southernmost end
of Stradbroke Island and the mainland.

52 Genesis of Queensland.

" Colonial Secretary's Office,

" December 19th, 1S26.

" His Excellency the ( jovernor announces with feelings of
unfeigned regret the death of Commodore Sir James Brisbane, which
took place this morning at ten oclock.

" This event, which has deprived his country of a most distinguished
officer, and the Service and Society in which he lived of an example
deserving of imitation, will be deeply and sincerely lamented.

" His health had suffered from his exertions in conducting the
Naval operations at Rangoon. When he arrived here his constitution
was evidently in a state of great exhaustion, and he continued to decHne
until the moment of his final dissolution.

" The name of Sir James Brisbane will be associated with an event
which forms an interesting epoch in the annals of this colony : the
arrival of the first line of battle ship in the harbour of Port Jackson, anil
will be handed down with it as a record to posterity.

" His Excellency has been pleased to order that arrangements be
immediately made for the funeral, which is to take place to-morrow
afternoon, at five o'clock.

"By His Excellency's command,

" Alexander McLeay."

In the procession were two hundred men of the Royal
Marines, the 3rd Regiment of Foot, accompanied by the
band of the 3rd and 57th Regiments. The Governor and
Lieutenant Brisbane were chief mourners.

The dilqmma as to the water-shed — say to the eastward
of the meridian 135° — necessarily perplexing at that time,
must be still interesting. At the end of this year
it was thought by some that the river lately discovered by
Captain Logan, fifty miles to the " southward of Moreton Bay,"
and immediately " under Mount Warning" designated the
"Darling," was the same as that of which the late Mr. Uniacke
speaks in Field's compiled work on this colony. Uniacke
accompanied Oxley in a tour to Moreton Bay, and " it appears,"
said one report, " they fell in with a bay or river to the south of
Moreton Bay, to which the name of ' Tweed' was given, but we
cannot bring ourselves to believe that the 'Tweed' and the
' Darling' are one and the same, since Mr. Oxley would never
have omitted to mention so pre-eminently valuable a discovery:
for Mr. Uniacke does not pretend to give anything like the
account that Captain Logan has furnished, neither is it advanced
that they penetrated one hundred miles to discover the source

Logan' s Walk. 53

of the ' Tweed.' We think that the ' Tweed' must either be a
branch of the Darling River, or that the latter is entirely distinct
from the 'Tweed,' and consequently a new discovery. We hope,
however, that the present Government will not be long before
they cause the solution of this mystery ; though, with our
present information we are satisfied that Mr. Oxley never
encountered the new river."

The new year — 1827 — began with the sound intent to
advance ! On its first day the first weekly came out as the first
daily newspaper in these colonies : still, however, as the Sydney
Gazette.

Information had reached the Government lately that laxity
of discipline had crept into the organization of the penal status
of the country, which portended evil, perhaps alarming conse-
quences. A "Government Order" [in Appendix], dated March
1 6th, is worth considering.

June introduced Captain Logan again, not as a boating man
but as a pedestrian : it seems unjust and improper to omit any
portion of his own handwriting ; his sad fate consecrates his
work. The following extract from his letter, addressed to the
Colonial Secretary, Alexander McLeay, was dated July 25, 1827:

"I proceeded up the Brisbane on the 7th of June — as will appear
by my journal — with the view of heading the river lately discovered ;"'
[named by him ' Darling,' now known as the ' Logan,'] " reaching
Mount Warning, and from thence taking the most direct route to the
Tweed. However, I found it impossible, notwithstanding every
exertion, to get through the thick scrubs which cover the mountain
in that direction. I was, in consequence, obliged to return to
the settlement without accomplishing the object of my journey.
However, I have much satisfaction in reporting that the country through
which I travelled exceeded my most sanguine expectations and is
everywhere exceedingly well watered ; and I have no doubt, whenever it
may suit the views of Government to open it for settlers, it will be found
the most desirable district for that purpose hitherto found in the colony.
After the sailing of the ' Wellington,' I will take an opportunity of
proceeding to the spot from whence I saw what I supposed to be the
Tweed, and from thence endeavour to make a direct route. The
distance did not seem to me to exceed fifty miles."

Captain Logan's journal :

"June 7. Left the settlement at four o'clock in the morning:
proceeded up the Brisbane, and arrived at the Limestone flills on the
left branch at ten o'clock at nig-ht : distance fiftv-seven miles.

54 Genesis of Queensland.

" June 8. Sent the boat back to the settlement and proceeded
overland : directed my course S.S.W. in the direction of Mount
Dumaresq: the country very fine: black vegetable mould on a limestone
bottom : the timber consisted of eucalyptus, viz., ironbark, blue gum,
box, apple-tree, and a variety I have not hitherto seen. Men being very
much fatigued halted for the night : distance thirteen miles. Resumed
at eight next morning : country superior, for eight miles, to yesterday's :
shot two beautiful parrots — a new species — not hitherto found in the
colony : came to a large swamp, several miles in extent : skirted it for
some miles and then crossed it : came again on the Brisbane" (Bremer.')
"running N.E., crossed it, and proceeded up the left bank : approached
Mount Dumaresq towards evening : the country now exceeded in beauty
and fertility anything I had before seen : in the bed of the river I found
small specimens of coal and crystal : distance twenty miles.

"June lo. Commenced this day's journey at half-past eight
o'clock : crossed a beautiful plain two miles in width, and about three in
length, very lightly timbered, no preparation necessary for the plough-
share : at half-past nine entered a thick scrub at the foot of Mount
Dumaresq, which continues to the summit ; found several turkeys, and a
remarkable large pigeon upwards of three pounds weight : gained the
top of the mountain at three o'clock : had a grand and extensive
prospect : the Limestone Hills bore N.N.E. I had traversed the valley
of the Brisbane thirty-six miles, and it appeared about the same in
breadth : I may safely rely that there is in this beautiful vale at least half
a million of acres excellently watered, and fit for any purpose to which it
may be applied. I could likewise distinctly see the windings of the
'Logan' through an extensive and beautiful country eastward from
Mount Dumaresq, and only separated from the valley I had quitted by
moderately elevated ground. In descending the mountain on the
southern side, had to encounter a difficult scrub which I could not clear
before sunset : luckily found water in a ravine, when I stopped for the
night : distance this day, twelve miles.

"June II. Resumed my descent through the scrub at eight
o'clock : after much difficulty cleared it at ten o'clock : found a branch
of the Logan at the base, running northward : the river here passed
through a large swampy plain well adapted to graze cattle : saw a large
fiock of emus, the first seen in the vicinity of Moreton Bay ; the course
of the river making a detour to the west, left its bank, having changed my
course to south, in the direction of Mount Shadforth, and after a few miles'
walk recrossed the Logan, which flowed through a large plain ; the grass
thereon being on fire obliged me again to cross the river ; proceeded uj) the
left bank for some miles ; the mountains towering on each other on every
side reminded me of a Pyrenoean valley ; at four o'clock killed a large kan-
garoo, which was very acceptable lo the men ; distance twenty-five miles.

River Logan. — Mount Warning. ^^

"June 12. Continued my route to the south; the river branched
into several streams ; we were evidently near its source ; walked for some
hours over a hilly country admirably adapted for grazing sheep ; came to
a creek at the foot of Mount Shadforth, and shot an emu on the bank :
ascended the mountain, which was the most fatiguing part of the
journey : it unfortunately began to rain on my reaching the summit,
accompanied by a thick fog which prevented me from having so
extensive a prospect as I expected. I was surrounded by mountains on
all sides, but I could not get a view of Mount Warning : to continue my
route to the southward would have been very difficult and would have
protracted the journey beyond the time intended. I therefore deter-
mined to steer eastward, and gain the low country : descended the
mountain to the eastward, and halted for the night in a natives'
encampment : distance fifteen miles.

"June 13. Continued my route eastward over a very difficult and
mountainous country : at length perceived Mt. Warning, direct in my
course : on approaching the base found the principal branch of the
Logan : the stream was so rapid I had some difficulty in passing :
encamped on the right bank, and immediately commenced to ascend in
hope of reaching the summit, but could only gain a peak not more than
half way to the top : all attempts appeared to be hopeless at the east and
north sides, and it would have detained me two days longer to have
made a detour to the westward, probably with as little chance of success.
I therefore returned to the encampment with the intention of proceeding
on my journey in the morning : distance fourteen miles.

"June 14. Made another attempt to ascend the mountain on the
north side : had a very extensive view : found Limestone Hills bore due
north : recommenced my journey to the east : proceeded for some miles
without much difficulty : crossed another river which washed the S.E.
side of the mountain, and united with another a few miles below :
crossed some beautiful valleys well watered with mountain streams : got
into an extensive scrub, which prevented me making way to the east :
towards evening made a detour to north to clear the scrub : and got into
an open forest country before sunset : distance twenty miles.

"June 15. Started at sunrise, proceeded east: passed through a fine
hilly country covered with most luxuriant grass to the top of the hills :
the soil principally a black vegetable mould : this part of the country is
the best I have seen either for sheep or cattle, and is most abundantly
watered, each valley possessing a most beautiful rivulet : passed several
considerable streamswhich unite with the Logan : towards evening myroute
eastward was completely terminated by mountains covered with pine scrubs
to the summits : perceiving a stream running north, I determined to
follow the course for a few miles, for the purpose of finding a more even
way to cross the mountains to the sea coast : distance twenty-five miles.

56 Genesis of Queensland.

''June 16. Started N.E. over a hilly country somewhat inferior to
yesterday, but well adapted to pasturage : distance fifteen miles.

" June 17. Ascended a ridge of mountains : could see nothing but
mountains to the eastward covered with pine scrubs : provisions were
nearly exhausted and the men's shoes worn out : determined to steer
northward and join the settlement : proceeded down the banks of a river
through a rich tract of country : saw several kangaroos, but the dogs
were so weak they could not run them down : fortunately before sunset
killed one : stopped for the night : distance twenty miles.

"June 18. Continued my route : passed through a rich valley :
towards midday left the valley on my right: my route now lay over some
rocky ridges : the worst country I have passed through : the men greatly
fatigued : distance sixteen miles.

"June 19. Continued north the first part of the day : country was
very good : much improved in appearance to that traversed yesterday :
towards noon it became swampy : at two o'clock arrived at the Logan,
not fordable : stopped for the night : distance twenty miles.

"June 20. Made several unsuccessful attempts to cross the river:
moved up the bank about eight miles.

"June 21. Proceeded up the river about two miles : crossed at a
ledge of rocks : steered north for the settlement : timbered with finest
oak : considerable number of swamps : distance twenty-two miles.

"June 22. Recommenced my route for Brisbane Town for a few
miles through a swampy country : towards midday arrived at Cooper's
Plains, and crossed Canoe Creek : reached the Brisbane opposite the
settlement at four o'clock."

Following in the wake of worthy w^ork, Palmam qui meruit
ferat does the following Government Order proclaim to the
public on July i6th : —

" His Excellency the Governor has been pleased to direct
that the Island forming the southern boundary of the eastern
channel into Moreton (Bay shall lie designated the " Isle of
Stradbroke" in compliment to the Honourable J. H. Rous,
commanding H. M. Ship ' Rainbow ' — the first ship of war which
entered IMoreton Bay.

" The point of land in the Isle of Stradbroke (which is intended
as the site of a Public Establishment) [Quarantine] opposite to Peel's
Island is named ' Dunwich : ' and the anchorage where the ' Rainbow '
lay, ' Rainbow Reach.' The channel between the Isle of Stradbroke
and Moreton Island is named ' Rous Channel.'

" 2nd. The Governor has been further pleased to name the river
recently discovered at IMoreton Bay — immediately to the southward of
the Brisbane — the ' Logan,' as a record of his Excellency's approbation
of the zeal which Captain Logan, the commandant of Moreton Bay, has

Coast Surveys — Captain P. King. 57

evinced in adding to the important discovery made by Mr. Oxley, the
Surveyor-General, of the river Brisbane in the year 1823.

"By His Excellency's Command, .. Alexander McLeay."

No violence will be done to date-disciplined thoughts in
taking up awhile a publication which appeared at this time,
which tells of a coast survey by Captain Philip King, commenced
so far back as 18 18, in that well-worn and worked cutter, the
" Mermaid." The following is an outline : —

" Captain Philip King — son of the late Governor King of N. S.
Wales — sailed from Port Jackson in 18 18, with Mr. Cunningham, the
botanist, and ' Boongaree '* the native who had accompanied Flinders.
He touched at Twofold Bay and passed through Bass' Straits to King
George's Sound, where he stayed some time ; and thence to North-west
Cape, carefully surveying and laying down the coast the whole way. He
then proceeded northwards to Rowley's Shoals, Goulburn Islands, and
Raffles Bay, in which he met with a Malay fleet. At Port Essington he
was attacked by the natives in Knocker's Bay, where, as well as on the
most of the northern coast, they were found particularly hostile and
troublesome. Having inspected Van Dieman's Gulf, Melville Island,
Sir George Hope's Islands, and Alligator River, he crossed to Coepang
in Timor, of which there is an interesting description. The inhabitants
called the New Hollanders on the opposite coast 'Maregas ' from their
treacherous and savage disposition towards them when fishing, for
trespassing on their shores. After seven months' absence Captain King
returned to Sydney with a valuable collection of plants, seeds, insects and
minerals ; then made a trip of two months to Van Dieman's Land, and
surveyed particularly the Derwent and Macquarie Harbour. The trees
at Pine Cove are described as being well adapted to nautical purposes.

"In May, 1819, he again sailed, accompanied by Lieutenant Oxley,
in the brig 'Lady Nelson,' to survey the east coast. The 'Mermaid'
then proceeded northward, discovering Rodd's Bay, visiting Percy Island,
and entered Endeavour river. The natives at that place had shields in
the shape of crescents made of the coral tree. The river soon becomes
shallow, and is fresh nine miles from the mouth ; the banks are low
and covered with mangroves. The track of the ' Investigator' through
Torres Straits was then followed. Liverpool river on the north
coast v/as discovered and examined. It forms a good port, and is four
miles wide at the mouth, but decreasing to half a mile ten miles up. It
swarms with fish, egrets, and white cockatoos. Alligators about twelve
feet long are also very common. At Cape Londonderry they were again
attacked by the natives, who were uniformly hostile. Touching at the
Isle of Suva, the ' Mermaid ' then returned to Sydney.

* Last chief of the Port Jackson blacks, buried at Rose Bay.

58 Genesis of Queensland.

" The vessel was there put under water to destroy the myriads of
rats and cockroaches ; but the eggs of the latter were speedily hatched
on re-entering the tropics. The voyage in 1820 was nearly over the
former ground.

"In May, 182 1, the 'Mermaid' being found unseaworthy the
' Bathurst,' of 170 tons, was fitted out for a fourth voyage. Captain
King sailed along the eastern and northern coasts. Several affrays
occurred with the natives. At one place was found a remarkable cavern
cut into regular galleries and ornamented with drawings in red ochre of
various animals, clubs and plants. Prince Regent's River, on the north
coast was explored. It contains a magnificent cascade, 150 feet high.
Alligators and other fish were numerous, and a curious amphibious
animal about nine inches long, called a mud-fish. It buries itself in an
instant in the mud, and on land uses the pectoral fins as legs. At
Hanover Bay, Mr. Montgomery, the surgeon, was severely wounded by
the natives. The ' Bathurst ' then visited the Isle of France, and
returned thence to King George's Sound. The natives there are
peaceable, eat raw seal flesh, and wear cloaks of kangaroo skins. On
the west coast optical delusions frequently occurred, representing land
and trees where none existed. The vegetation of the islands on the
coast was usually very different from that of the mainland. In May,
1822, Captain King returned to Sydney and sailed for England. The
botanical collection is cultivated by Mr. Alton, at Kew Gardens, and a
herbarium of five hundred specimens is in the hands of Mr. Lambert,
the botanist.

" Captain King is now surveying the southern coasts of America,
and is to make an attempt to reach the South Pole, which from
Captain Weddell's late discoveries, it is thought, may be done."

The name of Thomas de la Condamine is too familiar to a
Queenslander's ear to be passed by without saluting it, as one
perpetuated by the waters of Darling Downs. His appointment
this year as Clerk of the Executive and Legislative Council
appeared with that of Henry Grattan Douglas, as Commissioner
of the Court of Requests, in a Government Order dated the
8th September.

The battle of Waterloo and all its glory had not died out
yet, for on its anniversary — i8th June — the " Amity" expedition
to Port Essington had taken possession of a bay* adjoining that
place, and called it " Wellington" under a royal salute. The
British flag had been hoisted and the spot dubbed a "fort."
The "Mary Elizabeth" which, laden with agricultural implements
had left Sydney with the practical means of making Port

* Baffles Bay.

Enniii. — Zeal. 59

Essington a tropical garden, had been seen struggling on for
Torres Straits : and on Friday, October 5, in a service ever
relieving, but never relieved from weariness and en?iici,
Lieutenant Bainbridge went to Moreton Bay to release
Lieutenant Innes, who then returned to Port Macquarie ; at the
same time that the Rev. Charles P. N. Wilton, M.A., supplied
refreshment to the studious inquirer, by his publication — of which
he was also the author — of the Australian Quarterly Journal
of Theology, Literature, and Science.

October brought to light a token of the strength of the ruling
passion, which makes Strafford's motto, " Thorough," that of all
of the British birthright who will it : it was but a scrap of paper
found in a cave about seventy miles from Bathurst in the
western country. So much as the following was deciphered: "In
this cave the undersigned poor individual retreated, in order to
examine in hermitical retirement the botanical treasures dis-
covered by him on the 23rd April, 1817: journeying to the
western coast. Allan Cunningham, H. B. M's Botanist.
3 o'clock p.m. Therm. Fahr. 60 deg."

CHAPTER IV.

" SPICILEGIUM."
Indirectly appealing to Queensland sympathy, the fate of the
gallant La Perouse and his companions brought out of the dark
for the first time by the persevering efforts of Captain Dillon,
commanding the East India Co.'s ship " Research," fixed first
attention to the incidents of this year. On January 2nd, 1828,
Captain Dillon, accompanied by Count Cheneau, Consul to China
from France, arrived in Sydney, having completed his mission
under the auspices of the E. I. Company. [See Appendix.]

The perpetual strain had now told upon our indefatigable
Surveyor-General, the discoverer of the Brisbane, the founder of
the first of Queensland settlements. On the 26th of February
he obtained leave of absence in the hope of re-establishing
health. Major Thomas Livingstone Mitchell was appointed as
his " locum tenens ;" and on the 25th of May Oxley died, after a
long illness, brought on by the pressure of public business. The
appointment of his successor. Major Mitchell, was gazetted on
the 26th. [Appendix.]

William Johnson was hung in Sydney, in March, for the
murder of Morris Morgan, at Moreton Bay, under sentence
passed by Justice Dowling. A case of the old story ! The
settlement's requirements seem to have kept the coasters in
lively exercise, the names of "Lucy Ann," "Alligator," and
" Isabella" frequently recurring. Port Raffles and Melville
Island were at this time " as well as could be expected from
the incessant heat of the weather;" at the two latter places the
aborigines on the North Coast were as harassing in their attacks
on the Malays as on the white strangers.

On the 25th of July gas first shed light in Sydney, i.e. in the
shop alone of Mr. Woods.

Why a ship should go to the Isle of France via Moreton
Bay, who can tell ? But so it was with the " Borodino," on the
29th of August, from Sydney.

On the 5th September, Captain Rous and the "Rainbow"
returned from a cruise to the northward, reporting the discovery
of the Richmond in latitude 28 deg. 54 min..and the* Clarence in

* Clarence entrance, 29° 26' south latitude, 153° 23' east longitude. Tweed
entrance, 28° 9' south latitude, 153" 34' east longitude.

Gallows in Favour. — A Better Instrument . 6r

the latitude and longitude of Point Danrjer (a manifest error
somewhere, as this is the position of the Tweed). He fell in
with five runaway prisoners from Moreton Bay, in a state
of nudity. Fraser, the colonial botanist, had also returned,
speaking in raptures of country which he had visited south of
the settlement of Moreton Bay.

The 1 8th April, 1829, was the last day of the lives of two
wretched men, hung for the murder of their mate at Moreton
Bay. Their names were Thomas Matthews and Thomas Allen.
The first knocked down John Carroll, of the same gang, while the
last cleft his head asunder with his mattock. The old story
told on the gallows ! It seemed that at this time the French
Government had decided upon forming settlements on our west
coast, and sent formal notice of their intent to the British
Ministry. This intimation evidently quickened ministerial
movements in an exceptional manner. Orders were instantly
despatched to the Cape of Good Hope for the immediate
departure of a man-of-war with a suitable complement of military,
to " Swan" Port, and the Captain of H.M.S. " Success," who had
already urged the advantages of that spot for settlement, was
at length sent off to it with all possible speed. [Appendix.]

. Again, this month figured under the hangman's hand.
James Sullivan had killed his companion, Patrick McConderan,
at Moreton Bay, that he might by this method " be himself freed
from suffering worse than death." This was the old story.

May 12th brought to our shores, by the " Princess Royal,"
Captain Sherwood, G. C. Stapylton on the staff of our surveyors,
from London the 6th of January. Poor fellow ! afterwards
murdered by the blacks near Brisbane.

The revered name of the Rev. William Grant Broughton^'"
on the 1 7th of September, emitted a gentle ray — the earnest of
advancing day upon the scene of Australia's higher life. As
successor to the Rev. Thomas Hobbes Scott, in him the
Archidiaconal grew into Episcopal dignity. His speeches, when
he threw his weight into the scale of political discussion,
breathed through his whole course the benignity of his nature,
and the truth of the charity which he exercised in thought, word,
deed, and preached abroad. He was sworn in as a member of
the Executive Council and took his seat on the 23rd, and
probably from him came the pleading under which the
* Born four months after this colony.

62 Genesis of Queensland.

Governor did not think it extravagant to issue his proclamation
of the third of the November following by which he acknow-
ledged the propriety of affording an opportunity " to the
inhabitants of publicly expressing their humble thankfulness to
Almighty God" for the instance of His mercy referred to —
[Appendix] in relief from a long distress of drought.

Of the early explorers of the " North Countrie," none,
perhaps, may fire the sympathies of early Queensland
so truly with the spirit of " Auld Lang Syne," as he yclept
Allan Cunningham.'^ In the footprints of Cunningham's perse-
verance did that pastoral preux chevalier^ Patrick Leslie,
win his spurs ; but for Leslie's lead, Leichhardt, in all probability,
had been loth to lunge his longings and his life on the wide
circuit of this unknown land ; and but for Leichhardt, his
hearth and heart's loved dream, t this virgin "realm" had not
so soon been led out of her captivity in "nothingness and night"
by exploit of his knight-errantry and his squires to be enthroned
Aphrodite of thisfoam-sprungTierra Austral. We are ever looking
back inquiringly upon the queenly form roused from her wilder-
ness sleep by Cunningham's hand and voice, and asking "how
much owest tJioti under the sun to the memory of this man's
loyal service and of his fellow rescuers"? Patient and
plodding, now again we find him, on the 24th September,
1829, in our midst, back from the new north with lo triumphe !
on his every smile. " See these specimens ! dead, dried, and
living : plants which that region only as yet can gladden us with :
vegetation as yet unknown. With what delight will the herbarium
at home nurse these ! I have paced again that paradise, pathless
yet around that pen of punishment : that penal patch within
which pity is but a poor phantom in rags, and pain soon palsies
the prison pulses. More yet ! I have set at rest the fretting
question which has so long addled our humours : I have seen
enough to know that the grand labyrinth of Oxley's western
waters shuns all defiling intercourse with this braggart stream of
Brisbane which has so tantalised our fancies with the promise of
its pretentious mouth."

* Allan Cunningham. Was he not of Dumfrieshire?

t Leichhardt told nne that he had come here to make a name for himself by
success in his undertakings in Australia, that he might so be enabled to return to
his native country and carry out his engagement to a lady to whom he was much
attached.

Dark Deeds. — Faint Rays. — Logan s Last. 63

Murders north and murders south ! In 1830, two more white
savages on the 4th of February by the barque " Lucy Ann," from
Moreton Bay, to be tried, and, of course, hung ; and in May the
black savages in Van Dieman's Land to be punished wholesale,
through the impressed service of their far-north fellow country-
men ! The happy expedient had been hit upon by some merciful
soul of sending " down a body of blacks, who, it is thought, ma\-
be useful " as bloodhounds on the track of their distant kindred ;
for which purpose we find that " a party of Moreton Bay natives
are now in Sydney comfortably clothed in blankets, and pre-
paring for their novel expedition/' Now, in the spirit of
"advance," was the first suggestion of "overlanding," for it was
gazetted that the "Government were about to drive a thousand
head of cattle to Moreton Bay, for the purpose of supplying the
settlement with fresh meat/' But it was never done.

Port Macquarie lifted up her head with an open honest
countenance on the 15th day of August. The word went forth
that she should be no longer a prison house on the 30th of July.
[Appendix]. Another edict had presented our young industries
with the mother-land's indulgence of a reduction of the duty upon
our kangaroo-skins' introduction into her exclusive nursery, from
twenty to five per cent., as a new year's gift last year — 1829.

Four years had Captain Logan's commandancy at Moreton
Bay endured, and, on disait in October, that he w^ould return
to head quarters by the very next craft. He certainly did
return, but not until the Government schooner " Isabella " had
arrived on the 23rd of November, bringing his dead body.

In those four years his "bent" had been conspicuous in
his exploring excursions by land and water. Before making
way to a successof, he had wished his closing effort in the
public service to be the completion of a map, in which should be
embodied his own and all other results which had up to the time
accrued in the examination of the surrounding district. And so,
self-reliant and a stranger to all apprehension, he set forth on the
gth of last month — October — to make his last conge to the
river-god of the Brisbane. On that Saturday, accompanied by
his servant Collison, of the 57th Regiment, and five prisoners, he
set about his work, that of laying down correctly the windings of
its course between the Pine-ridge, Lockyer's Creek, and Mount
Brisbane ; examining the creek which struck out of the main
channel at the foot of this mountain in a north-easterly direction ;

64 Genesis of Queensland.

and thence returning by the " Pumice-stone " stream and the
"Glass Houses" to the settlement. He took two pack-bullocks,
together with their requirements. On Sunday they had travelled
about fourteen miles; next day, when nearing the Pine Range,
some two hundred blacks showed in hostile array upon a hill close
to which they had to pass, rolled down large stones on them,
without doing damage however, but used no spears. A shot
fired by Collison over their heads kept them off awhile ; but they
renewed their attack shortly afterwards. The bearing of the
natives towards the party throughout was unusually threatening.
On his return, and when close under Mt. Irwin, Captain Logan,
still lingering in his investigations of the ground which he had
now learnt so well, left the others, with instructions that they
should camp in a place he spoke of, where he would rejoin them
that evening. He was never seen again alive. "^ [See Appendix.]

Too significant, it may be feared, of the excessive discipline
practised hitherto in the control of prisoners at the penal settle-
ments appointed for secondary punishment, was the issue of the
Proclamation — to be found in the Appendix — which bears the
date of October 26, 1830. The frequent executions for murder,
the declarations, on more than one occasion, made by the
wretched culprits before the fatal " drop," had stirred up men's
minds to a general condemnation of the extreme system of
punishment which was exposed by such reiterated " last words "
on the gallows.

There was a prevalent rumour in the North that the
terrible occurrences which had marked Logan's end had been
worked out by the blacks under the instigation of revengeful
convicts, — possibly runaways dwelling among the very natives,
who were ever greedy in their appetite for the white man's blood.
De mortiiis nil 7iisi bomivi. Bowing to the principle, let
the question sleep. Yet this proclamation cannot fail to be
suggestive. [Appendix.]

Following in the wake of past notable incidents, paddled
out the " Surprise," the first steamboat launched in Australia, on
the 31st of March, 1831, and made her first trip to Parramatta
under the auspices of Wednesday, the ist day of June following.
The 1 2th of July added another gross record of an execution :

* From one of the reports appended it seems that the skeleton found in
1840 by Arthur Hodgson on his station of Etonvale could not have been that of
Captain Logan's horse, as supposed when told of at Moreton Bay.

"Happy'' Releases. 65

that of McMann's, convicted on the previous Thursday of an
attempt "to murder a fellow-prisoner with a hoe at Moreton Bay
with the avowed object of getting sent to Sydney ; then to forfeit
his own life." April, just past, was noticeable through the issue
of a Government order, dated the 16th, "prohibiting the abomin-
able traffic with New Zealand for human heads!" On the
1 6th of May the steamer " Sophia Jane " arrived from England,
under the command of Captain Biddulph, and accomplished her
first trip to the Hunter on the 19th; and on the i6th of August
another mess of misery stares us in the face, in the reception into
Sydney Gaol of three runaways from Moreton Bay, " who had
reached the vicinity of Port Macquarie, had been brought in and
delivered over to Captain Smyth by the blacks of that settle-
ment," escaped again thence, and reached Port Stephens, where
they were seized and sent on here for disposal. Escaping from
one gaol to be shut up in another, in spite of all the attendant
risk in the way of spears and starvation, must have been but a
sorry taste of freedom for a season.

This year turned out upon the waters of the Williams river
another steamer, built by Grose, of Parramatta, which was
launched on Monday, 21st November, and proceeded to Sydney
to take in her engines ; while our new and useful comer,
the "Sophia Jane," received, pro forma, the first two tons of
coal from the just completed " Agricultural Company's wharf at
Newcastle, the first fruits of the new workings."

The years 1832, 1833, and 1834 presented little body of sen-
sational matter directly or indirectly from the northern district.
Distinguishable from the bearing of the then present upon the
future is the satisfaction of finding that in 1833 the "Isabella"
took to Moreton Bay, for secondary punishment, no less than
twenty of that class of convicts called " specials," a class which,
having " moved once in their day in a more respectable sphere
of society," deserved, it was very fairly said, " no distinction in
treatment." Moral instruction — an advantage of which they had
had the early teaching — had been scorned : habits of idleness,
self-indulgence, and vice had left them no power to be useful
even in the enforced labour of punishment ; much less in the
desire of better things : while the other class had furnished
many instances of returning to a desire of showing practically
that it was "never too late to mend." So murmured justice.
Some of the more energetic — it may be supposed — had

66 Genesis of Queensland.

managed to escape in a Government boat early this year.
The " Isabella " had searched in vain for them and the
boat at Norfolk Island, and so came back again on July i8th ;
but soon this fair craft told a tale of more prolific industry,
for on the 27th of August she, under command of sturdy
master Hanson^ with a hold full of cedar, treenails, and speci-
mens of Moreton Bay wood ; her deck lively with some rank
and file of the 1 7th Regiment, in whose charge [proh ! pudor)
were three female prisoners of the Crown, were gladly hailed in
Port Jackson. Some trades must have been flourishing, when on
the 19th of August, 1834, were sold by auction at the Commis-
sariat Stores, by Samuel Lyons, 8,000 bushels of maize, at from
3s. to 3s. 2d. a bushel, and 32,000 feet of cedar, in plank, at i^d.
a foot, brought from Brisbane by the "Harriet:" while it was
hoped that the departure of the revenue cutter, " Prince George,"
from Sydney on the i6th December, for the purpose of examining
" Lord Howe's " Island, and reporting upon its eligibility for a
penal settlement upon the Norfolk Island system, might be
an indication of the abandonment of Moreton Bay, because of
the facilities of escape thence, and the prevalence — so stated —
" of ague, and other afflictions and diseases, to a fearful extent,"
at that place. Spring Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle) had
moved at home for leave to bring in a bill to establish criminal
courts at Norfolk Island.

The modesty of the following, which appeared in December
of 1835, overpowered attention to any other memoranda which
may entitle that year to our regard. The very perusal, even
now, incenses. What an escape have we had from the closed
fist of Major Benjamin Sullivan !

" To the Nobility and Gentry of the British Empire and its Colonies :

" The distress that is year after year prevalent in Great Britain and
Scotland, partly arising from the inability of employing fully at all
seasons of the year its redundant population, requires the serious
attention of the British public. A beautiful well-watered tract of
country 'on its (New South Wales') eastern coast, extending from the
counties of Macquarie and Cambridge to the tropic of Capricorn,
particularly claims the notice of Britons for emigrating to ; possessing
every earthly requisite to induce man to occupy it ; its soil being
excellent, with numerous fine rivers running through it and covered with
timber extremely valuable for ship and house building and for cabinet
work ; its degrees of latitude correspond with those of the northern.

Sulliva7i' s Sale. 67

allowing five degrees for the difference of cold in the temperature
between the two hemispheres, within which, in the northern the best
wine countries are to be met with ; it may therefore be presumed thai
it would be adapted for the vine, tobacco, the sugar-cane, coffee,
European and New Zealand flax, European hemp and the mulberry
— otherwise the silk-worm tree — besides the cultivation of various
fruits and grains, and the grazing of sheep and cattle : it abounds
with minerals, precious stones, and pearls, lime, coal, iron, and
copper ; it is admirably situated for pursuing to any extent the whale
fishery; and it possesses a surface, taken from its sea coast to the 150th
degree of east longitude, of upwards of 20,000,000 acres !

" Private emigrants, however (particularly the poorer classes), cannot
attempt to turn such a vast extent of territory into profit, for in
endeavouring to do it many would infallibly be ruined, while those who
might be fortunate enough to succeed in overcoming that danger, would
find that many years would be required to bring it into public estimation
and importance.

"Nevertheless, a joint stock company might undertake to do what
private individuals, however persevering, could not; that is, to bring into
a state of cultivation and of colonization the aforementioned tract of
country ; if such were to be formed on a plan that would not only
effectually ensure to the British Crown all due obedience, authority, and
patronage, but also would give to its proprietors ample remuneration for
the risk, the zeal, and the perseverance that would necessarily be
required of them in effecting it.

" Upon that basis, the undersigned has drawn up the following
prospectus for the formation of such a company, which he humbly
submits to your notice and patronage.

" The undersigned, with all due deference, has the honour to
subscribe himself.

" Your most obedient, humble servant,
" (Signed)

" Benjamin Sullivan.
" Port Macquarie, County INIacquarie,

"New South Wales, December i, 1832.

" Prospectus.

" I. It is proposed that a Joint Stock Company shall be formed, to
be called the 'Eastern Australian Company,' with a capital of one million
pounds sterling, to be raised by twenty thousand shares of fifty pounds
each, and paid in five instalments.

" 2. That the said Company shall petition the Crown to grant to it
all the territory from 24 deg. to 31 deg. 10 min. south latitude, and from
the eastern sea coast of Australia, including its adjacent isles, to 150 deg.

68 Genesis of Queensland.

east longitude ; or from that coast as far westward as the dividing
mountain ranges will permit, free from all reserves and rights on the
part of the Crown, save that of the right of erecting such military and
naval buildings as may from time to time be found necessary for the
protection of such territory, and for the honour and dignity of the
Crown."

Here follow thirty-three sections of this prospectus. Then
in all naivete: " to the foregoing prospectus some explanations
may be considered as necessary." For a description of the
territory that it was proposed to petition the Crown to grant
to such a Company, the projector refers the reader to Went-
worth's "Australia," vol. II.; to Barron Field's "Australia";
to King's " Australia," vols. I and II ; to Cunningham's " New
South Wales," vols. I and II. ; and to the annexed statement
made before himself as Resident Magistrate at Port Macquarie
by runaway prisoners of the Crown from the penal settle-
ment at Moreton Bay, and by the chief constable at that
place.

" The place where it would be advisable for such a Company to
commence operations from should be Brisbane Town, on the Brisbane
River, which empties itself into Moreton Bay, where the Crown possesses
at present several buildings of brick and stone, as also cattle, all of
which would be required by the Company ; therefore it is recommended
by the sixth clause that land should be purchased at a fair and
reasonable valuation from the Crown, at three years' credit.

" According to the existing regulations His IMajesty has directed
that none of his Crown lands shall be given away, but that such should
be sold ; and that in New South Wales such sale shall not be under the
minimum price of five shillings per acre, for the purpose of establishing a
fund to assist individuals of Great Britain and Ireland in emigrating
to it.

"Such a Company as the one proposed cannot expect to have land
granted to it by the Crown, but by purcha.se : nevertheless it may be
presumed that His Majesty would be favourably disposed towards such
a Company — -and that he would therefore be induced to command
that the proposed lands should be allowed to be purchased by such a
Company, at the aforesaid fixed valuation, in the course of fifty years, by
annual instalments."

The gallant Major then unburdens himself "to the free
inhabitants of New South Wales." It appears to have taken
him twenty months to digest the chagrin of his rejected
address.

SiL lliva 11 "Sold." 69

" To the Free Inhabitants of New South Wales.

"Port Macquarie, 20th August, 1836.
" Gentlemen,

"In the latter end of 1832, I undertook the laborious task of
drawing up a systematic plan for colonising the different parts of this
immense island without imposing any additional burthen upon His
INIajesty's Home Government; and proposed therein that the experiment
should be tried by an Incorporated Joint Stock Agricultural, Commercial,
and Political Company, on the eastern coast, that is from 31 deg. lomin.
to 23 deg. 30 min. south latitude.

" That plan, from several unforeseen circumstances, I was prevented
from transmitting to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the
Colonies till the month of September, 1833.

"In December, 1834, I was honoured with an answer from
Mr. Spring Rice, through Mr. Lefevre, the Under-Secretary of State,
dated the previous month of July, stating that ' His Majesty's Govern-
ment having no intention of forming any settlement in that quarter,
Mr. Spring Rice regrets that he is thus precluded from entertaining any
project of the nature of that which you have submitted ; and that he is
the more concerned in being obliged to come to such a decision, from
the care and attention which you have bestowed upon the subject.

" I have the honour to be, Gentlemen,

" Your most obedient humble Servant,

" (Signed) Benj. Sullivan."

What a squeak for Queensland !

CHAPTER V

Hear a little further
And then I'll bring thee to the present business
Which now's upon us : without the which, this story

Were most impertinent. — Shakespeare. (Tempest.)

There is a complexity in the term "squat" which, in justice to
squatters in the present days, should be accounted for : these
take their seats among the elite of Australia without a glance
back at their inheritance of the designation, with more heed than
the fashionable of Sydney or Brisbane would care to take upon
the Egyptian cradle from which their exodus was rocked. How
shocking to the modern squatter to read in a record of March,
1836, that a petition was going round the districts of the colony
praying the legislature of the day to pass an act "for the
prevention of ' squatting,' through which so much crime was
daily occurring, inasmuch as squatting was but another term for
sly grog-selling, receiving stolen property, and harbouring
bushrangers and assigned servants !"

The Venerable the Archdeacon had returned on the 2nd of
June from London, by the good ship " Camden" — Captain Ryan
— having set sail thence on the 22nd February last, as the
Right Rev. Lord Bishop of Australia, accompanied by his family.
The See of Madras, which had hitherto enfolded Australia, had
no belt sufficient for the girth of so fast-growing a member of its
flock. The "Camden's" passage was exceptionally fast for fifty
years ago. On the Sunday following the ceremony of installation
took place at St. James' Church, and a new era for our church
set in. Followed by another change in public office, we are told
in August that " Mr. E. Deas-Thomson had received the appoint-
ment of Colonial Secretary and Registrar of Records in the
room of Mr. McLeay, who retired from public life. If his
pension," the notice acrimoniously went on to say, " is to
retire with him, let the Whig ministers pay it out of their own
pockets by all means, and welcome ! but to Mr. John Blaxland's
we join our heartiest protest against such a conversion of the
public money, if it be proposed to saddle the revenue of this
future colony with such an encumbrance as a retiring pension to
Mr. McLeay. Were Mr. McLeay's gains for the last ten years

From Frying Pan to Fire. ji

but one quarter as enormous as they have been, we think he
might gladly retire without asking or seeking for anything more."
Deas-Thomson's appointment appeared in the London Gazette,
and bears date 24th March last.

Just one year after E. Deas-Thomson's appointment, i.e. in
August, 1837, w^s a memorandum that the "' James Watt,'
steamship, Captain Parsons, had sailed for Moreton Bay on
account of the Colonial Government,'^ which became strangely
hooked on in tow of the news of a double shipwreck, which was
freighted with interest enough to catch the eye. A schooner
called "Active" had been wrecked on the 2nd of July last year,
on a reef among the " Feejee" or " Viti" group. Her crew and
Captain Dixon had with difficulty reached one of the islands, on
which two missionaries — Cross and Cargill — received them with
all kindness. After a while some grew impatient ; seized a boat
with the purpose of reaching some vessels which the natives had
spoken of as trading for beche-de-mer ; had been seen by the
savages of an island which they had passed, who put off
and killed them all. Then, three more of the crew joined
some Tongaese in a large canoe in hopes of reaching
Vavoa, one of the Friendly group. About the 9th of September,
those who remained received a note from W. Stutchens, master
of the brig " Elizabeth" of Sydney, to the effect that he was
lying at Eboona, under a hundred miles away : had heard of
their position, and of the murder : but that in the teeth of such
winds as had set in he could not go to their help. Then came a
message by a small craft called the " Pearl," tender to an
American ship, the "Eliza," from her commander, Captain Wynn,
which offered them all his vessel as a home as long as she
remained among the islands, and a passage to Rotumah or
Manila when he left. And the " Actives," captain, mate, and
supercargo (J. P. Wilkie) were landed on the island of Rotumah
on the 7th November, and on the nth of this year, 1837, ^'^^
whaling ship " Duke of York" — master, Robert Morgan — called
there, took them on board in most cordial fashion, and went
swimmingly until the 14th of August, when the " Duke of York"
followed the bad example of the " Active" in getting wrecked,
and the compliment of her indwellers, thirty-two all told, took to
their whale boats, three in number, and on the 26th reached
Moreton Bay in company, where they were agreeably surprised
by finding the "James Watt" ready to start for Sydney. Before

72 Genesis of Queensland.

reaching Moreton Bay they had on one occasion, when procuring
water, lost two men, murdered by the blacks. The "James Watt"
returned to Sydney on the 29th inst., bringing J. P. Wilkie of
the " Active," Captain Morgan, nineteen of the crew of the
" Duke of York," and Captain Jackson, R.N., from Moreton Bay.
On Saturday, the 23rd of September, the "Foster Fyans" brought
up the remainder of the crew of the " Duke of York" and the
"Active" left behind at the settlement.

In justice to the memory of Dr. Lang, I am glad to have an
opportunity of reproducing from the beginning of 1838 the record
of an event which makes its better mark on Moreton Bay
history, as the first practical effort towards applying the use of
that young settlement to a brighter purpose, and guiding its
way out of dark and dismal traditions towards one of bounden
national humanity, duty and justice.

The "Minerva,'' from Greenock, the 13th of August last,
arrived on Thursday, 25th January, 1838, with 235 emigrants,
but in consequence of typhus fever, were placed in
quarantine. They had been " selected by the Rev. Dr. Lang
during his recent visit to the mother country, and had
come out under the care of the doctor's brother-in-law.
Captain McAusland. Among the passengers were thirteen
German clerics with their families, come out to establish a
mission to the aborigines, northward of this colony, under
the superintendence of the Synod of New South Wale.s.
Two were ordained clergymen, and the remainder, who came
in the capacity of catechists, had also been instructed in various
mechanical arts, with a view to the communication of the
arts of civilised life to the aborigines, in conjunction with
Christian knowledge. Hitherto the cabin passengers had
been free from disease, the fever having confined its ravages
entirely to the 'tween decks. Orders had been issued by
the Executive Government for the immediate landing of the
emigrants, and for the occupation of the buildings recently
erected at the Quarantine Station, Spring Cove — then called
the " Lazaretto."

On the 20th March, the " Isabella " took to Moreton
Bay the Rev. Christopher Eipper and fourteen of the
Germans.

The Rev. Mr. Schmidt and the remaining missionaries were
to follow bv the next o]j]M)rtunity. Messrs. Schmidt and Eipper

Mission. no

had been admitted as members of the Synod of New South
Wales, and would as soon as practicable form themselves into a
limb in connection therewith, to be called the " Presbytery
of Moreton Bay."

Again in May, the same craft brought back most
gratifying intelligence. They had met with the kindest
reception from Major Cotton, the commandant of the settle-
ment, who had shown a disposition to forward their
views to the utmost of his power. It was proposed to
select a site for their establishment, a short distance
from the settlement, but sufficiently near for protection
by the military. The aborigines of the northward seemed
to differ in character and disposition from those of the
south — ''they expressed themselves highly gratified (!)
on learning the purport of the missionaries' visit to the settle-
ment."

The merits of Dr. Lang's beneficent work for Moreton Bay
came to light prominently on the 2'nd day of the opening year;
1839. A meeting was held in the School of Arts, in Sydney, in
aid of this mission : Roemer in the chair. Dr. Lang had
in 1836, made application to the local Government for
assistance towards establishing German Presbyterians at
Moreton Bay, but met with no favourable reply. Subsequently
two more appeals were made, and at length the Government
promised a sum equal to what might be raised by private
subscriptions for the purpose. When Dr. Lang went home, he
visited Germany, and arranged at Berlin for the selection of
twenty persons, clergy and laity, who consented to join the
undertaking. They had sailed from Greenock under the charge
of the Rev. Mr. Schmidt, and, as already shown, had arrived just
a year ago, proceeded to the settlement, and been principally
engaged ever since in building their dwellings, &c. The full
amount of £^i'] contributed and granted had been slightly
exceeded by the disbursements.

Financial considerations in February much exercised the
patience of the Governor — Sir George Gipps — and his Council.
There was an extraordinary session for the purpose of
" adopting measures for the tranquillity of the districts
beyond the limits of location," when Major-General Sir Maurice
O'Connell and Captain King were sworn in as members, and
took their seats.

74 Genesis of Queensland.

His Excellency read the following speech : —

" Gentlemen, — I have called you together at this unusual season of
the year, in order to propose to you a measure for the establishment of a
police force beyond the settled districts of the colony.

'' The vast interests which have grown up in those distant parts of
the territor}-, and the number of persons of all classes now engaged in
depasturing sheep and cattle beyond what are called the boundaries of
location, might be sufficient of themselves to call for the protection of a
police force ; but the necessity for it is rendered far more urgent by the
frequent aggressions made of late by the aboriginal natives upon the
flocks and herds of the colonists, as well as on the lives of their
stockmen ; by the outrages which have been committed upon the
aborigines, as well as by them, and particularly by one atrocious deed of
blood, for which seven men have suffered on the scaffold.

" The bill which I shall lay before you purposes to accomplish this
object, by giving to the Crown Land Commissioners, who already
perform certain functions in these districts, far more important powers
than they now possess ; and by providing that each Commissioner shall
be accompanied by a moving police force, sufficient to repress the
predatory attacks of the natives, and to keep order amongst all classes.

" As it appears to me perfectly just that the persons who are
protected by this force should bear the expense of it, the bill provides
for that object by means of an assessment on cattle and other stock.

" In proposing, however, a new tax upon any portion of the people
of this colony, it is not sufficient, I think, to show that it falls upon
persons who may properly bear it : it is necessary to prove that the tax
itself cannot be dispensed with. Without, therefore, entering into an
elaborate statement of finance, which at the present season of the year
would be premature, I will request the attention of the Council to a few
facts tending to show that it would be highly unwise in the present state
of our finances to incur any new expenses without providing at the same
time the means to defray them. The total revenue of the year 1838
(exclusive of Crown lands) was ^^202, 960 7s. 5d., being jC26,7^g 12s. yd.
less than it was estimated at by Sir Richard Bourke. The total
expenditure of the same year — 1838 — (exclusive of immigration) cannot
yet be exactly ascertained, but it may be taken at about ^295,000, being
an excess over the revenue of ^^92,000. The excess of expenditure over
income of the present year must be taken, I am sorry to say, at a still
higher sum. In the financial minute which I laid before the Council on
the 7th of August last, it was estimated at ^^100,798 6s. 4cl. Since that
time, however, new charges have arisen which have to be provided for,
and the increased price of jjrovisions of every description has caused all
our contracts to be made at a higher rate than that which is set down in
the estimates ; the excess of expenditure over income for the year 1839,

Brisbane Breaking-up. — Crown Lands Police. 75

will, therefore, I now apprehend, be much greater than what I
considered probable August last."

His Excellency having finished, made a few remarks on the
nature of the bill which he then presented to Council. He said,
" it would be remembered that in the last Session, only a few
months since, a bill had been passed to restrain the occupation
of Crown lands ; but the opinion given by two of the judges had
rendered some slight alterations necessary.

The bill was then read a first time.

On the gth of the month following — March — the bill came
on again before the Council, and clauses postponed at a previous
sitting raised long discussion, in the course of which the
Governor suggested the probability of both increasing the
assessment and raising the price of licenses at a future time, as
the bill afforded so many facilities to " squatters" over the old
colonists.

The "Squatting Bill " — to which the title given was "an Act
further to restrain the unauthorised occupation of Crown lands,
and to find means to defray the expenses of a Border Police"
was read a third time, and passed on the 26th March.

Blacks and whites seem to have sickened Government of
their northernmost settlement by this time. No Patrick Leslie
had yet made his anabasis to Darling Downs. No squatter had
yet invaded the gaol-yard precincts of the Brisbane command-
ancy. Yet on disait in April that the establishment there would
be shortly broken up. The Government, indeed, had taken up
the steamer " Sophia Jane" to proceed to it and bring back the
whole of the government machinery, with the exception of the
commissariat officer, the assistant-surgeon, and the subaltern.
So back came she on the 21st May with the Commandant,
Major Cotton, and his family, Lieutenant Aitken of the 28th
Regiment, Mr. Parker, superintendent of stock, Messrs. White,
Spicer, Sheridan, Hallan, and Mr. and Mrs. Cox with four
children, fifty-seven female and nineteen male prisoners, twenty-
three soldiers, &c.

" Commissioners of Crown Lands" became gentlemen of
mark when the new act, in force on the ist of June, entitled the
following cavaliers to have two stalwart policemen armed cap-a-pie
en poursiiivant at a respectful distance: of such — the quality
of the bush — the Government Gazette on that day enumerated
the respected names: for Port Macquarie, Henry Oakes:

76 Genesis of Queensland.

New England, J. G. Macdonald : Liverpool Plains, Mayne :
Hligh, Hunter : Wellington, L. V. Dulhunty : Lachlan,
H. Cosby : Murrumbidgee, H. Bingham : Maneroo, J. Lambie :
Port Phillip, H. F. Gisborne ; but their gentlemen-at-arms
had not been yet fully equipped.

And at length the ever misleading perplexity of one nairie's
" double-dub " — so common in the colony — is for the future
obviated by an act of common sense and convenience ; for the
last gracious word of Sir George Gipps in December was issued
in the Government Gazette of the 7th, directing that " in order
to avoid confusion, the river entering Shoal Bay in latitude
t29 deg. 26 min. S., commonly called the ' Big River' (a popular
description in the bush of many a water course), shall for the
future be called the Clarence."

CHAPTER VI.

Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much more is
Mankind, the image that reflects and creates Nature, without which Nature were
not. — Carlyle. (Sartor Resartus.)

Drawing near to the hour when Hfe was to spring into the
light which the following — till now unpublished journal — had
already shed upon one of the fairest features of our present
Queensland, its introduction at this spot becomes, I think, due
to the able and excellent man who so long laboured among the
early colonists as His Britannic Majesty's Botanist, whose loving
service to Nature, Nature reflects upon his work, and illustrates
while he teaches. With Allan Cunningham came our earliest
knowledge of our " Faerie Queene," embowered in the land of
the North.

"A report of observations made during the progress of a late
tour, on the face of the country, lying between Liverpool Plains
and the shores of Moreton Bay, in New South Wales ; compre-
hending a portion of the interior within the parallels of 28 deg.
and 32 deg. south, for the most part previously unexplored by
Allan Cunningham, to whom the direction of a late expedition of
discovery, under the immediate sanction and patronage of his
Excellency the Governor, was intrusted.
"29/5386. — 8th July, 1829. — Register.

"November, 1827.

"Introductory Remarks.

"We are living in a land, the physical constitution of which
differs strangely from every other portion of our globe •* with a
superficial extent that has been estimated at more than three-
fourths of that of Europe, yet furnishes (as far as a minute
examination of its various shores has been effected) no river by
which a knowledge of the capabilities of a distant interior might
be acquired, or the produce of its soil wafted to its coasts.

* Captain de Freycinet, in assigning proportions to the principal divisions of
the globe, estimates the surface of Europe at 501,875 square French leagues, and
that of Australia at 384,375, which is to Asia and America as 3 are to 7, or about
one-fourth of the superficial extent of Africa. Voy. aux. Terres Australis, p. 107.

yg Genesis of Queensland.

" Admitting the non-existence of rivers in so vast a country
of distant internal origin, or of magnitude approaching those
noble streams, which, rising in the more elevated regions of the
Andes, are disembogued on the shores of the American
continent, we are naturally led to the belief that no lofty ranges
of mountains traverse the central regions of this ' great
southland,' either in the direction of the meridian, or
transversely in that of the parallel, but the rather, that large
portions of our intertropical interior will one day be discovered
to be of low depressed surface, subject in part, in seasons of
much rain, to extensive inundation. Indeed, it has been
remarked by travellers that, so far as their observations have
extended, the high lands of this continent are, on or at no great
distance from its shores, and navigators inform us that the more
elevated ranges occupy its eastern coast, which in several
parallels they immediately invest, and throughout a span of five
hundred miles within the tropical circle, are of primitive
structure.^

"Fourteen years have elapsed since those enterprising
travellers, Messrs. Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth, upon
surmounting the many obstacles that lay in the way of internal
discovery in their day, passed that formidable barrier, our Blue
Mountain Ranges, and at once laid open an extensive western
country, not only to the persevering industry of the husbandman
and grazier, but to the no less laudable research of the zealous
naturalist.

"Almost immediately subsequent to that epoch in the annals
of our colony, expeditions were despatched to explore rivers,
then of recent discovery, in which Mr. Oxley, our able Surveyor-
General, to whom their direction was intrusted, was engaged in
1817 and succeeding years; but the results of these journies
having tended in no small degree to check that spirit of internal
geographical inquiry, which had at those periods manifested
itself, no tour of any magnitude, with the view towards the
acquirement of a further knowledge of our interior has, since
those days to the present year, been undertaken, if we except
the laborious excursion of Messrs. J. Hovell and Hume from the
country of Argyle, across a portion of our southern interior, to
the shores of Port Philip. Of the relation of that long journey,

* King's Voyage 2, p. 570.

Starting in Quest. jg

however, although it was performed three years since, we have
yet to learn the details. These, when published, will doubtless
prove highly interesting, not only to the colonist, but to every
well wisher of the country, since it has been affirmed that those
travellers, in the progress of their expedition, passed through an
undefined extent of beautiful country, the richest that had been
discovered at that period, " the finest in point of soil, and
incomparably the most English-like in point of climate."

"Inheriting, as we have for many years, the shores of so vast
a country, when Nature's operations in her animal and vegetable
products, more especially from so many striking peculiarities,
inducing, not merely to create our surprise, but sufficient to keep
perpetually alive within us a laudable inquiring curiosity, it is
singular that at this advanced age of the colony, we should be
found in possession of so little well-founded information in
respect to the construction of our distant interior, since, in our
limited range of inquiry, although the surface of the country has
been found in parts made up of brushy waste, or noisome
swamp we have, nevertheless, been abundantly encouraged to
advance on meeting with the verdant glade amid the desert —
been gladdened at length to discover, beyond the confines of
regions scarcely tenantable by men, extensive tracts of rich
pasture land, possessing all the physical conditions requisite for
the well-being of civilized society.

"Proposed Journey through the Country lying

INTERJACENT TO LIVERPOOL PLAINS AND MORETON BaY.

"To add to the scanty knowledge we have already acquired
of our interior, I had the honor to address myself to his
Excellency Lieutenant-General Darling on the subject in
February last.

"In my communications to the Governor at that period I
respectfully submitted, that as little perhaps remained to be
done in the way of geographical research in the country bearing
S.W. from Lake George, it having been penetrated to the sea on
our south coast by Messrs. Hovell and Hume, I felt rather
desirous of explaining a portion of the unknown region lying
north from the latitude of 31 deg., to which parallel the country
had been seen by Mr. Oxley so far back as the year 18 18.

"With these views, I had the honor to submit for his
Excellency's consideration and approval, the following proposed

8o Genesis of Queensland.

plan of a journey I had long since had in contemplation : To
proceed, in the first instance, by the most direct and eligible
route from the colony to Peel's River, in the country on the
north-eastern skirts of Liverpool Plains, and situate between
the meridian of 150 deg. and 151 deg. in or about the parallel of
31 deg. S. Thence I proposed to penetrate north, in a line west
of the meridian of 151 deg. towards the shores of Moreton Bay,
in the parallel of 27 deg., with the view of ascertaining the
general features of the interjacent country ; the character of its
vegetation, the nature of its soil, and the number, magnitude,
and direction of the streams, by which it was reasonable to
conclude a region comprehending more than three degrees of
latitude is doubtless watered. I further respectfully submitted
that should the condition of my horses, the state of my
provisions, and other circumstances justify it, upon my reaching
the northern point to which I might be enabled to penetrate, my
intention was, ere my return home, to occupy a portion of the
time in an excursion direct into the interior, with the expec-
tation of being able to gather a few facts in respect to the
presumed magnitude of those great marshes into which
('tis said) all our western waters flow, to the eastern margin of
which (in 30^ deg. south latitude) Mr. Oxley had descended in
1818. Should, however, the circumstances of my expedition not
permit of this digression to the westward from that advanced
step of my journey, I finally submitted to his Excellency that,
with the view more fully to embody the chart, I would pursue
my journey southerly towards the colony, through that
considerable range of country lying east of the meridian of 151
deg. intermediate between my projected line of outward route
and the sea coast.
y "As this plan of my proposed tour to the northern interior

met with the entire approbation of His Excellency, an ample
equipment, fully equal to the magnitude of the journey, and
agreeably to my requisitions, was directed to be prepared for me,
and as the various items were completed to my entire satisfac-
tion about the close of the month of March, I lost not a moment,
(notwithstanding the unfavourable lowering aspect of the
weather), in putting an establishment of six men and eleven
horses (of which eight were the property of the Crown) into
motion. To effect the more important points contemplated in
this journey, I provided myself with the following instruments.

Equipping. 8i

viz. : a sextant, by Jones, divided to ten seconds, an artificial
horizon, a Schmalcalder's compass, a pocket chronometer, an
odometer or improved perambulator, and a mountain barometer,
by Jones, which latter I compared with others in possession of
J. Mitchell, Esq., of the General Hospital, who very obligingly
engaged to furnish me (upon my return home) with his daily
observations on the range of the mercurial column made in
Sydney, during the period of my proposed absence in the
interior, in order to enable me to compute, from data given by
their difference from my own, simultaneously noted, the mean
elevation above the level of the sea of the several stations or
encampments of my journey.

" Thus prepared for my winter's tour, 1 proposed to proceed
in the first instance with the party composing my expedition to
Segenhoe, the estate of J. P. Macqueen, Esq., M.P., on an upper
branch of Hunter's river, not more from its being in that direct
line of route which the plan of my journey had marked out than
from its proximity to the Dividing Range, over which my course
lay, and the assistance that would be afforded me by
Mr. Macintyre, the highly respectable agent and director of that
extensive and valuable farm, in passing that formidable chain of
mountains which separates the Coal river country from the
great levels of Liverpool Plains.

'' Desirous of preserving the fresh condition of the horses in
this first stage of my journey, to enable them the better to meet
its after labours, they were despatched overland without their
loads, whilst the baggage, stores, and provisions for the use of
the expedition were conveyed round by sea to Hunter's river.

"Arriving at Segenhoe"^ on the 26th of the month, I was most
hospitably received by Mr. Macintyre, whose residence, together
with the village-like group of habitations of the farming servants,
was found eligibly situated on a tributary stream to Hunter's,
named the Page, about a mile and a half above the confluence,
and within twenty miles of the northern mountains, the elevated
points of which constitute so striking a feature of the landscape
of this most beautiful part of the Coal river country.

"The adjustment of the several pack-horse loads, and general
preparation for my departure being effected in the short period

* A grant from the Crown, procured by influence in England, as a means of
provision for J. P. Macqueen, vvho had brought himself to ruin by a corruptly
contested election for Bedfordshire.

82 Genesis of Queensland.

of my stay at this station, I commenced my journey to the north
on the 30th March, with an estabHshment of six servants and
eleven horses, and with full provisions for fourteen weeks,
having determined, from the information I had obtained of its
practicability, to attempt my passage over the Dividing Range
at the head of a stream of Hunter's river, called Dartbrook,
which rises in a part of those mountains bearing to the N.W.
about thirty miles.

"The situation of Mr. Macintyre's house on Page's river was
found by observations to be as follows : — latitude by meridional
altitudes of the sun taken in an artificial horizon and observed
with an excellent sextant, being the mean of eight observations
taken chiefly on the return of the party to this station in August,
32 deg. 6 min. 37 sees. S. ; longitude by a set of lunar distances,
150 deg. 57 min. 16 sees. E. ; "^ variation of the needle,
deduced by the mean of several sets of azimuths, 7 deg.
24 min. E.; and mean elevation above the level of the sea, being the
result of twenty-one distinct observations of the mercurial column
taken morning and evening, five hundred and ninety-seven feet.

"On the 2nd May, having traced the narrow valley through
which Dartbrook flows, to its head immediately at the foot of
the mountains, we were joined by Mr. Macintyre, who had
obligingly tendered me his services to conduct the party over
the more difficult parts of the range, at a part by which he had
himself on a former occasion crossed those mountains to
Liverpool Plains.

"From the grassy hills immediately at the head of the valley,
we gained by great exertion the higher parts of the Dividing
Range, by climbing a narrow lateral ridge of so abrupt an
acclivity as repeatedly to render it necessary, rather than
endanger the lives of the horses, to disburden them of, portions
of their loads.

"Traversing the extreme summit of the range about two
miles to the westward, at a mean elevation of three thousand and
eighty feet above the level of the sea, a sloping grassy ridge
enabled us to descend to the head of a valley at the northern foot
of the mountains on the afternoon of the 4th, when the tents

* As this result accords nearly with the meridian deduced by the actual survey
of the country from Newcastle, viz., 150 deg. 58 min. 45 sees. E., which (there is
reason to apprehend) places Segenhoe somewhat to the eastward of its real position,
it may be considered about its true longitude.

Liverpool Range and Plains. 83

were pitched until the morning of the following day. This
encamping ground, which was found by observation to be in
latitude 31 deg. 50 min. S., and longitude (by account) 150 deg.
35 min. E., I ascertained by barometrical admeasurement to be
twelve hundred and twenty-one feet lower than the summit of
the range, or about six hundred and seventy feet above the
head of the opposite valley of Dartbrook.

"Having safely passed this mountain barrier, the rock of
which I remarked was trap, we set out on our journey to the
north at an early hour on the morning of the 5th, intending to
pass along the eastern skirts of the vast lands before us, under-
as near as the country would admit, the meridian of 150I deg.
We soon descended through the vale, at the head of which we
had rested, to the more even-surfaced open-wooded land, when
on leaving a small creek that had meandered with us from the
mountain base, to wind its course to the lower levels of the great
plains,* which had just opened to the view, we pursued our way
through an extent of ten miles of barren forest, wooded with
stunted box and ironbark, frequently interspersed with brush,
which, from the languishing state of its scanty vegetation
generally, had evidently been without water for several months.

"Crossing a branch of the plains, in 38 deg. 38 min.,
stretching to the S.E. under the hills, and through which a small
rivulet wound northerly, the country before us was found to rise
to forest hills of ordinary elevation, lightly wooded with box
timber, and frequently very stony on their summits, the rock
itself being a coarse sandstone.

"The valleys, which were very confined, and occasionally
disposed to be brushy, as well as some intermediate patches of
level ground, furnished timbers of large dimensions, chiefly of
the apple tree and gum. Immediately to the westward of our

* The mean elevation of Liverpool Plains above the sea shore (which Mr.
Oxley their discoverer had no means of determining) has always been considered
much greater than recent admeasurement has given. A series of interesting
observations, carefully made with an improved portable barometer by Jones, gave
me the following mean results, showing how much the surface of the southern
sides of these plains, which have evidently been raised by the washings of soil
from the adjacent boundary range, is elevated above that of either the centre or
northern margin. The southern skirts are eleven hundred and twenty feet ; the
central surface is about nine hundred and fifty feet, whilst the northern limits are
from eight hundred to eight hundred and forty feet of perpendicular height above
the level of the ocean.

84 Genesis of Queensland.

line of route, a chain of low thinly wooded great hills stretched
northerly, and interrupted the view of the main body of the
plains, whilst to the east were ridges, bold and precipitous,
assuming in some parts a lofty mountainous character, whence
issued several streams, which, after watering the various valleys,
intersected by our line of route, escape westerly to the margin
of the plains, where at length they unite in their course to the
north, and form Field's river of Mr. Oxley, by the channel of
which the eastern sides of those considerable levels are drained.

"The hills (as already remarked) are composed of a coarse
grained sandstone, and in the valleys and heads of creeks was
remarked a breccia or pudding-stone, on which the former
reposed.

"On the iith we reached the north-eastern angle of
Liverpool Plains, and passed the parallel of 31 deg. 2 min., in
Avhich latitude Mr. Oxley had crossed Peel's river in his journey
to Port Macquarie, in 1818, and from which particular point of
intersection of that stream it was my intention to have taken a
new departure, the interior to the north of it being totally
unexplored by Europeans. The country, however, to east and
north-east of our line of route proving on examination to be by
far too broken, mountainous and rocky to permit my heavily
laden pack horses to penetrate to the channel of that stream,
conformably with the plan of my journey, their feet having
already sustained considerable injury in passing those stony
hills, which our line of route from the Dividing Range had
intersected, I determined to continue our course to the north
under the meridian at which we had arrived (about 150^ ^eg.),
being satisfied that as there could be no doubt of the waters of
the Peel falling internally, my course would intersect its channel
whenever the chain of lofty hills immediately to the eastward of
us, which appeared to stretch far to the north, should either
terminate, or become so detached or broken as to allow of its
escape to an obviously lower north-western interior.

"Meeting with a rill of excellent water at the foot of a grassy
ridge (evidently one of the Melville Hills of Mr. Oxley), I was
induced to halt to allow my people to refasten the shoes of
several of the horses, which were nearly torn off by the rocky
irregular surface of the ground we had traversed in the progress
of our stages of the last two days. As it was early in the
afternoon, I climbed a hill distant about two miles to the N.W.,

Elbowed away fro?n East ! 85

10 observe the features of the country before us. From the
eminence I had a more extended view of the broken mountainous
country at E. and N.E. than I had previously had from a lower
level, the precipitous aspect of which perfectly justifying my
abandonment of the design of attempting to penetrate east (in
the parallel 31 deg.) to the bank of Peel's river, as I had
originally contemplated.

"Beyond the nearest ridge of hills at those bearings, I could
perceive more elevated ranges, lying parallel with them, at
sufficient distance from each other to mark distinctly the
existence and direction of the ample vale to which the name of
Goulburn was given by Mr. Oxley in 181 8. At north, the
country although hilly appeared very open to penetration, to
points of which, in the vicinity of Barrow's Valley of our able
Surveyor-General, I took bearings, and at N.W. and W.N.W.
the eye traversed a vast extent of wooded and seemingly level
country, through which Field's river of the chart winds its
course to a declining interior.

"At W. and S.W., I recognised points of Mr. Oxley's survey
in 1818 which I had identified in my winter's excursion in 1825,
along the western side of Liverpool plains, particularly that
remarkable forest ridge which bounds Lushington Valley on the
S., named on the chart Vansittart's Hills. Not the smallest
trace of human beings was perceived in an extensive range of
country lying between N.E. and W. by the way of N., but at
S.W., large columns of smoke, which rose from the surface of a
distant region at that bearing, showed it to be extensively fired
by the natives.

" On the morning of the i ith we quitted our resting place on
the creek, and pursuing a course to the S. of W. about three
miles, at length passed round the western extreme of the
Melville Hills, through a dry brushy tract of forest ground, and
were then enabled to shape a more direct line of route to the
N.W. On this line of course, which led us through a level wooded
country, scarcely one thousand feet above the sea coast, and
alike suffering with other parts under the severity of a long
protracted period of drought, we at length crossed the track of
Mr. Oxley in 1818, the observations at noon taken in the midst
of a dense brush of the drooping acacia pendula, giving us for
latitude 31 deg. 31 sees. N., which placed our position about a
mile to the north of that gentleman's line of route, after he had

86 Genesis of Queensland.

forded Field's river. Upon penetrating beyond these brushes
of the grey-hued acacia above referred to, we pursued our way
to the N.W. about four miles, over a level declining country,
alternately forest ground and open plain, clothed with a vegeta-
tion in part destroyed by the drought, the long continuance of
which was abundantly indicated by the extensive rents that had
been effected in the ground by the sun, the extremely parched
appearance of the surface, as well as the total absence of water
in channels, which evidently, from their shaded situation, afford
in seasons of ordinary humidity an ample supply. Amidst the
distressing circumstances of the country, we were not a little
surprised to observe upon reaching the skirts of the forest-land,
on the western side of a large patchy plain we had traversed, so
striking a change in the conditions of its grasses and vegetation
generally.

'' We had evidently descended to a lower level than the spot
on which our tent had stood in the morning, and on entering the
wooded land bordering the plain, which was timbered with apple
trees (angophor) of large dimensions, we perceived that the
whole forest had been flooded to the depth of five feet ! at which
height drift wood had been washed against the trunks of the
timber, and although the entire plain thereto adjacent, as also
other portions of the country south of it, nearly on the
same level had been at the same time subjected to like
inundation, yet the exposure of their open surface to the
daily action of the sun, for very many months, had so far parched
its vegetable products as to leave no clear evidence of the
condition to which it is at periods subjected. It was, therefore,
only under protection from the solar ray beneath the umbrage
of densely foliaged apple trees, that plants, growing even in a
soil fattened by the deposits of these floods, could assume amidst
the extremes of a dry season, the luxuriance of growth in which
we had observed them.

" The inclination to the S.W. of the heads of certain plants
growing in this forest marked distinctly the direction which the
current, upon the retiring of the waters of the last great flood,
had taken, showing also the point of declination of the country
at this particular part. Having accomplished twelve miles, and
satisfied from every appearance around us that we were in the
immediate neighbourhood of a water of larger magnitude than
any stream we had passed since we quitted Hunter's river, we

Mitchell' s River. — Quick with the Gaff ! 87

directed our course through the forest N.N.W., towards the base
of a range of hills, the S.E. head of which overlooked the plain
we had traversed, and in a mile came upon the left bank of a
river which bent itself round the southern extreme of these hills
in its course to the westward.

"The width of the channel we ascertained to be about one
hundred and fifty yards, but of this breadth about one third only
was occupied by water, which formed a succession of deep pools
and pebbly rapids.

"The bank on which I had encamped was about thirty feet
of perpendicular height above the low level of this river, and an
idea may be formed of the vast bodies of water that at periods
flow through its channel to the westward when it is observed that
there were marks of the floods in the forest ground four feet
above the level of the spot on which the tents were pitched.
Deriving its origin in the very hilly country to the N.E. of us,
which evidently formed a secondary dividing range, separating
this part of country from that through which Peel's river flows,
this stream, upon bending its course round the southern
termination of the ridge of hills immediately on its opposite
bank, wends its way to the westward, and in a few miles joins
Field's river in its progress north-westerly.

"To the stream which had not been previously seen by
Europeans, I gave the name of Mitchell's river, as a compliment
to the medical officer to whom I am so much indebted for the
very valuable details of barometrical observations, taken in
Sydney during my absence on the journey.

"Very recent marks of the native's hatchet on the trees and
a well-beaten path along the bank of the river, with other traces
of the aborigine, showed us that this solitary part of the interior
was not without inhabitants, and about sunset some distant
voices were distinctly heard, but neither the savage himself or
the glare of his fire was seen. In a deep pond immediately
beneath the tents our people were successful with their hooks,
several fine fish of the cod of the western waters were taken,
but so eager were the fish to seize the baited hooks that several
with portions of line attached were carried away in attempting
to lift them from their native element.

"The end of an eclipse of the moon, which took place in the
evening at 7 hrs. 55 min. 19 sec. apparent time, as observed with
a tolerably good telescope, gave further longitude of the

Genesis of Queensland.

particular part of Mitchell's river whereon we had encamped
150 deg. 27 min. 15 sec. E. This served to compare with its
meridian' reduced from that of Segenhoe on Hunter's river,
which gave a difference of two minutes to the westward — viz.,
150 deg. 25 min.|"i5 sec. E. However, as there were reasons for
considering the latter result the more correct, it has been
preferred.

"The latitude ascertained by a solar meridional altitude
observed on the 12th was 30 deg. 59 min. 12 sec. S., and the
mean elevation of the bed of the river above the level of the sea
proved from barometrical data to be only eight hundred and
forty feet,-'; which is nearly one hundred feet lower than the
central path of Liverpool Plains.

"i2th. Continuing our journey to the north. Immediately
on observing the sun's altitude at noon, we were led over a
continuation of level forest ground, subject to inundation, about
two miles, when we again met the river, running from the N.E.,
and having forded it at a pebbly fall, pursued our way through a
forest of fine large blue gum. In another mile we came upon an
open plain stretching to the N.W., and bounded on the S.W. by
a continuation of the forest range, along the eastern base of
which Mitchell's river flows. Skirting this plain on its eastern
margin, and trusting to the hope of finding water, I altered my
line of route to the N.N.E., but upon advancing about four miles
through a forest country, almost denuded of grass and herbage
by long droughts and the destroying effects of natives' fires, and
without the slightest trace of water, felt obliged to return to
the river, the bank of which we reached about an hour after
sunset.

"Here we were again glad to pitch our tents, and as there
was abundance of grass for the horses, I determined to rest the
whole of the 13th, in order to afford them the benefit of a patch
of luxuriant pasture, such as we were apprehensive from the
aspect of the country before us northerly we could not expect to
meet with, until we again came upon a living stream.

"On the morning of tlie r4th we again advanced on our
journey to the north, through a dry uninteresting forest land,
broken by watercourses, very level of surface, and thinly
wooded with tlic usual timber.

"Occasionally we penetrated smaller patches of brush,
scarcely interesting even to the botanist, and again gained a

The Land a-thirst. 89

more open surface of barren forest ground, perfectly bare of
grass or herbage, and exhibiting an arid argillaceous soil, rent in
chasms by an obviously long protracted drought.

"Upon completing thirteen miles, I remarked the fall of the
low ridges over which we had been travelling throughout our
last three miles, to be to the eastward, I therefore altered our
course in search of water, which most fortunately finding, we
rested for the day about five p.m.

"Resuming our journey at an early hour on the 15th, we
pursued a course to the N.N.W. through a heavily timbered, but
parched level country. Our sixth mile brought us to the base of
a ridge of barren forest hills, the declivities of which were deeply
grooved by the rains of former years, that had also laid bare
portions of the rock formation, which proved to be an argillaceous
schistus. Immediately on passing this ridge, the southern flanks
of which my horses climbed with considerable difficulty, we
intersected in about two miles a stream running briskly over a
rocky bed to the eastward, which in consequence of the general
steepness of its immediate banks, gave us some trouble to pass.
•"Upon gaining the rising forest ground on its north bank, I
was induced to direct a halt, not knowing (in a country so
generally parched by an excess of dry weather) at what distance
water might again be found. Other inducements to rest here
were, its grasses were much fresher than those the open forest
furnished, and we had, moreover, effected about nine miles
distant to the north. The latitude of our encamping ground
reduced from the observation at noon, was 30 deg. 36 min. S.,
and our barometer showed us we were upwards of a thousand
feet above our station on Mitchell's river, into which the rapid
rivulet on which we had rested ultimately falls, after meandering
easterly and southerly among the hills. To individuals
accustomed to live only amidst the charms of society, the solitary
aspect of the greater portion of this day's stage would have
proved most distressing. Scarcely a bird, not a kangaroo, emu,
or native dog, or the evidence (even of the most ancient
standing) of the wandering Indian, were remarked, until we had
arrived in the immediate neighbourhood of an encamping
ground, when our dogs gave chase to a solitary kangaroo.

"To us it was no less distressing to observe, as we travelled
onward northerly, to what a degree vegetation was languishing
amidst the severity of a drought of so protracted a period, that

go Genesis of Queensland.

we might with great truth say no rain had fallen to benefit either
herbage or the soil during the last twelve or fifteen months.

" 1 6- 1 8. Our course to the north throughout the three suc-
ceeding days led us over a hilly and in several parts broken
country, which rose progressively in elevation, until we had
attained a height exceeding two thousand feet above the sea shore.

" Occasionally a narrow valley, bearing a matted grass of the
growth of two or three years, and bounded on either side by
forest hills of steep acclivity, wooded with small trees, and
grassy to their summits, afforded some diversity of feature in
the line of country penetrated, which in general was that of open
forest, furnishing the usual timbers of stunted growth, totally
inapplicable to any purpose of rural economy. The water
courses presented rocky deep channels, from twelve to twenty
feet in width, which, in seasons less adverse, assumed the
characters of respectable creeks.

"On the 17th, at noon, when our observed latitude was

30 deg. 22 min. S., we reached the bank of a stream, which
received the name of Buddie's river, and although there was
but little water in its channel, which was thirty yards wide, it
nevertheless bore evident marks of being in seasons of heavy
rains swollen to the height of twenty feet.

" This small river dipped to the E.N.E., and as the country
appeared at length to be much more open in that direction than
had been remarked in any part since we crossed to the north of

31 deg., it is without doubt a tributary to Peel's river.

" It was on the banks of Buddie's river that natives to the
number of five persons were seen for the first time during this
journey. Being myself a little in advance of the horses, I had
no sooner reached the right bank than my attention was
arrested by the appearance of smoke rising from the forest
ground on the opposite bank, and immediately I perceived four
natives and a child, who having previously observed me, were
standing for the moment in a state of extreme surprise and
r alarm. I called out to a man who stood in front of the fire, and
who was armed with short spears, signifying by signs indicative
of a friendly intention on my part — my wish to court an
interview. To all my overtures he simply made a brief reply,
and then on seeing the pack-horses descend to ford the river, he
took to his heels, and w^ith the other adults (seemingly women),
ran off up the river, and immediately disappeared.

Cattle Cache. gi

"19th. We resumed our journey at an early hour from a
rocky creek on which we had encamped, and having advanced
about three miles through a lonely uninteresting forest of
tolerably level surface, we reached the base of an abrupt ridge of
barren hills, timbered with small iron-bark, and deeply grooved
by sharp narrow gullies, which, declining in a northerly direction,
fell into a grassy bottom. Upon passing in a variety of courses
over the banks of these arid ridges, suddenly a break in the hills
at the N.W. afforded us a confined view of a level wooded
country of unbounded extent, and to which there appeared an
approach by a narrow wall before us. Descending without much
difficulty to an apple-tree flat, the valley gradually expanded,
being, however, bounded by very steep rocky ridges on its
eastern and western sides, and watered by a small limpid stream
which, originating in the congregated hills at its head, murmured
over the stony bed of a channel, which wound through its centre
beneath a shade of swamp oak. On completing our eighth mile,
I observed the meridional altitude of the sun, which gave for
our latitude 30 deg. 2 min. 30 sec. S., and then continuing
our journey north, along the valley other six miles, I was
induced to encamp on the bank of the creek, on a patch of
the most luxuriant pasture we had met with since we left
Hunter's river.

" We were not a little surprised to observe at the head of this
valley, so remote from any farming establishment, the traces of
horned cattle, only two or three days old, as also the spots on
which from eight to a dozen of these animals had reposed, at a
period so recent that the grassy blade, which was of long
luxuriant growth, had not recovered its upright position.

" From what point of the country these cattle had originally
strayed appeared at first difficult to determine. On
consideration, however, it was thought by no means impossible
that they were stragglers from the large wild herds that are well
known to be occupying plains around Arbuthnot's Range, S.W.
one hundred and seventy-iive miles from this vale. Upon the
range on the eastern side of the valley I discovered several
undescribed plants of the most interesting description, observing
also that the rock, which was a species of flint of curious
laminated figure, like some agates, reposed on large masses of
serpentine, obvious in the lower parts, and in the base of the
ridge.

g2 Genesis of Queensland.

" During our stay in the vale, which I named after a friend
in the Ro3-al Staff Corps, Stoddart's Valley, I was enabled to
determine the position of my encampment with tolerable
precision. The result of my observations on the 20th were as
follows, viz. : latitude observed, 29 deg. 58 min. 52 sec. S. :
longitude by account reduced from the meridian of Segenhoe,
150 deg. 33 min. E. ; longitude by distances (sun west of moon),
T50 deg. 37 min. ; longitude mean, 150 deg. 35 min. E. ; variation
by azimuth, 8 deg. i min. 30 sec. E. The mean of the results of
barometrical computation, which showed us a very considerable
declension of country to the north, in our last stage gave us a
mean elevation of only eleven hundred and sixty feet above the
level of the sea.

"On Monday, the 21st of May, we prosecuted our journey
to the north along the valley, the beauties of which were
progressively developed as we advanced. The ridges, which
limited the view on either side gradually as they stretched to the
north, lowered in elevation, and assumed the character of open
forest hills, thinly wooded with small trees, and altogether less
stoney. Passing over some fine patches of grassy flat, clothed
sparingly with apple trees of, however, robust habit, we followed
the creek that waters this extensive cattle range, about seven
miles, to its discharge into a river of large dimensions, evidently
the Peel of Mr. Oxley, which having flowed from the southward,
through a very gradual fall of country, to a level of little more
than nine hundred feet above the sea shore, at length winds its
course by a creek, through the eastern hills, and passing the
northern extremity of Stoddart's Valley, escapes (as Field's
river) to a still lower north-western interior.

"The channel of this river at the ford by which we passed it
exhibited a bed of gravel, exceeding two hundred and fifty yards in
breadth, which at periods of great rains is occupied to the depth
of twelve and fifteen feet, as we gathered from the flood marks on
its outer banks. The long continuance of dry weather, beneath
the effects of which an unknown extent of the interior appeared to
be suffering, had, however, diminished the waters of the Peel to
a breadth not exceeding fifty yards, and to a depth so trifling
that it was fordable in many parts. On crossing this river, we
halted on an elevated patch of forest ground on its right bank,
the day being far spent. As we descended Stoddart's Valley
to the river, we observed several of the trees had been

Friends Afield! — Effaced? go

completely and recently barked by the natives, and on the bank
of the river opposite our encampment large bodies of smoke
rose from the fired grass and herbage, but we neither saw or
heard any of the Indians, the very recent prints of whose feet (as
well adult as child) we clearly perceived on the sands at the ford.

"22nd and 23rd. Quitting the right bank of Peel's river
(which we found by our barometer to be only nine hundred and
eleven feet above the level of the sea), we pursued our route to the
N.N.W., immediately at the base of a continuation of the eastern
range of hills, which again assumed a bold and rocky character.

"We passed through an uniformly barren tract of wooded
country, frequently very broken and ridgy, and as the declivity
of the several gullies were of considerable dip towards the
channel of the Peel, which extended along the eastern base of a
densely wooded range, bearing west of us, we found the whole
of the day's stage exceedingly badly watered. At a distance of
about fourteen miles north from the ford of Peel's river the
country considerably improves, and by being less encumbered
with useless timber and brushwood, and therefore more open to
the sun and air, the soil, which had assumed a darker colour, was
productive of a tolerable clothing of grass and esculent vegetation.
The thickly wooded ranges, to which the name of Drummond
was attached, lying a few miles to the west of our route, was at
length, as we advanced, observed to terminate, and the country
beyond its northern extreme appeared from the higher grounds,
near which we were travelling, to be well timbered, but a level,
declining clearly to the northward and westward.

" At last the rocky ridge of hills which had for some days
entirely circumscribed our view at that bearing, also falling to
the ordinary level, the country assumed a picturesque appear-
ance. Detached hills of moderate height diversified the surface,
which being very thinly wooded with small trees, furnished on
their slopes in seasons less destructive to vegetation an
abundance of sheep pasture. To two of these hills, remarkable
for their likeness to each other, I attached the names of Carlyle
and Little, after friends on Hunter's river. They are formed of
a reddish sandstone with which the summits are crowned.

" To the north-east the country rises to a considerable
elevation, and a very lofty rocky range crowned with the
picturesque cypress, and from the extreme ridge of which rose a
very sharp cone, received the name of " Masterton."

g4 Genesis of Queensland.

" At noon of the 23rd we came upon the wide but shallow
reedy channel of a river, forming, however, at this season simply
a deep chain of ponds, at which the observed latitude proved to
be 29 deg. 34 min. 44 sees. S. This we traced about four miles
to the N.E., and then encamped on its immediate bank, where
there were some good strips of grassy flat, affording our cattle
excellent food.

" The marks of the natives' hatchet (of stone) were observable
on the trees, but the few Indians that wander through these
lonely regions in quest of food appear very careful to avoid us ;
the train of laden horses, the numbers of my men and dogs
doubtless alarming those who may have seen us from the hills so
much as rather to urge their flight than induce them to seek a
communication with us.

"24-26. On crossing the reedy channel of this river, we
passed over a low stony cypress ridge, and among a mass of
vegetation characterising the Hora of the Bathurst country, I
discovered a few plants not previously met with, of, however,
established well-known genera. The rocks of this ridge are of
the ferruginous sandstone of the Blue Mountain Ranges, and as
quantities of the disintegrated parts of this formation had been
washed by the rains upon the lower forest grounds in the
neighbourhood, the surface (resting on an argillaceous subsoil)
was covered with a barren grit to the depth of four inches.
At our fifth mile we rose by an easy acclivity to the pitch of a
forest ridge, when we remarked a change had taken place in the
rock formation, which was abundantly shown by the dark colour
and superior quality of the soil. It was a trap exceedingly
porous, forming amygdaloid containing nodules of chalcedony.
Upon reaching the extreme part of the ridge, we observed before
us a very moderately undulated country, interspersed with
patches of plain. A series of forest hills and intervening valleys
furnishing abundance of grass, but perfectly destitute of water,
succeeded in our course to the north throughout the succeeding
seven miles. At length we arrived at a patch of forest ground,
that had been recently fired, and as I was induced to believe,
that as the natives had evidently passed through these woods
within the last three days, water could not be far distant, I
directed a diligent search to be made for it. In a mile further
northerly to our great joy, a large clay hole was found containing
an ample sufficiency of that precious element to meet all our

The Soil's Distress. 95

demands, and although stagnant evidently for some months, was
nevertheless of a good quality.

"The pasture in several parts of this day's stage was
excellent considering the distress to which vegetation generally
had been subjected by the drought of the year, and although the
timbers were uniformly indifferent and chiefly of box, the general
appearance seemed to augur that we are on the verge of an
improving country north of us, and certainly of easy access.

" 25th. As I had been led to conclude, so we found the
country, for we had not advanced a mile before we reached a
patch of plain, of a rich black soil, bounded by low thinly
wooded forest hills, which gave the whole a very pretty
picturesque appearance. Over this plain we travelled N. by E.
to the opposite piece of wooded land, passing which we came
upon a second plain, stretching as did the former east and west
several miles, their breadth being about a mile and a quarter.

" It was distressing, however, to observe so much fine black
soil, sound, dry, and crumbling beneath the foot, as these plains
possess, rich moreover in grasses and herbage, languishing for
rain, and without channels of sufficient depth or capacity on
their ample surface to retain water permanently throughout the
year. A succession of open forest hills and waterless downs
characterised the face of the country to the close of a journey of
twelve miles, which terminated in a stony gully, in which after
some search we were fortunate to discover fine water, retained
in narrow rocky cavities. Upon reaching the brow of the forest
ridge, immediately over our encampment (which reduced from
the observation at noon, was in 29 deg. 10 min. S.), the hills to
the westward were observed to terminate, and a level open
country, bounded on the N.N.W. and N. only by the very distant
horizon, broke upon our view, which although it appeared for
the most part very densely wooded (probably with small stunted
trees) nevertheless exhibited patches of open plain, diversifying
the otherwise monotonous aspect of a vast expanse of surface.
I could perceive from the spot on which I made these observa-
tions the level country as far east as N.N.E., but the terminating
points of all the eastern forest ridges, facing the west, projecting
to an intersection of that line of bearing, my further observation
easterly was prevented. The mean elevation above the sea of
our tents was twelve hundred and twenty-eight feet, which placed
us upwards of three hundred feet above the bed of Peel's river.

g5 Genesis of Queensland.

" 26th. Pursuing our journey to the N.N.E., through an
extent exceeding five miles of barren forest ground, in part
closely timbered with small ironbark, and interspersed with
thickets of plants frequent on the skirts of Liverpool Plains, we
at length intersected the sandy channels of a river, which in
other seasons than the present must be highly important to the
grazing flats on its bank, forming in periods of great rains a
rapid stream, ten feet deep and fifty feet wide.

" The distress of the season, so often spoken of in the
narration of this journey, appeared, however, to have entirely
deprived this ample channel of its waters, and as its sandy
bed was in part overgrown by a brush of woody plants
usually affecting arid desert situations, this circumstance alone
afforded me the clearest proof of its having been dried up many
months.

" Amidst this dearth it was with surprise we noticed how
extraordinarily the native grasses had resisted the dry weather
on the upper bank of this dried watercourse. They were fresh,
verdant, and doubtless nutritive, affording abundance of
provision to the many kangaroos that were bounding around us.

" On crossing this sandy channel we continued our original
course (N.N.E.) over a plain or flat clear of trees, two miles
wide, the soil of which we found excellent, but very dry, the
surface exhibiting deep rents, occasioned by the action of the
solar ray.

" Apprehensive that we should not readily meet with water
by pursuing the course we had preserved steadily since we set
forth in the morning, I was induced, on passing over the brow of
a ridge and observing a hilly country to the eastward, to alter
my line of route to the E.N.E., in the hope of meeting with a
sufficiency of that element for our horses and selves, in an
advance of two or three miles, towards more elevated grounds.

" Penetrating about two miles, through an arid desert forest,
of a deep sandy soil, and timbered with cypress and red gum,
we reached the rocky margin of a creek, by which the waters
that fall from the hills to the eastward are conveyed to probably
a greater channel, at a lower level in the neighbourhood. I was
led to this inference, not simply from the bed of this creek
forming a succession of falls, showing me its considerable dip to
a lower country in the vicinity, but more especially from the
numbers of the white cockatoo that appeared about us on the

Cunningham' s Strait. gy

wing — these birds, it having been long remarked, flock about laro-e
rivers, as well in the colony as the interior beyond Bathurst.

"Water being immediately found in the rocky excavations of
this creek, and grass of an ordinary quality on its margin, I
directed the party to halt and encamp. During the 27th (being
Sunday) I rested my people and horses. The morning was
exceedingly lowering, but as the day advanced it cleared
sufficiently to allow me to take the necessary observations for
the determination of our position. Their results placed us as
follows on the chart : latitude observed 29 deg. o'o min. 0*2 sec.
S. ; longitude, by account, 150 deg. 40 min. 15 sec. E.
Variation of compass, 7 deg. 53 min. E. The mean of several
observations of the height of the mercurial column, taken
morning and evening, gave us only an elevation of eight
hundred and forty-two feet above the sea shore, which is lower
than the bed of Peel's river at our ford !

" We had at length gained the parallel of 29 deg., and having
consumed more than half of the original stock of provisions
with which I had quitted the colony, it became absolutely
necessary that I should at once determine, not only the distance
to which I might possibly penetrate further to the northward
with the limited means I have at command, after laying aside
six weeks' full rations for consumption during the journey
homeward, but also the precise direction of our route onward,
under all the circumstances of the reduced condition of mv
horses, the arid state of the country, and the aspect of the
weather, that bear upon me, and that I must of necessity be
governed by, in all my future movements. Upon inspecting my
horses, I found that notwithstanding the extreme care of my
people, the backs and sides of several had become much galled by
their saddles, and all were much reduced and debilitated by the
labour of the journey, the parched up state of the pasturage, and
the general poverty of the country through which we had travelled.
To these points of consideration I subjoined the circumstance of
the low level to which we had descended, the barren country it
presented and the probability that by pursuing our course
further north (the declination of the country being evidently at
that point of the compass), we should descend to an arid region
of that scrubby country totally destitute of grass or esculent
vegetable, where the lives of my horses would be placed in
imminent daneer.

q8 Genesis of Queensland.

"Viewino- all these circumstances as connected with my
situation at this encampment, and regarding the preservation of
my horses as paramount to every other consideration, I felt
bound, although reluctantly, to determine on a deviation from
the line of northern course the plan of my tour had prescribed.

"I, therefore, resolved to pursue my journey more to the
eastward, not only to secure to my half famished horses a more
certain and nutritive provision than that on which they had for
some time past subsisted, which it was reasonable to suppose the
hio-her lands in that direction would furnish, but also with the
view of connecting (upon penetrating to the meridian of 152 deg.,
and north to the parallel of 28 deg.) my sketch of those parts of
the interior through which we have travelled with the country in
the vicinity of Moreton Bay, by bearings to such of its fixed
points as I might identify, and especially to the cone of Mount
Warning. The rocks of the creek on which we had rested is a
friable freestone, of a much whiter colour than is usually to be
observed. The gully appeared to have been the resort of the few
natives of these desert regions, who have from period to period
availed themselves of the softness of the rocks, to form edges to
their mogos or hatchets of stone of a harder description. The
traces of these operations, as well of a distant period as of recent
date, were observed on the surface of the stony ledges in various
parts of the creek. Among the birds observed about our tents
we remarked a parrot of large size not heretofore seen. The
feathers of its head were snow white, whilst its body appeared of
an uniform green ; the wings, which were also of that color,
presenting on their outer sides a brownish hue. Only two birds
of this species were seen at the water holes, probably the male
and female, and they proved so shy that no opportunity was
afforded to shoot them.

" 28th, Monday. The inference I had drawn from the structure
of the creek, and the presence of the white cockatoo, of the
existence of a river in the neighbourhood, proved this morning to
be perfectly just, for we had not proceeded three miles to the
N.N.E., through a continuation of desert, before we came to the
left bank of a stream, presenting a handsome reach, half a mile in
length, thirty yards wide, and evidently very deep. Its bed,
which was of a gravel containing many large v.a'ccr-worn pebbles
of quartz and jasper, was skirted by lofty swamp oaks, bearing on
their branches flood marks at least twenty feet above its channel.

Dumaresq ; why Severn now ? go

When, therefore, its waters are swollen to that height, it forms a
rapid river from eighty to one hundred yards in breadth, as I
ascertained by the measured distance of the outer banks from
each other, on which the gigantic swamp oaks grow.

"This stream, which received the name of Dumaresq's river,
in honour of the family, to which His Excellency the Governor is
so intimately connected, rises in a mountainous country to the
N.E., at an elevation (determined in the progress of this journey)
of nearly three thousand feet above the sea shore, and after
pursuing a western course for about one hundred miles, along a
considerable declivity of country, falls two thousand one
hundred feet to the spot at which we had crossed its
channel, the perpendicular height of which above the ocean,^
I found by barometrical admeasurement to be only eight hundred
and forty feet, which is about the mean level of the northern
sides of Liverpool Plains. Tracing the left bank up, about half
a mile, we found a ford, which enabled us to cross over safely,
and resume our journey to the N.N.E.

" Passing over some stony ridges of trifling elevation
immediately on the right bank of the river, we penetrated about
eleven miles through an arid sandy forest ground Avooded with
small iron-bark and cypress.

" Upon accomplishing our fourteenth mile (by the odometer)
the country continued nearly a perfect level, clothed with small
blighted timber and much scrubby underwood, but without the
smallest indication of water, which, however, could not be hoped
for in a region the surface of which we found so generally
coated with a loose reddish sand to the depth of several inches.

" In this situation we found ourselves at an advanced hour of
the afternoon, and as the sun was rapidly declining on the lower
levels westerly, it became necessary to determine at once on the
course we should pursue onward, since by continuing our route
at N.N.E. it appeared evident we should penetrate more deeply
into the midst of the desert. As there appeared a slight
depression of country easterly, I directed my people to the
north-east, and at the same time despatched a man at that point
to search for water. Another mile brought us to a broad, but
fiat, shallow sandy channel, dipping to the N.N.E., in which was

* By a reference to the chart it will be seen that this particular part ot
Dumaresq's river is about one hundred and seventy statute miles west from the
coast line.

TOO Genesis of Queensland.

found a waterhole just dry. With renovated hopes we traced it
downwards, and finding many proofs of the recent existence of
water on the surface, continued about one and a half miles
further, when a small pool was discovered, fringed around with
the aquatic plant, known to botanists by the name pJiilydruiu
lamiginosuin. At this small pond, scarcely six feet in diameter,
we most gladly halted, after accomplishing a long stage of
nineteen miles, through a tract of country, in the extremes of
sterility, quite destitute of water, and in an atmospheric tempera-
ture of 75 degs. The thermometer at sunset stood at 70 deg., and
the mean results of barometrical computation showed me that we
were even lower than the bed of Dumaresq's river: our encamp-
ment was only eight hundred and eleven feet above the level of the
ocean. Early on the morning of the 2gth we quitted our resting
place, on which my half famished horses had scarcely found a
blade of grass, and continuing our course to the N.N.E., almost
immediately passed beyond the sandy surface to that of a stiff
clay, inducing me to hope we were on the verge of a better
country, although the level continued the same. In this we were
not deceived, for we had scarcely effected two miles before we
reached the bank of a small river, falling westerly, about fifteen
vards wide, presenting at this season simply the disunited form
of a chain of stagnant deep ponds or reaches a quarter of a mile
in length. Traversing the level forest flat, through which this
rivulet winds its course, we immediately entered a thick brush of
cypress and acacia, and having penetrated, with great difficultv
to the horses, about two miles to the N.E., rain, which had been
threatening since daybreak, began to fall, with every appearance
of continuing throughout the day. Totally ignorant of the
extent of this thicket, which towered over our heads to the
height of twenty-five feet, or to what distance we should be
obliged to travel before we again found water, I deemed it
prudent to return to the rivulet we had left, and encamp. This
we effected just about noon, in time to square an observation of
the meridional altitude of the sun, between the showers, which
placed us, in consequence of our extraordinary stage of the
preceding day, as far north as 28 deg. 45 min. f sec.

" 30th. The fineness of the morning, after a continued
rain throughout the preceding night, invited us to advance
forward at an early hour, our burdened horses having, moreover,
been materially benefited by the grazing they had met with on

Macintyre' s Brook Brush. loi

the margin of the rivulet on which we had rested. The remarks
I had already made on the seeming extent of the northern
brushes, led me to hope that an E.N.E. course would carry us
perfectly clear of those almost impervious thickets. On this
course, however, we had not proceeded two miles before we
discovered, with more than ordinary concern, that their greater
body stretched across our line of route to due east.

" There was therefore no alternative left us but to enter
them, with the hope that by pursuing steadily our course we
should more readily reach a clearer open forest, on their north-
eastern side. It was nine o'clock when we passed their southern
margin, and although their breadth did not exceed two miles,
such were the difficulties to the baggage horses, that we were
nearly three hours in effecting a passage through to a patch of
clear forest ground, through which we were enabled to
pursue our way to the north-east upwards of a mile, when
we were most agreeably surprised to meet Avith a rivulet
bending from the eastward to the north-west, the forest ground
on either side furnishing a richer and altogether more
luxuriant growth of young grass than we had met with at any
stage of our journey. It was a subject of great astonishment to
us to meet with so beautiful a sward of grass, permanently
watered by an active stream, after traversing that tract of desert
forest, and penetrating brushes the extremes of sterility in its
immediate vicinity. The presence of a fine piece of pasturage
on the banks of a beautiful stream, in parts fifteen yards in
width, to which I gave the name of Macintyre's Brook,* after
my friend at Segenhoe, again induced me to cherish the hope
that we were on the confines of a better country. We had,
however, difficulties new and fresh to encounter ere the labours
of the day were closed.

" Leaving Macintyre's Brook, which occupied us some little
time in fording, owing to its depth and extraordinary rapidity of
its current, we resumed our course to the N.E. Compact
thickets of like description with those we had passed again
stretched from east to west, over a surface of country so truly
level as to afford us, as far as we could observe, not the slightest

* The situation of our point of intersection of Macintyre's Brook on the
chart is as follows : latitude, 28 deg. 44 min. S. ; longitude 150 deg. 48 min. E.,
the elevation of its head above the level of the sea being not more than eight
hundred and ten feet.

I02 Genesis of Queensland.

rise whence anv observation might have been made of the extent
of these jungles, or the direction, supposing them to be strips
and not extensive bodies, in which they were disposed in these
arid regions. Finding ourselves thus hemmed in, and altogether
with a very discouraging prospect before us, I nevertheless
determined to persevere on my course to the N.E., bearing,
however, in mind that should we fail in our endeavours to effect
a passage through them to more open grounds, after a feu-
hours' exertion, we could at least return on our track to the
brook, where our horses would rest on good pasture, and on the
bank of which we might subsequently pursue our way to the
eastward ; although, perhaps, on a course in the first instance not
better than E.S.E. As these thickets from their very margin
presented a density almost impervious to pack horses, I directed
an active man to follow me with an axe, to remove every
obstacle that might prevent their passing forward in the
course I endeavoured steadily to pursue. In many parts the
quantities of fallen timber were considerable, and the stems of
an acacia (fifteen feet high) were so closely grown together, and
interwoven with other plants, as to present at first view a barrier
altogether impenetrable. However, a laborious circuitous route
enabled us to avoid those intricacies, and as we subsequently
came upon small patches much thinner brushed, and more open
to the sun and air, whereon the wearied horses were allowed to
breathe, we were encouraged in no ordinary degree to advance
forward. Thus we continued until an advanced hour of the
afternoon, when having cut a passage about four miles for the
horses, we were rejoiced to reach an open clear forest, through
which we pushed our way to the N.E. without further
inconvenience. Meeting with a chain of ponds in about three
miles, I was exceedingly glad to rest, as both men and horses
were sinking beneath the labours of the day. The course and
distance made good, notwithstanding the difficulties of the stage,
being E. 41 N., magnetic eleven miles.

" 31st. The day's stage to the northward and eastward
was extended through a rising wooded country, consisting
of stony hills of moderate elevation and narrow shallow valleys,
often brushed with the prevailing acacia of the country, and very
indifferently watered.

"At our fourteenth mile we came unexpectedly on a patch
of good grass on a flat heavily timbered with blue gum, where,

In the " Doldi' 117118." 103

upon finding a sufficiency of water, I halted. From the summit
of an open elevated forest ridge, which I climbed in the earlier
period of this day's stage, an extensive view was afforded me of
the country at all points. At an estimated distance of, perhaps,
eighty miles, I perceived an apparently low detached range,
stretched east and west, from N. 2 deg. W. to N. 12 deg. ; and,
somewhat more easterly, another range, pointed in the centre,
bearing N.N.E., was remarked, the country around them being
exceedingly level. Hence, looking easterly, the country appeared
to rise progressively, and ridges of more than ordinary elevation
extended towards loftier ranges, which may probably be perceived
from the coast line. From W.S.W., by the way of west, and
thence to north, the eye became fatigued by traversing a vast
expanse of level internal country, without the slightest rise of
surface to relieve the sameness of the scene, and bounded only by
the horizon."^

"June 1—3. Onward we pursued our course to the E.N.E.,
and throughout a space exceeding twenty miles penetrated for
the most part a barren and altogether an uninteresting country,
frequently of broken stony irregular surface, forming low ridges
clothed with a scrubby vegetation, which occasionally dropped
into slight concavities, scarcely to be denominated valleys,
equally sterile. But even in the midst of a line of country so
generally destitute of vegetable product sufficient to sustain
animal life, we were fortunate enough to meet with small isolated
spots on which to rest, providing us some little grass or herbage,
and water for our burdened horses. On the evening of the 2nd
we halted on the margin of a stony gully, and, giving my people
and horses rest during the following day, I determined our
position on the chart as follows : lat. observed, 28 deg. 17 min.
49 sec. S. ; long., by account, 151 deg. 22 min. E. ; variation of
the compass, 7 deg. 36 min. E.

"The mean elevation of our encampment above the level of
the sea, one thousand four hundred and four feet.

" 4th. During last week we penetrated in a north-eastern
course a country rising progressively in altitude, yet exceedingly
bare of esculent vegetation ; nevertheless, situated as we were,
we could not possibly pursue a better line of route. I. therefore,

* This afternoon we crossed, to the eastward, the meridian of Parramatta, in
latitude reduced from the observations at noon, 28 deg. 33 min., which placed us
three hundred and sixty-six statute miles due north from that town.

104 Genesis of Queensland.

on the morning of the 4th continued our journey in that direction
by ascending a succession of rather heavily timbered forest
ridges, of easy acclivity, but rough and stony, to the feet of our
enfeebled horses.

"At our third mile, whilst in the act of passing over
the brow of one of these hills, the voices of natives were
distinctly heard. Almost immediately we perceived several of
these Indians in motion among the timber, not, however, before
they had had, for some moments, the first gaze of surprise at us,
as the trunks of the trees, being as black as their bodies, had
prevented our perceiving them as quickly.

" I happened to be accompanied by only one of my people,
others being with the pack horses at another part of the rising
ground beyond the natives, where the acclivity was more
moderate. On my calling to the pack horse leaders, the natives
stood and viewed us at the distance of about one hundred yards,
occasionally retiring behind the trees, and again walking about
in great uneasiness. The spot was ground on which they were
bivouacing with their women and children, whose respective
voices we distinctly heard ; they therefore could not leave their
tires with that precipitation which their great alarm, induced by
our presence, would evidently have urged. The instant,
however, my people replied to my call from the gully whence
they were ascending to me, the agitation of the natives became
extreme, they therefore, having already hurried away the gins
(women) and little ones, ran off with the utmost despatch
through the brushy woods to the north of us. I could have
wished to have brought about a communication with these
Indians had the whole of my party been with me, or had we met
each other on more open ground than a close brushy forest, for
I felt perfectly satisfied that as soon as their fears had been
removed by our pacific overtures to them, they would have
proved themselves of friendly disposition, as they neither made
me any reply, or appeared in the least disposed to place
themselves in menacing attitude, or exhibited their weapons to
deter us from approaching them. Under the circumstances,
however, of our meeting, I deemed it prudent so soon as I
perceived them to stand still until they had made their little
arrangements to depart. I would have advanced quickly upon
them, but the consequence might have been serious to us, as we
had no arms at the time, and these people might have disputed

Cooks and Cockatoos. 105

the ground with us on the score of the women and children,
whom Nature teaches even the savage it is a duty in man, as a
husband and parent, to protect. Before my people had joined
me they had passed the fires of these Indians, which were seven
in number, and about them they recognised the bones of
bandicoots and the bustard (of which bird the feathers were
strewed around), upon the flesh of which these savages had been
feasting.

" Upon joining again, we continued our journey, and imme-
diately quitting the more open forest ground entered a dense
brush of acacia, dairesioe, &c., the wand-like stems of which,
indurated by fire, proving a serious annoyance to us. By dint
of great bodily exertion to man and horse, we penetrated about
four miles through a body of thicket ten feet high, and upon
making the open forest ground on its eastern skirts we traced a
narrow valley, falling easterly, in search of water. We followed
the vale about a mile and a half, when meeting with water in a
stagnant state, I was obliged to halt, although on a spot
furnishing but little grass, it being after sunset, and my horses
were greatly distressed by the length and difficulty of the day's
stage.

" 5th. The smokes which we had for the last two days
observed to rise from the country to the northward and
eastward of us, considered with the frequent screeching in
that direction of the white cockatoo (a bird loving to inhabit
forest land in the neighbourhood of rivers), fully satisfied me that
we were on the verge of a desirable country. At our usual hour
of departure in the morning we hastened from the spot on which
we had passed the previous night, pursuing our way in an E.N.E.
direction.

"Beyond a patch of stony forest ground of rather open
character, we crossed (at our second mile) a rocky creek dipping
easterly, having some clear pools of water in its channel, and
grass on its margin. From the pitch of a ridge immediately
above this watercourse, we had a most agreeable though confined
view of an extensive range of open country, lying in the
direction of our course, which from its ample feature and
prospect, I doubted not would in its examination abundantly
reward all our labours in penetrating to it through a considerable
tract of desert country, stretching back to the southward of the
parallel of 29 deg. A hollow in the forest ridge immediately

•o6 Genesis of Queensland.

before us allowed me distinctly to perceive that at a distance of
eight or nine miles, open plains or downs of great extent
appeared to extend easterly to the base of a lofty range of
mountains, lying north and south, distant by estimation about
thirty miles. With the fullest expectation of being able to
reach the \vestern margin of these downs at an early period of
the day, we proceeded forward with a quickened pace, through
an open grazing forest, to our eighth mile, when our observed
latitude proved to be 28 deg. 11 min. 10 sec. S. Already had
the land become much thinner of timber, and we had not
advanced half a mile further, before we came upon a patch of
open plain, skirted by a low ridge of forest hills on its western
side, and by a closely v^ooded forest ground on the opposite
point.

" On climbing a low stony ridge in our way, it was really with
the greatest satisfaction that we perceived we had approached
within two miles of the Downs, and as small patches or strips of
mist extended throughout their whole length, and a line of
swamp oak stretched along their south-western extreme, it was
clearly shown us that these extensive tracts of timberless land
were not wanting in water. Upon accomplishing a journey of
thirteen miles (the last one extending over a commencement of
the great plains) we arrived at the left bank of a small river,
about fifteen yards in breadth, having a brisk current to the
N.W. There w^as in all parts of its channel, in the neighbourhood
of the spot at which we had made it, very deep w'ater, which
affording ever}' encouragement to my people to employ a period
of the afternoon in fishing, I sent them away along the left bank,
furnishing each with hooks and lines.

" In the meanwhile I obtained some sets of lunar distances
with the sun, the mean results of which gave me for the
meridian of my tent 151 deg. 39 min. 45 sec, ; but as the
accurately measured distance between it and the north-easternmost
encamijmcnt of this journey (the situation of which was
determined by several observations aided by correct bearings, to
certain fixed points on the coast line) upon being reduced, placed
the position of my encampment i| min. to the eastward, its
situation may be stated as follows : longitude 151 deg., 41 min.
30 sec. E. : latitude, by observation at noon of 5th, 28 deg.
9 min, 37 sec. S. : its mean elevation above the sea shore, by
the barometer, being one thousand four hundred and two feet.

First Oasis. 107

" The anglers caught several fine cod, and whilst thus
successfully occupied on the bank of the river, three natives
were remarked in the adjoining forest ground on the opposite bank
firing the dried herbage of these woods ; they did not, however,
venture to approach towards my people, but without manifesting
the least alarm, walked leisurely away to the more distant parts
of the forest. " -*

"6th. Immediately after noon of the 6th we quitted our
resting place, and proceeding up the river about half a mile,
crossed to the opposite bank, at a ford previously discovered by
one of my party. From this stream, which I named Condamine's
river in compliment to the officer, who is Alde-de-Camp to his
Excellency the Governor, we entered upon the extensive downs
before us, pursuing our w^ay to the E.N.E., along their southern
margin. During the afternoon of the 6th and following day, we
travelled throughout their whole extent, to the base of the
mountainous land that bounds them on their eastern extreme,
and in the progress of our journey made the following general
observations on their apparent extent, soil, and capability.
These extensive tracts of open country, which I subsequently
named (by permission) Darling Downs, in honour of His
Excellency the Governor, are situate in or about the mean
parallel of 28 deg. 8 min. S., along which they extend east
eighteen miles, to the meridian of 152 deg. On their northern
side they are bounded by a very gentle rise of lightly wooded
ridge, and on their opposite margin, by a level forest of box and
white gum of ordinary timber. A chain of deep ponds,
supported by streams from the lofty ranges Immediately to the
eastward, passes along the central lower flats of these downs,
throughout their whole length, and uniting in seasons of heavy
rains, falls westerly into Condamine's river. Their breadth
varies in different parts of their lengthened surface, appearing at
their western extremity not to exceed one and a half miles,
whilst towards their eastern limits it was estimated at three
miles. The lower parts, by a deeply grooved water course,
form flats, which In consequence of their permanent moisture
furnish a very considerable range of cattle pasture, at all seasons
of the year — the grasses and herbage exhibiting generally in the
depth of winter an extraordinary luxuriance of growth. Among
the mass of excellent vegetation produced on these flats, no
plant appeared more striking In its growth than a species of rib-

io8 Genesis of Queensland.

grass [plantago Struthionis) which I had formerly described, the
leaves of which measured from twelve to fifteen inches in length.

" From these central grounds rise downs of a rich black and
dry soil, which extend several miles to the eastward, and, as they
furnish an abundance of grass, and are conveniently watered, yet
perfectly beyond the reach of those irrigations which take place
on the flats in wet seasons, they constitute a most valuable sound
sheep pasture, the permanently dry nature of which may be
inferred from the fact of there being a difference of three
hundred feet between their upper or eastern limit and Conda-
mine's river, as shown by the mean results of barometrical
admeasurement.

" Towards the close of the afternoon of the 7th, having gained
the forest ground on the eastern verge of the downs, we continued
our course to the northward and eastward about one and a-half
miles, through a truly beautiful apple-tree forest, abounding in
kangaroos, when, upon reaching the base of a remarkable flat-
topped mount, forming the termination of a portion of the lateral
range to which I had taken a bearing when twenty-five miles to
the S.W., I encamped on the bank of a narrow creek, furnishing
plenty of water, and upon a patch of the finest meadow pasturage
I have seen in New South Wales.

" Here I gave my wearied horses two days' rest, some having
been reduced to a state of extreme debility, and all having
suffered considerably in condition by the severity of the journey
from Liverpool Plains.

" Whilst, therefore, they were recovering a degree of
strength, by rest and good sound pasture, I was busily engaged
examining the dark brushes which clothed the adjacent mountain
from its base to its very summit, the vegetation of which appeared
altogether tropical.

"The morning of the 8th proving exceedingly fine, I set out
from the encampment, accompanied by one of my party, to
ascend the table mount above our tents, from the elevated summit
of which I had promised myself an extensive prospect around.
After pushing our way through a mass of dense thicket investing
tlie foot and flank of this eminence, we gained an open spot on
its flat summit in about two hours, and were gratified exceedingly
by the extensive view afforded us of the country from north by
the way of west, and thence to S. and S.S.E. to the more
remarkable points of which bearings were taken.

The Plains of Darling Downs. 109

" At N.N.W., and especially at N., the country presented a
broken and irregular surface, forming a series of heavily timbered
ridges, extending laterally from the more elevated chain of
mountains immediately to the eastward, and which, stretchin<y in
the direction of the meridian, appeared to constitute the main or
dividing range of this part of the interior.

" From the N.W. to west, and thence to south, the eye
surveyed a vast expanse of open country, tame and uninteresting
in the distance, but exhibiting within a range of twenty miles
every feature of hill and dale, woodland and plain, to diversify
the ample outstretched landscape.

" Large cleared patches of land lying to the north of Darling
Downs were named Peel's Plains, whilst others, bearing to the
S. and S.E. of my ample undulated surface, were entitled Canning
Downs, in honour of the late Right Hon. George Canning. The
extent of these downs easterly we were unable from the point on
which we stood to observe, but on the south they were bounded
by a lofty ridge of hills, lying nearly east and west, which was
named Harris Range.

" Directing the view to the N.W. beyond Peel's Plains an
immeasurable expanse of flat country met the eye, on which not
the slightest eminence could be observed to interrupt the common
level, which, in consequence of the very clear state of the
atmosphere, could be discerned to a very distant blue line of
horizon, verging on the parallel of 27 deg. and meridian of
151 deg.

" Extremely gratifying as it was to take a bird's eye survey
of so extensive a range of pastoral country as appeared beneath
us (the discovery of which had recompensed us for the privations
we had met with in our journey, extending by admeasurement
three hundred and forty statute miles from Hunter's river),
still the question arose in my mind from what point so fine a
country could be approached, seeing that at E. and N.E., in
the direction of Moreton Bay, a very lofty range of mountains
immediately bounding us constituted a barrier very difficult to
be passed.

"As all observation easterly towards the coast-line was
thus prevented, we descended to the tents, heavy weather
having come on from the north.

" This flat-topped eminence, which I observed formed the
north-western angle of a body of lateral hills, extending from

no Genesis of Queensland.

the leading range of these mountains, was named Mount
Dumaresq, and along its northern side a grassy valley, stretching
from the Great Downs north-easterly to the immediate foot of
the main range, received the appellation of Millar's Valley.

" Rain having set in, it continued almost without inter-
mission for forty-eight hours, until the morning of the loth inst.,
when fair weather was again restored to us, and we quitted our
encamping ground with the intention of penetrating towards the
higher points of these mountains, from the summits of which I
expected to obtain bearings to fixed points on the coast, so
extremely important to me at this stage of my journey. Pursu-
ing a course to the south at the base of a thickly-wooded ridge,
stretching from Mount Dumaresq, about four miles to a second
hill of tabular figure, we passed round its foot, and altering our
course to north-east entered a very beautiful grassy vale,
bounded by lofty lateral ridges, and like Millar's Valley, leading
directly to the base of the principal range.

" Advancing about five miles up this vale, which I named
after Captain Logan, the present Indefatigable commandant of
the penal settlement at Moreton Bay, I again halted on a small
brook meandering through to the south — a remarkable double-
headed mount of the main range, bearing N.E. by E. about
ten miles. Dense brushy forests, clothing the bases of the
lateral ridges immediately overlooking our encampment, were
productive of a number of curious plants not before known ; and
it was in these shades I first clearly and satisfactorily recognized
the pine (araucaria) which I had formerly observed in greater
numbers in the dark brushes of the Brisbane River.

" As the ridges in the neighbourhood appeared likely from
their considerable elevation to afford me a commanding view of
the country at all points of the compass, I determined to occupy
two or three days in this vale, taking such observations as were
necessary to enable me to determine my present position on the
chart, whilst my horses were acquiring a degree of strength to
meet the further labours of my journey.

" I ith. A sharp frost ; the thermometer at seven o'clock
sank to 30 degrees. Having directed the occupations of the
people during the day, I proceeded (accompanied by one of my
party) to climb the steep ridge immediately above us. In an
hour we gained its summit, but found other ranges not to be
seen from our tents, although of greater elevation, interrupted

First Peep at the "Pass."

1 1 1

our view to the eastward ; we continued upon a gradual ascent
from one tier of ranges to another and generally in a north-
eastern direction, until about 3 p.m., when we gained the
loftiest point of the lateral range, immediately connected with
the main ridge of this stupendous chain of mountains, which
even towered above us at a distance of about two miles.

" Some hollow parts, however, of this extreme ridge enabled
me to overlook portions of the country in the vicinity of Moreton
Bay, as also most distinctly to perceive distant lands situate at
the base of the Mount Warning Ranges, the cone of which we
clearly saw crowning that group of mountains at an estimated
distance of seventy-six miles. To this lofty pinnacle, as also to
another fixed point near the coast-line, accurate bearings were
taken, ere some fresh breezes brought up clouds and heavy rain
from the southward, which soon veiled those extensive reo-ions
from further observation.

" The cone of Mount Warning bore east 9 degrees south
seventy miles by estimation ; High Peak, of Flinders' chart,
north 50 degrees east, about twenty-five miles. The spot on
which the tents stood in Logan Vale, bearing west 44 deo-rees
south about five miles.

" Had the weather continued favourable it would have been
important to have examined the main range, with the view of
ascertaining how far a passage could be effected over it
to the Brisbane river country, from which point only the very
interesting pastoral country lying on the western side of
these mountains appears at all accessible. A very singular
deeply excavated part of the range, bearing from my station
on the lateral ridge N.N.E. was, however, remarked, to the
pitch of which the acclivity from the head of Millar's Valley
seemed very moderate, and as this gap appeared likely to
prove on examination a very practicable pass through
these formidable mountains, I determined to employ a day in
exploring it.

" These mountains, to the western base of which we
approached from a sterile southern region, form the dividing
range in this part of the country, and give rise to waters falling
as well on the coast, as westerly to the distant interior ; and as
the barometrical observations made on the lateral range gave a
result of three thousand seven hundred and thirty-five feet, and
the extreme ridge appeared at least three hundred feet higher.

112 Genesis of Queensland.

its elevation above the level of the sea may be considered
about four thousand one hundred feet.

" The forest ridges, which were heavily timbered with
stringy bark of great bulk, were found clothed to their summits
with grasses of the most luxuriant growth, and being well
watered by numerous trickling rills, originating between the
shoulders of the hills, constitute a very spacious range of the
richest cattle pasture.

" Upon examining the hollow back of the mountain ridge, it
was found to be very rugged and difficult, large masses of rock
having fallen down from the lands on each side into the gap,
which was overgrown with strong twining plants. Immediately
to the south, however, the range presented a very moderate sur-
face, over which a line of road might be constructed without
much labour, as the rise from Millar's Valley proved by no means
abrupt, and the fall easterly from the range to the forest ground
at its base appeared of singularly easy declivity. Looking north-
easterly the eye wandered with pleasure over a fine open grazmg
country, very moderately timbered, with patches of clear plain,
and detached wooded ridges to diversify the surface ; and in no
j)art did there appear the slightest obstacle to prevent a com-
munication either with the southern shores of Moreton Bay or
the banks of the Brisbane river.

" In taking a general view of the very superior country at
which the labours of my party terminated northerly, it was
gratifying to observe the range of luxuriant pasturage,^" this
subject of our discovery, in its plains, rising downs, open wood-
lands, valleys, and even elevated forest ranges has thrown open
to our most extensive flocks and herds, in a genial climate and
at an elevation of one thousand eight hundred feet above the
sea shore.

" Its timbers, moreover, add to its importance. The summit
and flanks of the ranges produce great abundance of well-grown
stringy-bark, whilst the lower ridges furnish stately pine of the
species already well-known on the Brisbane, varying from sixty
to eighty feet in height, and as small saplings of the red cedar

* The vapours that rise from the surface of the sea upon being blown over bv
easterly winds to the higher points of these mountains, becoming condensed and
falling in light refreshing showers, on the adjacent lower country, would seem to
account for the bright verdure of the grasses and generally vigorous growth of
vegetation in the depth of winter.

Lone Land. 1 1^

were observed on the margin of the brushes investing the base
of the hills large trees of this valuable wood are doubtless to be
met with in their more distant recesses. Although neither coal
nor limestone were found in this tract of country, a quarry of
freestone, seemingly well adapted to building, could be easily
opened on the bank of a creek about two miles south of the
Logan Vale. In fine, upon the consideration that we are occupy-
ing a country in which (in the absence of navigable rivers) an
expensive land carriage must ever be resorted to in the con-
veyance of produce of the inland to the coast, the value of this
extensive range of pastoral country is not a little enhanced by
its proximity to the sea shore, and the seeming facility with
which (we may reasonably conclude from the moderate
appearance of the interjacent country to the eastward of these
mountains) the fleeces of its growth, as well as the general
produce of its soil, will at some future time be borne down to
the shores of Moreton Bay. The base of these mountains
is a compact whinstone ; on the higher ridges was observed
amygdaloid of the trap formation, with nodules of quartz ; whilst
the summit exhibited a porphyritic rock, very porous, containing
numerous minute quartzose crystallizations.

" The situation of the tents in Logan Vale was determined
as follows : — latitude, by meridional altitude of the sun, 28 deg.
10 min. 45 sec. S. ; longitude, deduced by the mean of several
sets of lunar distances with the sun and fixed star (Antares)
compared with that given by account, and corrected by bearings
taken to fixed points on or near the coast line, 152 deg. 7 min.
45 sec. E. The variation of the magnetic needle was found to
be 8 deg. 18 min. east ; the mean elevation of the spot above the
level of the sea, as derived from barometrical measurement, was
one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven feet, and its
distance from the penal settlement on the Brisbane river was
estimated at seventy-five statute miles to the south-west.

" Although very recent traces of natives were remarked in
different parts of the vale, in which we remained encamped
about a week, only a solitary aborigine (a man of ordinary
stature) was seen, who in wandering forth from his retreat in
quest of food chanced to pass the tents.

" Immediately, however, upon an attempt of one ot my
people to approach him, he retired in great alarm to the adjacent
brushes, at the foot of the boundary hills, and instantly

114 Genesis of Queensland.

disappeared. It therefore seemed probable that he had not
previously seen white men, and possibly might never have had
any communication with the natives inhabiting the country on
the eastern side of the Dividing Range, from whom he could
have acquired such information of the existence of a body of
white strangers on the banks of the Brisbane, and their friendly
disposition towards his countrymen as might have induced him
to have met with confidence our overtures to effect an amicable
communication. In the progress of our journey northerly, it
was remarked that the plants of those portions of the interior
lying between the parallels of 32 deg. and 28 deg. differ but
little from the characteristic vegetation of the temperate parts of
this country generally — the many unpublished species which
were discovered in the course of the journey, belonging for the
most part to genera, characterising the flora of the colony and
country immediately adjacent. Upon reaching the parallel of
28 deg. S., however, under the meridian of 152 deg., a very
decided change takes place in the vegetable productions ; the
brushes which densely invest the base and sides of the lateral
ranges, being on examination found to be of plants hitherto only
observed at Moreton Bay, and in the intertropical parts of this
continent.

" As I had now occupied several days in a partial examina-
tion of the very interesting country around me, I became
exceedingly desirous to resume my journey. As my horses,
notwithstanding the benefit they had derived from rest and good
pasture during our stay in Logan Vale, were all much debilitated,
and my stock of provisions considerably reduced, I felt
reluctantly compelled to relinquish the tour I had originally
contemplated towards the western marshes, especially as the
appearances of the weather at the change of the moon had led
me to apprehend a period of heavy rain was about to succeed
the protracted season of drought. I therefore determined to
prosecute my journey homeward in the meridian (152 deg.) to
which I had penetrated, with as much dispatch as the nature of
the country and the low condition of my horses would permit.
Moreover, on resolving on this line of course, I considered I
should ascertain what the country is lying equi-distant between
the coast line and my outward tract from Hunter's river, and
upon my daily observations, geographical and otherwise, should
on my return to the colony be more fully enabled to embody the

Au Revoir. 115

chart of that part of our interior comprehended within the
parallels of 28 deg. and 31 deg.

" Accordingly upon quitting Logan Vale, on the morning of
the 1 6th, we commenced our journey to the southward through
a fine open forest country, abounding in excellent pasture and
tolerable timber, and watered by a reedy creek falling westerly,
evidently into Condamine's river. In about nine miles we
reached the north-eastern skirts of Canning Downs, which, in
pursuing our course to the south, we crossed at a part where
their breadth to the opposite margin did not exceed two miles.
These downs, however, the extent of which could not be
estimated, as only a limited portion of them could be seen whilst
traversing their undulated surface, stretched several miles to the
westward of our line of route, and throughout this length are
watered by a deep channeled brook, originating in the dividing
range to the eastward, which ultimately forms one of the
branches of Condamine's river. Towards the close of the day,
having continued my journey to the south, through a heavily
timbered forest of box, gum and casuarina (oak), but slightly
elevated above the mean level of the downs, which were found
by barometrical measurement to be fifteen hundred feet above
the sea shore, I was induced to rest my horses at a chain of
small ponds, furnishing some tolerable grass on their edge,
having made a stage of fifteen miles from Logan Vale. The
observations made on the following day (Sunday) at the
encampment, placed us on the chart in latitude 28 deg. 21 min.
17 sec. S., longitude 152 deg. o'2 min. E., an azimuth giving us
6 deg. 8 min. easterly variation.

" Early on the morning of the i8th we again set out on our
journey to the southward, and immediately on quitting the dry
forest ground, came upon a marshy plain, which appeared to
extend several miles to the S.E., having a deep swamp oak
creek winding through its centre from the towering ranges
immediately on our left. Passing this creek with some difficulty
we pursued our course to the S.S.E., through an undulated rising
forest of iron bark and red gum, in many parts of which we
remarked the traces of natives, of, however, no recent date.
Penetrating about six miles through a singularly uninteresting
tract of wooded land, productive of diminutive timber, we at
length perceived before us a broken and mountainous country,
and around us a change of geological structure to a formation

ii6 Genesis of Queensland.

not previously met with in any stage of our journey. The rock
was a very hard granite, with the quartz, which was remarked
greatly to preponderate, unusually large.

" Finding abundance of water in a stony gully, the tents
were set up in a sandy spot shown by the barometer to be
elevated about three hundred and fifty feet above Canning
Downs. During the 19th and 20th June we prosecuted our
journey among a group of primitive mountains, which appeared
to expand before us into lofty precipitous ranges, extending far
to the southward. Immediately on quitting our encamping
ground on the morning of the igth, we descended between large
isolated blocks of granite, to the channel of a small rivulet
flowing over a pavement of the same formation with a rapidity
that clearly demonstrated a very considerable dip of its bed
towards a deep ravine, the bendings of which we could distinctly
trace southerly among the mountains. Crossing this stream, our
course led us again to its bend, among the undulations of the
rocky surface of the valley through which it urged its rapid
course, and having a second time forded it with great difficulty
to the horses, I directed my course to the hills immediately
bounding the vale to the eastward. Again we were interrupted
in our progress by a narrow but deep creek of turbid water,
flowing from that point to the brook. Finding it was impossible
to cross its channel, we were obliged to seek a practicable ford
in the rocky bed of the brook, which, a third time passing, we
climbed the lofty forest hills on the western side, and having
gained their extreme ridge, we found the travelling through a
forest of large stringy bark remarkably easy. My horses had,
however, laboured hard among the hills in the earlier periods of
the day : I was, therefore, glad to rest them about four o'clock,
at a rill of water we had discovered falling over some granite
rocks into the glen beneath.

"On the following morning intending to pursue our course
to the southward throughout the day as far as the acclivity of
the hills among which we had penetrated would allow the horses
to travel, we resumed our journey. After traversing a succession
of forest ridges, of comparatively easy acclivity, about seven
miles, a bold mountainous country appeared before us, extending
from S.E. by the way of S. to W.S.W. At noon, when our
latitude by observation was 28 deg. 35 min. 30 sec. S., we had
gained a commanding point on a range exceeding two thousand

Parting Tears. nj

five hundred feet above the sea shore, whence a clear and
extensive view of a curiously irregularly featured country to the
eastward was afforded me.

" In that direction bearings were taken to some very
remarkable detached cupola shaped mountains, distant from
fifteen to twenty miles, and beyond these singular eminences a
moderately undulated tract of open country was perceived
extending apparently to the western foot of the Mount Warning
Ranges, the faint blue outline of which could be distinctly traced,
although its very elevated cone (which was probably enveloped
in clouds) was not discernible. Continuing on the back of the
range in a south-westerly direction another mile, I was obliged
to close the labours of the day at an early hour, as the horses,
having been pushed beyond their strength, were sinking beneath
their burdens, amidst the difficulties of a brushy underwood, with
which parts of these elevated ridges were found most denselv
clothed. At the close of the day, the mercurial column had sunk
lower at this encampment than had been observed at any other
station of the journey, since we passed the dividing range at
Hunter^s river. The data it furnished on being computed gave
a mean elevation of two thousand five hundred and ninety-two
feet above the sea shore, which at Cape Byron bore as deduced
by the observed latitude at noon E. 5 deg. N. true, ninety-three
statute miles. At this elevated encampment on the range we
were confined to our tents by continued rains, during the three
following days, and although our detention on the summit of a
ridge of mountains, surrounded by difficulties, was exceedingly
unpleasant to us, it was nevertheless a relief to me to observe
our horses had acquired great freshness and activity by the rest
our stay had afforded them, and the excellent grazing these
elevated regions furnished. The wind having veered round from
the eastward to the W.N.W., on the evening of the 23rd the
weather broke, and a clear sky succeeded ; at night, however,
clouds again rose from eastward, and rain fell in heavy showers,
continuing until about midnight, when the wind again shifting to
the westward and blowing almost a gale, the water-charged
clouds, which were suspended over the mountains, were drawn
back to the coast, and established fine, and settled weather
followed. We therefore, on the morning of the 24th, most gladly
broke up our encampment, proceeding in the first instance about
half a mile to the E.S.E., in order to cross a brook in the

ii8 Genesis of Queensland.

neighbourhood. This stream we found exceedingly swollen and
rapid, by the waters that it had collected from the higher grounds
during the late rains ; we, however, forded it without difficulty,
and leaving it to tumble its accumulated waters over large
blocks of granite into the bosom of a neighbouring glen,
we proceeded our journey southerly, over a succession of
lofty ranges heavily timbered with gums, beneath the shade
of which fern and underwood were interspersed, rendering
the travelling exceedingly harrassing to my horses. Upon
gaining a greater elevation, we passed from these shaded
forests to open scrubs, and spongy swamps overflowed by late
rains, which, in aspect, were very similar to those of our Blue
Mountain ranges, and the plants, although the rock was granite,
were for the most part of alike description. At noon of the 25th,
I found the latitude of a bleak barren spot upon these mountains,
two thousand nine hundred and nine feet above the level of the
ocean, to be 26 deg. 44 min. 48 sec. S.; its longitude, reduced
from the meridian of Logan Vale, being about 151 deg, 58 min.
45 sec. E. From this point we continued our journey about five
miles, nearly on the same level, and over equally barren ground,
when, upon descending slightly in a swampy valley, the tents
were again set up ; our barometer at sunset showing us that we
were on a level but a few feet lower than our station at noon.

" 26th. At an early hour we proceeded to leave this
marshy valley, southerly, with some expectation of its leading
to a more open and moderately-surfaced country in that
direction. We had, however, scarcely advanced five miles ere
a most wild chaotic-featured region effectually stopped our
progress to the southward. Large detached masses of granite,
of almost every shape and figure,^ studded the foreground of

* It appeared at first difficult to understand how those detached blocks of
granite were originally formed, of which some presented immense spheroidal
figures ; others, those of water-worn boulders, whilst here and there stood one
Cnine-pin shaped) so nicely poised on its small base, that the traveller might be
induced to suppose that it would have required but his individual effort to have upset
its equilibrium. It may be conceived that these rounded masses, and the rock
on which they rest, were at one period united in one body ; that by the incessant
operation of the elements upon this body during ages, it had become cracked
through, and its scattered fragments had formed various figures. Of these, some
may have become disunited in a solid angular form from the mountain masses,
and in time might have their angles cut off by atmospheric attrition, and thus it
probably is, that to the constant action of the elements, the various curious
appearances of rocks in the valleys of mountainous countries are to be attributed.

A Cul-de-sac. ug

the romantic scene that suddenly burst on the view at the head
of this vale, and beyond, a deep ravine formed a crescent, from
E. to S.E., which, it was perceived, was itself backed by a
rugged range, the rocky point of which appeared at least two
hundred and fifty feet in height above the level of the valley.

" Upon ascending a stony head, which commanded a con-
siderable view around us, I remarked that this rocky broken
country extended from E. to S. and thence by W. to N.N.W.,
but that at N. there appeared an apparent opening, by which it
was probable we should be enabled, without much distress to our
horses, to extricate ourselves from the labyrinth of difficult
precipitous country around us. A stream of fine water,
originating in a neighbouring rocky ridge, and running through
a valley tending towards this apparent break of the ranges, led
me to follow it, and in about eight miles, having passed round
the northern extremity of a lofty ridge, we shaped a course to
the westward, southerly, through a brushy, barren forest,
producing small timber of stringy bark, honeysuckle, and
cypress, and exhibiting in various parts numerous and very
recent traces of natives. Towards the close of the afternoon of
the 27th, having continued our course to the W.S.W., we
descended to an open level valley, bounded on the west by
forest hills, very thickly timbered, and apparently grassy to
their summits. In this confined valley we met with a small
rivulet, rising evidently in the elevated rugged country we had
left, and winding its course to the N.W. This stream, we
immediately perceived, could be none other than Macintyre's
B rook, which was discovered in the progress of my journey
northerly, in a sterile country, at so low a level as eight hundred
feet.

" The very considerable declination of the country lying
between this valley and that barren region (distant to the
westward only sixty miles) was shown by our barometer,
which, at the spot at which we again encamped, gave its mean
height above the ocean two thousand two hundred and fifty-four
feet.

" 28th. On the southern and western sides of the valley
ranges of forest hills rose to an elevation of three hundred feet,
but as they were very thinly wooded, and appeared generally
grassy, I apprehended no difficulty in passing them in our route
to the south.

120 Genesis of Queensland.

" Fording Macintyre's Brook, therefore, we succeeded without
difficulty in accomplishing about seven miles along a continuation
of the valley, when we reached the base of the forest ridge
bounding it at S.W., which ascending, we found exceedingly
rugged and stony.

•'During other five miles of the day's journey we were
occupied in climbing from one range of hills to another, when
on descending to a narrow valley providing both grass and water,
1 halted at an early hour of the day, several of the heavier laden
horses whose feet had suffered much from the rugged nature of
the ground, requiring to be reshod.

"Our latitude at noon (28 deg. 55 min.) showed us we were
progressively making our way to the southward, and our
barometer gave us three hundred and thirty feet of elevation
above our morning's encampment on Macintyre's Brook.

" About an hour before sunrise on the morning of the 29th
the chill of the atmosphere was felt much more intense than we
had previously experienced at any period of our journey. The
thermometer had sunk to 25 degrees of Fahrenheit, and ice to the
thickness of a quarter of an inch crusted the surface of stagnant
pools in the neighbouring water course.

"Encouraged more by the hope of passing to the southward
of the parallel 29 deg. at an early hour of the day, than by the
appearance of the country before us, we quitted our encamping
ground at sunrise, pursuing our journey to the south about five
miles to some low wooded ridges of barren stony character. From
the summit we beheld a very broken hummocky and in part
mountainous country immediately investing us at S.E., and
south, whilst at S.S.W. and West a succession of rather lofty
forest ridges met the eye. Another mile over a very broken
surface brought us to the edge of a deep glen at least one
hundred yards wide, with perpendicular rocky wall-like sides —
which extending from the eastward to the west as far as could
be perceived, from the spot at which it was intersected, appeared
to cut off communication with the country south of it.

"Skirting this formidable ravine to the N.W. about a mile,
a moderate declivity was fortunately discovered, by which the
pack horses were conducted safely to the bottom of the glen,
when we found a river, about forty yards in breadth, pursuing
its course to the westward, over a very rocky bed. Our latitude
derived from observation taken at noon on the upper edge of

Glen Gambols.

121

the ravine, was 28 deg. 59 min. 56 sec. S., which is nearly the
parallel of our encampment on the 27th May ; and upon
setting up the barometer, on the margin of the Glen river, the
bottom of this ravine was found to be one thousand and
ninety-four feet lower than the site of our last encampment
in the valley.* The passages over the river having been
effected with some difficulty and with some danger to the
horses, in consequence of the extremely rocky and irregular
character of its bed, we climbed by an easy acclivity the hills on
the southern side of the glen on the morning of the 30th, and
then resumed our course to the S.W., over a succession of
elevated ridges and barren valleys, timbered chieflv with small
iron-bark.

" At our sixth mile we descended from the hills to a valley
of considerable extent, which was found watered by a fine river,
exceeding fifty yards in breadth, abounding in water fowl and
running sluggishly to the westward. Crossing this stream at a
pebbly fall, to its left bank, I again called a halt ; and, as the
grazing around us, and particularly on the margin of the river,
was excellent, I determined to afford my horses, all of whom
exhibited debility in a greater or less degree, an entire day's
rest.

" This stream, which rises in the granite mountains, situate
to the N.E., at an elevation bordering on three thousand feet, we
immediately identified (from its magnitude and tendency) with
Dumaresq's river, which we discovered in our outward journey
upwards of fifty miles to the westward, where the mean elevation
of the interior watered by it was ascertained in May last to be
eight hundred and forty feet above the seashore.

" The observations made at this encampment on Dumaresq's
river fixed its situation on the chart as follows : latitude, 29 deg.
I min. 14 sec. S. ; longitude, 151 deg. 31 min. 30 sec. The
variation of the magnetic needle was 8 deg. 26 min E., and the
mean height above the level of the sea one thousand and forty
feet.t

* The mean height of this valley above the seashore by the barometer to be
two thousand five hundred and eighty-seven feet ; the mean elevation of the bed
of the glen proved to be one thousand four hundred and three feet.

f The results of barometrical measurement gave two hundred feet as the
difference of level of the two points at which the channel of Dumaresq's river was
intersected in this journey; the gradual fall of the interjacent country is therefore
clearly shown.

122 Genesis of Queensland.

" As the hills bounding the valley on its southern side were
by far too lofty and broken to permit me (in the state of debility
to which my horses were reduced) to pursue a direct course
homeward, I determined upon tracing the vale westerly a limited
distance, being encouraged to hope from the aspect of the
country in that direction (as observed from a hill immediately
above our tents) that in a few miles the ridge would be found
sufficiently moderate to allow me to pursue my journey to the
southward without interruption.

" With these views we resumed our labours on the morning
of the 2nd July along the left bank of the river, which, in its
course to the N.W., through the vale, waters some fine flats,
timbered with robust apple trees, and furnishing a considerable
patch of fine cattle pasture. In about three miles a stream,
flowing from the north through a break in the mountainous lands
at that bearing, falls into the river, which at length, bending to
the S.W., assumes in its increased breadth more regular depth
and frequent length of its reaches, a character fully entitling it to
be considered equal in magnitude to any of the rivers hitherto
discovered interiorly. The valley continues in a south-westerly
direction about seventeen miles, and thereabouts fine grassy flats
extend along the banks of the river, on which were remarked
blue gums of very large dimensions. The banks themselves are
in some parts quite perpendicular, from ten to fifteen feet in
height, and of a red-coloured clay ; and where this character
occurred the breadth of the river (we remarked) exceeded one
hundred yards, was evidently of considerable depth, and teeming
with fish of the western waters, particularly that species denomi-
nated * cod,' of which several were caught weighing from ten to
fifteen pounds. Several emus were observed on the lower flats
of the river, but our dogs, who had run many hundred miles in
the course of this journey, in pursuit of a daily fresh meal for us,
were too much reduced in strength to maintain a long, chase ;
they, nevertheless, killed one of those gigantic birds, an old male
of great bulk, having the feathers of the back nearly black.

" At length, observing the valley to take a decided bend to
the north-west I left it and the river altogether, with the intention
of directing my course to the south-west ; however, upon pass-
ing some low forest ridges in that direction, to a patch of plain
(the latitude of which I ascertained to be 29 deg. 12 min. S.), a
lofty, broken, and exceedingly rocky country again appeared,

Anderson. — Burr ell. 123

extending from S.E. to S.W. We were therefore obliged to
direct our steps once more to the north-west, and after traversing
a succession of barren wooded ranges about five miles, we
descended upon a thinly timbered forest country, through which
we continued our journey without difficulty to the southward.

" In no part of this lengthened journey were the proofs of
the long drought, that had prevailed in the interior, more
manifest than in these lonely woods, the soil of which was
remarked to be, for the most part, a cold, hungry clay, seemingly
incapable of producing good grass or esculent herbage at any
season. In many parts of an extent of country, exceeding four-
teen miles, the ground (on which were interspersed small
patches of brushwood, scarcely in a state of existence) was rent
by the sun into wide chasms, and the several pebbly channels
that were intersected in the progress of the expedition, and
which doubtless in ordinary seasons contain water, had evidently
been dried up many months.

" Onward, however, to the southward and westward, we
crossed, on the afternoon of the 5th, a stream about fifteen
yards in breadth, having a current to the westward, to which in
passing I gave the name of Anderson's Brook, in compliment to
my very respectable friend, of the medical staff of the colony.
Beyond this stream a singular sameness of character prevails
throughout the forest ground for about three miles, when the
timbers progressively became larger and of more regular
growth.

"At noon of this day (5th) our latitude was 29 deg. 24 min.
0'9 sec. S., and at its close, having effected a long and tedious
stage, we rested ourselves on a well-watered patch of tolerable
grass. Our barometer showed us that we had travelled during
the whole of the day on nearly a plain surface, the differ-
ence of level in about fourteen miles being found to be only
seventy-five feet.

" Pursuing our way to the westward, southerly, on the
morning of the 6th, through an open space about three miles, we
reached the right bank of a deep river, in breadth about thirty
yards, and tending to the N.W.

" This river, which originates in the mountainous country at
N.N.E. and bore evident signs of being a channel by which vast
bodies of water are carried off to the interior, exhibited at this
season little other than a chain of large canal-like ponds,

124 Genesis of Queensland.

separated from each other by shallows of the gravel of which its
upper banks were formed. Upon these it was remarked large
bodies of drift-wood had been deposited by those considerable
floods which, it was evident, rise in seasons of prolonged rains
to the perpendicular height of thirty feet above the low level at
which we noticed it. This water, which was named Burrell
river, is doubtless augmented by Anderson's Brook a few miles
further to the westward, and eventually it falls into Peel's river.
South-easterly from Burrell's river, the travelling continued
excellent for about twelve miles, the country being a gently
rising open forest, productive of timbers of a large dimension,
In passing the eastern extremity of a cypress ridge granite was
again observed, in large blocks, and towards the termination of
our day's stage masses of granulated quartz were strewed in
various parts of the forest ground. From a spot somewhere to the
southward of Burrell river (situate on the chart in lat. 29 deg. 27
min. 15 sec. S., and long. 151 deg. 0-2 min E.) I had an extensive
view of the line of country lying east towards Shoal Bay.'^

"Of the capabilities of this indentation of our coast line,
which was discovered and partly examined by Captain Flinders
in 1799, but little is known, as it appears not to be visited by
vessels, because probably its title may have induced those
passing to entertain an unfavorable opinion of it. If, however,
the country environing its shores should be discovered upon
further examination to be well watered and sufficiently capable
of improvement by cultivation to induce the Government at any
future period to colonise it, it will be interesting to know that
upon passing any hills that may be in the neighbourhood of the
coast, there exist in all probability no obstacles to prevent a
ready and direct communication with the western interior, since
upon taking a survey of the country at east, from the rising
ground in the vicinity of Burrell river, which its elevation of
sixteen hundred feet above the sea shore enabled me to do to a
distance little short of seventy miles, the land, although fully
timbered, appeared open, of a gently undulated surface, and
seemingly of a very gradual fall towards the coast."

* The entrance of Shoal Bay, which lies equidistant from the settlements of
Port Macquarie and Moreton Bay, is placed by navigation in latitude 29 deg.
26 min. 30 sec. S., and longitude 155 deg. 21 min. 15 sec. E. The distance,
therefore, of Burrell river directly west from its shore is estimated about one
hundred and thirty-five statute miles.

The Peri at the Gate. 12c

Latitude, south 29 deg. 27 min. 15 sec! ! Standing here
Cunningham could cast a glad glance back upon his achievement.
He was wont, his own quiet words show, to weigh the Future in
scales with the Past and Present. His own planting had borne
early fruit : what might not the coming hour? He did not know
that by patient hand of duty to his country, king, and ruling
passion, he had lifted a small corner of a veil which was draping
the imperishable effigy of a name and fame to which the
sovereign people of his own race would one day testify in
unexampled loyalty bred of love.

But he was now retreating from the borders within which
he had just stirred the slumbering Lady of the Manor of Darling
Downs. No need to carry him back in triumph over homeward
bound space again ! The laurel of his hopes, which he had yet
to win and wear, dangled before his eyes all the way to
expectant Sydney. The crown of his efforts was not yet grasped
however. Away again to the northern fastnesses ! With his
back to the sun setting over thousands of miles of western
solitudes, he had had one glance through the prison-bars of that
defiant range, in eagerness towards the only dwelling of his own
countrymen — Moreton Bay ; gazing from the rugged rampart
to where,

" The long mountains ended in a coast
Of ever shifting sand, and far away
The phantom circle of a moaning sea,"

but not hopeless of shaping a key for opening the grim portals
through which — strange to say ! — freedom should in her
appointed course go forth to beat down those within which chain-
ganged guilt and wailing worthlessness were wearily writhing
their way out of woe, the depths beneath had baffled the skill of
his sight. He must now woo the eastern beams to light up the
ladder of escape from that mountain citadel ; he must scale the
ramparts from which he dared not leap before winning the mural
garland.

The gladness of Cunningham's life was the pursuit of
mysteries yet hidden by the coy hand of nature. He could
never feel solitude in the bush. The silent majesty of the
language which claimed his homage round him, above him,
beneath him must have been to his skilled and practised sense an
unceasing harmony of appeal. Not even within the secret

126 Genesis of Queensland.

Bathurst cave, to which we have known him retreat to consult
with his Egeria, were their voices not heard — and what has
been his reply ?

" I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me ; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities. Torture."

CHAPTER VII

Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem
Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat. — Horace.

From the end of the month of July, 1828, Cunningham,
Captain Logan, commandant at the penal settlement, and
Fraser, the Colonial Botanist, were busy in their examination of
the country south of Brisbane, the valley of the Logan, and as
far as the Mount Warning ranges ; ascended Mount Lindesay,
and after a fruitless attempt to break through the ragged and
brushy country westerly, towards the gap in the dividing range,
which Cunningham had approached from the west last year,
returned to Limestone "Station" on the 12th of August. His
friends having retired to head-quarters, Cunningham resumed
his labour, directed towards the purpose on which he was bent.
To a Queenslander's eye his journal, therefore, resumes its
special position of interest. He now links together the two
ends of the chain which he had drawn towards each other from
the south, by sea and land.

" Copy Transmitted with Lieutenant-General Darling's
Despatch, No. 25, Dated 24TH February, 1829.

"Parramatta, i6th December, 1828.

"At this period of the colony, when the tide of emigration
appears more decided and directed to its shores than heretofore,
the importance of the discovery (by the party forming the
expedition which your Excellency was pleased last year to place
under my direction) of an extensive tract of fine pasturage at
the western base of the dividing range of mountains lying in the
parallel of 28 deg. S. latitude, at, moreover, but a short distance
from the shores of Moreton Bay, becomes enhanced in no
ordinary degree.

"The considerable tracts, however, of very inferior land and
absolute desert, so characteristic of no small portion of the
interior lying between Hunter's river and the beautiful pastoral
country above referred to, through which my exploring party
penetrated amidst numerous difficulties, a distance bordering on
three hundred miles, presenting a barrier to all communication

128 Genesis of Queensland.

by the farmer with it overland from the southward, at once
suggested to me the necessity of endeavouring to discover from
what other point near the sea coast it could be more readily
approached, to be fully available to the grazier. Its separation
from the coast-line and interesting country lying on the Brisbane
river, by the lofty dividing range, the summit of which has been
estimated to exceed four thousand feet of absolute height above
the level of the sea, appeared at first to hold out no encourage-
ment to the explorer to examine that formidable barrier with the
slightest hope of discovering a passage over it to the shores of
Moreton Bay, or country lying to the north and east.

"Notwithstanding, at the head of a valley, stretchingdirectly
into the midst of this chain of mountains in a north-east
direction, a gap, or hollow in the main ridge, was discerned last
year, by which it was then conceived a communication might be
effected with the \exrf moderately surfaced lands lying between
the eastern foot of these mountains and the sea.

"Many circumstances, however, to which myself and my party
were entirely subjected at that period did not allow of this
mountain defile being otherwise than very partially looked at,
and considering that it could be more fully and leisurely
explored from the eastern side, its further end, more particular
examination was reserved to the period of a visit which I then
contemplated making at some future day by sea to Moreton Bay.

" That period at length arrived last winter, and it is the
general result of my excursion in the country lying southerly
from the Brisbane river, upon which I have now the honour to
address your Excellency.

"The occupationsof Mr.Fraser, the Colonial Botanist (whom,
vour Excellency was pleased to permit to accompany me to
Moreton Bay) and myself, for some period after our arrival at
that settlement upon the Brisbane, investigating those extremely
interesting vegetable productions, which so highly invest the
banks of that river, did not permit me to prepare for a journey
suggested by the excellent commandant, Captain Logan, towards
the Mount Warning Ranges, until nearing the end of the month
of July.

"With four weeks' provisions for eight persons, and accom-
panied by that gentleman and Mr. Eraser, I commenced (on the
24th of that month) my journey from the river's bank, opposite
the settlement, from which point a line of road had been marked

Cowper's Plains. — Canoe Creek. 129

about five miles in a southerly direction, towards some very
thinly and lightly-wooded lands known by the title of ' Cowper's
Plains,' to which salt water flows from the Brisbane river,
through the medium of Canoe creek of the late Mr. Oxley, the
clearing of which at its upper part of fallen timber, to render it
navigable (during the rise of the flood tide) for boats of burden
to the plains, which are said to contain two thousand or three
thousand acres of good available land, fit for agricultural
purposes, will doubtless be at some future period worth effecting.

"The country upon Avhich we entered from the bank of the
Brisbane we found to consist for the most part of rather heavily
timbered forest ground, of a slightly undulated surface,
productive of good grass, but (at that season) very indifferently
supplied with water. The timbers were chiefly of the prevailing
eucalyptus — viz., iron bark, white and red gums, with an
occasional interspersion of the casuarina, or forest oak, and a
tree affecting humid situations, the density of whose laurel-like
foliage cast a most agreeable shade around. It forms a species
of Mr. Brown's tristania genus, yet unpublished. In something
short of five miles, the marked track terminates at a fresh water
creek, from which, having rested the bullocks a short period, and
observed the altitude of the sun on the meridian, which gave
us for latitude 27 deg. 33 min. 3 sec. S., we resumed our
journey upon a course by compass, south, over the extensive
wooded flat, bearing marks of irrigation by rains in wet seasons,
Cowper's Plains lying about a mile to the westward of our line
of route.

" The weight of provisions and baggage borne by the pack
bullocks proving so considerable as to require constant care
not to push them in their daily stages beyond their strength, and
thereby defeat the designs so fully contemplated in the plan of
our journey, it was proposed to halt for the day, upon reaching
(at our seventh mile) Canoe creek, at a part of it sufficiently
distant from its point of connexion with the Brisbane, to afford
us an ample supply of fresh water. We therefore, on crossing
it, pitched our tents on the bank — our barometer at sunset
showing us that we were at so low a level that our elevation above
the sea shore was scarcely recognisable by the mercurial column.

" The country at south for about ten miles preserves a like
depressed surface, and may be characterised by an alternation
of tea-tree flats, exceedingly swampy in wet weather, and low

130 Genesis of Queensland.

hungry forest ground in which honeysuckles [Banksia coynpar of
botanists) are very generally interspersed. Continuing
southerly, however, the land improves, an undulation of the
surface takes place, and the soil becomes richer, furnishing some
tolerable patches of grass. In these forest grounds several dry
water-channels were crossed, and as these all dipped easterly,
we were led to conclude that we were approaching some stream,
the head of which we at length reached in latitude 27 deg.
48 min. \ S. It proved to be the Logan river, which after a
course of about twenty miles to the eastward, disembogues itself
on the southern shores of Moreton Bay. At the point at which
we crossed it, it assumed the character of a murmuring brook,
hastening with a brisk current towards the sea, about ten or
fifteen yards in breadth, and although fordable in many parts,
nevertheless bore upon its alluvial brushy banks the manifest
proof of being flooded, in seasons of protracted rain, to the
depth of twenty feet. Upon passing some ordinary forest
ground, where were observed some huts of natives that appeared
to have been recently occupied, we again intersected the
tortuous channel of this small river, which on being traced up
southerly about two miles was observed to take a bend from the
westward, in which direction the country appeared again
perfectly level, but so generally covered with ' viney brush' as
to form a jungle far too dense to allow of our attempting a
passage through it with our laden oxen, with the view of
avoiding an elevated rocky range of forest hills which now lay
in our way at south.

" By a stony lateral ridge we succeeded, beyond expectation
and without difficulty or accident, in gaining the summit of this
range, which declining to the westward southerly, induced us to
trace this ridge in that direction to the close of the day, when
we were obliged to halt on a part of the ridge destitute of water,
which, however, was discovered after a diligent search at the
foot of the range, distant about a mile.

" In tracing this range (to which was given the name of
Birnam) we penetrated some patches of brush which afforded
Mr. Fraser and myself several interesting unpublished plants :
and of the rocks, we gathered some fragments of a stone which
the natives had been using to scrape or polish their spears. It
was perfectly white, exceedingly compact, and although appear-
ing like granulated quartz, nevertheless contained much clay.

Lily of Letitia!s Plain. 131

" This range would seem to be the pass used by the natives
in their wanderings from the country we have already traversed,
to the forest lands southerly, since on resuming our route on the
morning of the 28th, we found a passage at the south base of the
ridge, cut through a thick brush, in which there were abundant
traces of these Indians having frequently passed and repassed.
From the south-west foot of the Birnam Range we prosecuted
our journey over a patch of improving forest ground to an
exceedingly pretty patch of plain, about a mile in breadth by
perhaps four in length from east to west. Its soil proved to be
exceedingly rich, and well clothed with grass and other esculent
vegetables. This very interesting spot, which Captain Logan
named ' Letitia's Plain,' is watered on its western side by the
Logan, the channel of which was perceived to bend its course
northerly round the western base of Birnam Range.

" In the forest ground on the south side of the plain we
reached a lagoon of considerable depth, and about one fourth of
a mile in length, which appeared to be entirely sustained by the
surcharge of waters of the Logan in seasons of long rains.
Whilst Mr. Fraser was engaged taking up the knobbed roots of
a beautiful nymphoea-like aquatic,* which had unrolled its
ample heart-shaped leaves to the solar heat on the surface of
this water, I observed the latitude at its southern extremity^
which proving to be 27 deg. 56 min. 0-5 sec. S., placed our
position on the chart 27^ geographical miles south of Brisbane
Town, its longitude by account being 3I miles west of the
meridian of that settlement — viz., 152 deg. 58 min. E. Pursuing
our journey southerly through an open forest, having the river,
overshadowed by a density of viney thicket immediately on our
right, we traversed flats of good ground, liable, however, to
occasional inundation.

" As the country on the opposite bank of the river appeared
altogether more open and better adapted for travelling than the
one on which we were pursuing our way, it became desirable to
cross it at any part where the investing brush on the banks would
admit of the descent of the bullocks to the bed of the stream.
This we discovered at our third mile from the lagoons; we,

* This fine plant I examined on the spot, and was with Mr. Fraser much
gratified to find it was an undescribed species of that division of the W-ax\^z.n genus
menyanthes, which now constitutes the distinct one named Villarsia, by M-
Ventenat.

132 Genesis of Queensland.

therefore, passed over to the level ground on the western bank,
and then finding the day was far spent (so much time having
been unavoidably occupied in conveying the various baggage over
on the shoulders of the people) it was deemed advisable to rest.

"During the whole of the following day (29th July) we were
confined to our tents by heavy rain, which had been blown over
to us from the mountain ranges by the prevailing westerly wind.
Some short periods of intermission of the falling showers,
allowing the sun to burst forth, enabled me to observe an
azimuth, as also the latitude at noon. The former gave a
variation of 8 deg. 35 min. east, whilst the latter showed us that
we were within 2 min. of the parallel of 28 deg. S. The results
of the barometrical data gave our encamping ground a mean
elevation of about three hundred and twenty feet above the
shores of Moreton Bay ; and the mean temperature of the
atmosphere during the rain was 59 deg. Fahr.

" Fine weather being again restored to us on the morning of
the 30th, we continued our journey to the S.S.W. — a course
shaped to us by the direction from which the channel of the
Logan had inclined. The flat over which we travelled we found
of a fine rich soil, and among the grasses (the usual products
of such lands) we remarked the native bird's foot trefoil [lotus
Aiist rail's.)

" In a north-western direction, this forest-flat appeared to
extend several miles towards that lofty mountain marked on the
old charts ' High Peak'"" — an elevated cone, forming no incon-
siderable feature of the landscape of that part of the country on
which it stands. Immediately before us in our course Ave
observed an interesting hilly country, and on completing our
third mile over the forest flat, reached the foot of a grassy hill,
under the eastern base of which the river winds from about south.

"Climbing this eminence in company with Captain. Logan
and Mr. Fraser, we found it commanded a very rich and
extensive view, embodying perhaps as much variety of feature
as is to be met with in any known part of New South Wales.
Immediately beneath us an extent of grassy vale stretched to the
southward, bounded on either side by elevated forest ridges,
lightly timbered, and seemingly clothed with a grassy verdure to
their very summits.

* Recently named " Flinder's Peak."

Mount Dunsmane. — Debris. 133

"Through this vale we could trace with the eye the windings
of the Logan several miles from a lofty country at south, in
which we subsequently discovered that stream to originate ; and
on extending our view to the S.S.W. and S.W., a bold and singu-
larly precipitous range of mountain peaks met the eye, distant
by estimation about twenty-five miles, the interjacent country
being of considerably less elevation, but broken and irregular.

" It was to the base of these peaks that Captain Logan (who
had considered one or other of them to be the cone of Mount
Warning) had penetrated last year from Brisbane Town, and
with his usual perseverance had attempted (although in vain) to
gain the summit of the highest point.

" A simple reference, however, to the chart of the coasts and
adjacent country on which I had marked our position (deter-
mined as respects latitude by astronomical observation ; and
with regard to longitude by a careful account kept from Brisbane
Town), showed me that we were at least fifteen geographical
miles to the westward of the meridian assigned that lofty peak
by navigators, and that, therefore (unless we are disposed to
agree with Captain Rous, who asserts that it is actually situated
' at least twenty miles further inland than has been allotted to it
in the map,'"^ which cannot possibly be the case), it is abundantly
obvious that the lofty points before us, bearing S.W. and S.S.W.,
are perfectly distinct from the range seen daily from seaward by
the passing mariner, of which Mount Warning, of that circum-
navigator, the immortal Cook, is the most elevated pinnacle.

'' Descending this hill, which received the name of Mount
Dunsinane, we pursued our journey to the south about five miles
through the valley to a small, round, rocky mount, perfectly
isolated, and standing above the plane of the vale about
one hundred and fifty feet. At the foot of this remarkable
hill, immediately on the bank of the river, we again rested.
Before ascending this rocky mount, to take a few con-
necting bearings, we observed its eastern side and summit
were composed of trap-rock in large irregular masses,
whilst the western slopes were studded with basaltic columns
of regular prismatic figure of five sides, of which some
were from four to five feet in height by about one in
diameter. The original position of these columns, which was

* Vide Wilton's Quarterly Journal, vol. I (No. IV.) p. 353.

134 Genesis of Queensland.

doubtless erect, appeared to us evidently to have been disturbed
by some violent concussion, as many were thrown down on their
sides, whilst others, by being wedged up, stood so nearly upright
as not to incline more than a few degrees out of a vertical line.
Finding this hill too low to allow me to make any observations
of the country before us, beyond what we had already noted, we
descended to the tents. On arriving upon the ground at the
close of the day's stage, on which we had encamped, we
perceived a rising smoke at the foot of the hill, and immediately
afterwards observed two or three natives upon the summit, to
which commanding spot they had with the utmost precipitation
retired. On our reaching the top of the mount they had
descended the opposite side, and had in all probability crossed
the river to a brush on the right bank, as an old man who had
concealed himself behind a tree near the bottom of the hill ran
off (upon our passing the spot) in that direction, in a state of
dreadful apprehension ; and such was the alarm produced by our
presence that it totally prevented that friendly parley which we
would have wished to have brought about.

" At the tire we found the bags and little paraphernalia of
the women, showing clearly that the precipitous haste with which
these savages had urged their flight had not even afforded them
a moment to gather their few articles of economy together.

"Around were quantities of the large seed of that exceeding!}-
ornamental tree of close woods, called at Moreton Bay
'chestnut,'"^ for which, when roasted, it is by no means a bad
substitute. Upon these nuts the few natives who wander through
these lonely regions chiefly subsist during some months of the
vear, as (like the English chestnut, castanea vesca) they contain
evidently some saccharine and much farinaceous matter, and by
being well roasted are rendered easy of digestion.

" At about two miles south from our encampment the Logan
bends from the eastward, watering in its course a patch of plain,
original) v seen bv Lieutenant Innes, of His Majesty's 57th

* This tree, than which there is no plant indigenous to the shores of Moreton
Ray and adjacent country upon which the eye rests with greater pleasure, consti-
tutes a genus perfectly distinct from any yet published; and, independent of its
highly ornannental habit and refreshing shade afforded by its densely-leaved
branches, its nuts are produced in pods in such abundance as to be ere long
worthy the attention of the farmer, as its fruit would form nutritive food for
pigs, &c. The tree affects a rich and moist soil.

Bewildered. 135

Regiment, who, during his residence at Moreton Bay, frequently
undertook bush excursions. Captain Logan attached that officer's
name to it, and it now appears on the chart.

" The valley through which we continued our journey south
(named also by our excellent commandant ' Erris Vale')
continues from the basaltic hill about five miles, and is then
bounded on the south by forest hills of an indifferent character.
Prosecuting our course southerly, we penetrated a progressively
rising country, and on passing a succession of forest ridges, at
length again had a sight of the river, which had wound its
channel from the westward among the lofty wooded ridges
which at length invested us on all sides. On the ist August, on
pushing our way further to the south, we crossed the Logan,
much diminished in size, and after a fruitless attempt to continue
to the southward, we found ourselves so perfectly hemmed in by
steep, lofty, wooded ridges, that we were obliged to return to
the river, which we traced westerly until its division into divers
streamlets indicated our near approach to its source.

" On the 2nd August we were climbing the hills, and pursuing
as steady a course to the S.W. as the difficult nature of the
ground would admit of; early in the afternoon of this day we
descended to a flat or valley, when (finding abundance of good
water) I directed the tents to be pitched at a short distance from
the spot whereon Captain Logan had last year bivouaced.

" We had now approached within three miles of the actual
base of the stupendous range of mountains (first seen from
Mount Dunsinane) whose broad dome-like and conical summits,
of rock for the most part, denuded of vegetation, and now fully
open to our view, presented a specimen of bold and rugged
scenery not to be found in any other explored part of the
country. It was originally our design to penetrate no further to
the southward than the base of the Colossean Range, in which
Captain Logan still considered the peak of Mount Warning was
situate, and, therefore, as our bullocks required some repose, it
was proposed to employ what time we had to spare in exploring
the most elevated of the mountain group, and afterwards
endeavour, by stages that would not distress our oxen, to
proceed westerly towards the gap or hollow on the back of the
Dividing Range.

" Upon setting up the barometer at the close of the day, the,
mercurial column, I was surprised to find, had fallen to 28'52 in.,

136 Genesis of Queensland.

which showed us that, notwithstanding the hills we had climbed
since we left the Vale of Erris, our tents did not stand on higher
ground above the lev.el of the ocean than nine hundred and fifty-
three feet.

"The Excursion to the Summit of Mount Lindesay.

■' The morning of the 3rd (August) dawned on us with a
singular clearness of atmosphere, and as its temperature was
unusually low and bracing (33 deg.), we were induced to quit our
tents at an early hour to commence the very interesting labours
of the day. Having made every requisite preparation, we
proceeded from our encamping ground at six o'clock on our
journey to the summit of the highest mountain (the easternmost
of the range) bearing from the tents south, 43 deg. west about
three miles.

" Our direct course lay over an extent of thinly-timbered flat,
recently burnt by the natives, and stretching nearly two miles to
the base of the first range of forest hills, the back of which we
gained by a sharp acclivity.

" Travelling along the ridge about another half-mile, we
ascended rapidly to the immediate base of the mountain, whence
the difficulties of the ascent commenced among large masses of a
compound rock, forming large blocks and shelving slabs of vast
dimensions, upon which, and in the intermediate interstices
flourished most luxuriantly many tufty plants, from among which
Mr. Eraser and myself culled several previously unknown species
to enrich our respective collections. With considerable exertion,
I climbed to a point in elevation equal to one-third of the extreme
altitude of the mountain, when the face became so singularly
precipitous, and in consequence the further advance attended
altogether with so much danger, that I deemed it prudcmt to
proceed no further, especially as I had attained a height from
which I could make all the necessary observations that I could
desire. I had, moreover, a barometer with me, which it was
scarcely possible to avoid injuring had I attempted to have scaled
some rocks (in position nearly vertical) immediately above me.

"Whilst I was occupied taking a set of interesting bearings to
points around, not previously seen, our indefatigable commandant
and Mr. Eraser, who had both preceded me in the ascent, con-
tinued their journey towards the summit, notwithstanding the
alarming steepness of many parts of this mountain's face.

^' Monument a cere Perenniora." 137

" The cone of Mt. Warning, respecting the true situation of
which we were divided in opinion, I was gratified in no ordinary'
degree to see distinctly, amidst a group of mountains, nearer the
coast line, and bearing east by south, distant from twenty-five to
thirty miles. This most fully coniirmed me, in what I have
already advanced, respecting the position, its bearing, and
estimated distance, carrying it as far easterly as the meridian
under which those truly scientific navigators. Captains Cook and
l^'linders, have long ago placed this most striking of all land-
marks on this coast to the passing seaman ! It was now that
Captain Logan clearly saw his mistake in supposing one of the
peaks of the mountains about us, and which cannot be perceived
from seaward, to be the Mt. Warning of Cook.

"A range, distant scarcely ten miles, and stretching from east
by north to south-east, of elevated bold appearance, was named
' Macpherson's Range,' in compliment to Major Macpherson, of
His Majesty's 39th Regiment, whilst its southern extreme, a very
bluff head, and a rounded mount or hummock about its
centre, received each respectively the names of ' Coke ' and
* Burrough.'

" Along the eastern rise of Macpherson's Range I could trace
a deep ravine, bounded on its eastern side by a vertical wall of
rocks of very rugged aspect. This ravine was, at the suggestion
of Mr. Fraser, named ' Glen Lyon,' and through it ran a stream
(indicated by a line of mist throughout its length) which,
doubtless, falls southerly into the channel of a river seen by
Captain Logan from the summit of this mountain, and which,
from the direction of its course towards the sea at south-east, is,
doubtless, the 'Richmond' of Captain the Hon. H. E. Rous, of
His Majesty's Ship ' Rainbow.'

" To the east of Glen Lyon the entire country, extending to
the lofty ridges connected with the Mt. Warning group, appeared
exceedingly broken and irregular.

" A lofty mountain, bearing N. by E. hve miles, received from
Captain Logan the title of 'Clanmorris,' whilst to a lofty wooded
peak lying about ten miles further to the north I attached the
name of my friend Lieutenant Hughes, of the Royal Staff Corps.
" At S.S.E. five miles a very precipitous rocky head, in figure
seemingly inaccessible from any point around us, was named
' Mount Hooker,' in honour of the mutual friend of Mr. Fraser
and myself, the very learned and scientific Regius Professor

Genesis of Queensland.

of Botany in the University of Glasgow. Far to the north
points were distinctly discerned, particularly the towering
peak of Captain Flinders, now bearing the name of that very
accurate nautical surveyor. Having noted all the more prominent
features of the country around, excepting at S. and S.S.W., in
which direction my position on the mountain prevented my
observation, I employed myself awhile investigating the scrubby
blighted vegetable productions about me, and, among the many
described well known plants, I gathered several, yet unpublished,
to add to my daily augmenting collections. I also set up the
barometer (which I had with much care carried from Brisbane
Town), with the view of deducing the elevation of my station
above our encampment, the height of which above the level of
the sea I had already measured, I had, however, to regret that
in the carriage from the tents to the point at which I had halted
the instrument had become deranged by some sudden jerk it had
received, which had divided the column of mercury, and thus had
rendered it perfectly useless.

" A subsequent trigonometrical operation, however, gave the
spot a height of about one thousand five hundred feet above our
encampment.

" Mr. Fraser had followed the Commandant up the very steep
face of the mountain more than double that elevation above me,
but, arriving at the base of a rock nearly perpendicular, without
a bush to assist him to pass above it, he very wisely stopped, and,
having rested and contemplated with pleasure the grandeur of
the surrounding scene from so considerable a height (verging
on four thousand above the level of the sea), he began his
descent.

" It was not, however, without great difficulty, and on more
than one occasion at great risk of life itself, that he found his
way back to my station, much bruised, and in a state of con-
siderable exhaustion.

" Five hours, however, elapsed before the Commandant, who
had with great labour carried the extreme summit of this for-
midable mountain, returned to us. This considerable eminence
afforded him a very extensive bird's-eye view of the entire cir-
cumjacent country. The sea was seen at S.S.E. over the very
low country lying between the southern extremes of the Mount
Warning Range and the coast line, and a fine open grazing
country breaking into plains was also distinctly perceived to the

Mount Lindesay. 139

S.W., at which the traveller might arrive, upon passing about
twenty miles of broken brushy country, from the base of the
mountain, a few miles from which a river was observed, bending
its course to the southward and eastward, which has since been
considered by Captain Logan to be none other than either a
branch or the main branch of the Richmond, recently dis-
covered by Captain the Hon. Mr. Rous.

" About the close of the day we returned to our tents, amply
rewarded for our respective exertions by the various interesting
observations each had made.

"The mountain which we had visited, which is the
easternmost of the range, was named ' Mount Lindesay,' as a
compliment to the officer commanding his Majesty's 39th
Regiment in this colony.

" Our bullocks requiring further rest, we determined to remain
encamped during the whole of the following day (4th Aug).

"Whilst Captain Logan was absent on an excursion to
ascertain how far a communication could be opened round the
eastern base of Mount Lindesay with the apparently fine grazing
country seen in a south-western direction from the summit of
that lofty mountain, I was occupied in taking the necessary
observations for the determination of our situation. These gave
the following results :

"Latitude by a solar meridional altitude 28 deg. 15 min.
21 sees. S., longitude 152 deg. 45 min. 45 sees. E., or sixteen
geographical miles west of Brisbane Town. Variation of the
needle (by azimuth) 11 deg. E. I also measured a base of six
hundred and eight yards on an extensive flat near the tents,
and observing the angles I obtained by the summit of Mount
Lindesay ascertained its perpendicular height over our encamp-
ment to be four thousand seven hundred and fifty feet. To this,
upon adding nine hundred and fifty-three feet, the elevation of
the parts above the sea shore (as already determined by the
barometer), the mean height of this mountain above the level of
the sea shore is shown to be five thousand seven hundred and
three feet, which is by far the most elevated point (measured)
that has hitherto been ascended by any European in Australia.

" In the evening our laborious Commandant returned to the
encampment, having fully satisfied himself of the practicability
of marking a road to the country lying to the S.W., by directing
its line to leave the Mount Lindesay Range to the west.

140 Genesis of Queensland.

" On the morning of the 5th we broke up our encampment
and, conformably with the plan of our journey, made an attempt
to pursue a course to the westward with the design of
penetrating to the hollow in the back of the Dividing Range,
discovered in June, 1827.

" Invested as we were by steep hills and lofty mountainous
lands, it was with some difficulty that we pushed our way
northerly through a glen bounded on the west side by forest
hills immediately connected with Mount Clanmorris, and to the
east by a steep rocky sided ridge, overhanging a brook (formed
by a junction of the creek, at which we last rested, with others),
which ran briskly through it northerly over abed of large stones,
so much rounded by water attrition as to render the crossing
and re-crossing its channel, which was necessary, too dangerous
to allow me to risk the lives of the bullocks in the passage.
They were, therefore, sent round among the hills easterly, and
after a circuitous route of about four miles, again joined me on
a level open patch of forest ground.

" We then prosecuted our course to the north-west, climbing
moderately elevated wooded ridges with an occasional flat of
good soil, and observing all the watercourses uniformly dipped
easterly, and therefore threw the rains that are collected in these
hills in a wet season into the Logan. From several points in
these hills, I took bearings to a lofty wooded mount, named last
yearbyCaptain Logan in honour of Lieutenant-Colonel Shadforth,
of her Majesty^s 57th Regiment, as also to a remarkable conical-
shaped hill of considerable elevation, situated to the W.S.W.
about fifteen miles, which also Captain Logan had named after a
friend, ' Wilson's Peak.'

" After penetrating about seven miles to the N.W., we gained
the pitch of the hills, whence we observed at a distance of about
two miles to W.N.W. a patch of plain, bounded on its western
side by a ridge of craggy hills, of which the Commandant
immediately recognised a point at whose base he had, in the
progress of his last year's campaign, bivouaced. Our oxen
having descended on its western side with considerable difficulty,
owing to the steepness of the declivity from the several rocky
heads and abrupt terminating bluffs it presented to that cardinal
point, we soon reached the plain, which we found to be a reedy
flat, without a tree, of a springy sponginess to the tread, and
evidently extremely swampy in wet weather. The long

Panorama of Pleasantness. 141

protracted droughts of the year had, however, dried the surface
sufficiently hard to allow our burdened beasts to cross it
(a breadth of a mile) to the channel of a rivulet, washing the
eastern foot of the craggy hills. On the western bank of this
stream (which is a tributary to the Logan, and named ' Teviot
Brook'), we were very glad to encamp, as the sun had some time
dipped below the western horizon. This plain or marsh flat,
which lies nearly north and south, is about three miles in length,
and is (as already observed) bounded on the west by a low ridge
of rocky hills of singularly picturesque appearance, named at the
suggestion of Mr. Fraser, ' Minto Craigs.'

" South-westerly beyond these cragg}' hills, we had a peep at
a part of the Dividing Range, which, with other elevated grounds
at south, formed as beautiful a landscape as can well be
conceived ; and if anything tended to give a higher effect to the
extremely pleasing scene, as it opened to us while crossing the
marshy flat, it was the warm tints produced by the radiance of
the setting sun, striking upon the naked rocks of the craig. Just
before we halted, five emus, which were feeding on the plain,
joined together and, as if prompted by curiosity to know what
we were, stalked over the flat after us, preserving, however, a
respectful distance from the dogs. We were all too much
engaged to give chase to them ; they, therefore, after following us
some distance, filed off, and retiring with some little precipitancy
to the wooded lands, as if fully apprehensive of danger, dis-
peared altogether.

" A hill of square tabulated figure, bearing about north seven
or eight miles, was last year named by Captain Logan * Mount
French,' and a singularly sharp-pointed one wooded to its
extreme summit, and lying to the N.E. about nine miles received
from me the title of ' Knapp's Peak,' after an esteemed friend,
at this time attached to the department of the Surveyor-General
in this colony.

"At an early hour on the morning of the 7th August we
broke up our encampment with the fullest expectation of making
a loner stage to the westward.

" Passing the northern extreme of Minto Craigs, we pursued
our course to the N.W. over a hilly country until, in about our
fourth mile, we reached another and more extensive patch of
plain, on which I observed the meridional altitude of the sun,
which gave for latitude 28 deg. 4 min. 26 sees. S., and showed

142 Genesis of Queensland.

us that we had arrived at about the parallel of the mountain gap,
which bore west from us.

" Perceiving, however, that the plain was flanked on its west
and north-western sides by densely brushed rocky ridges
connected with Mount French, through which it appeared
extremely doubtful whether we could penetrate with the bullocks
to the foot of the Dividing Range, it was proposed at once to
halt and employ the remainder of the day in determining the
practicability of effecting a passage through them to the west-
ward. We therefore (about one o'clock) set up the tents on
the edge of the plain, near to a pond of exceedingly fine water.

" Our unwearied Commandant, attended by two of the most
intelligent of the people, undertook to examine the rocky
western ridge, and I in the meantime ascertained our position,
took bearings to points around, and obtained a set of azimuths,
which gave a variation easterly of lo deg. 3 min.

" This beautiful plain, to which I had much pleasure in
attaching the title of Dulhunty, as a compliment to the highly
respectable family of that name residing in this colony, lies
about S.S.W. and N.N.E., and in extent is about five miles in
length by three-fourths of a mile in breadth.

" Notwithstanding the sad drought to which it was every-
where manifest the entire country through which we had passed
had been long subjected, we nevertheless found this plain
abundantly watered by a chain of ponds fed from the hills at
S.W., which in seasons of much rain unite, and overflowing the
flatter surfaces, eventually drain off to the N.E., and become a
tributary to the Logan. The soil of Dulhunty's Plain is in all
parts of exceedingly rich quality, capable of yielding heavy crops
of grain, and although it appeared scarcely sound enough for sheep
pasture, the whole presented a fine range of horse and cattle
feed. At the close of the day Captain Logan returned to us,
having climbed the rocky barrier to the westward, which he
found clothed with so thick a jungle of twining plants, that it
was with the utmost difficulty he gained a commanding point,
whence he saw it was quite impracticable to penetrate westward
to the Dividing Range. He observed also that the only course
we could possibly pursue was to the northward easterly, in which
direction the country not only appeared moderate, but also
unencumbered by those thickets, which in many parts form a
perfect jungle on a level surface many miles in extent, and which

Baulked, not Baffled. 143

we have repeatedly satisfied ourselves are not to be passed by
laden bullocks, until the axe has fully effected a passage for
them.

" On the 8th we stood away to the N.E., across Dulhuntys
Plains, and in two miles and a-half reached the thinly-timbered
forest ground, well watered by the Logan, which at length had
become a connected stream.

" In other two miles to the N.E. we entered a second plain of
small dimensions, probably containing about seven hundred
acres, to which was given the name of Rattray, after a relative
of Mr. Fraser. As we continued our journey we could not but
admire the landscape that the country at E. and S.E. presented,
made up of gently rising forest hills, with here and there a point
somewhat more elevated, having in their midst the sharp cone
named Knapp's Peak, which overlapped the whole.

"The forest ridge continuing to stretch to the north, obliged
us to pursue our course to the eastward of that cardinal point.
At noon on crossing the channel of the Logan, we found
ourselves by observation exactly in the parallel of 28 deg. S.,
and perceiving that it was not possible to make our way to the
westward from our present position, in consequence of the
brushy ridges which we now perceived to stretch across the
country northerly to the foot of Flinder's Peak, I was induced,
by the advice of Captain Logan, (who had become anxious to
return to the settlement) to relinquish my design of making the
mountain gap from this part of the country, but rather
prosecute our journey to the N. and N.E., until we should pass
the parallel of latitude of Flinders' Peak on its easternmost side,
and on effecting which no obstacle would prevent our making
the Limestone Station on Bremer's river (a tributary to the
Brisbane), whence the Dividing Range could be approached with
the utmost ease, as the interjacent country was known to
Captain Logan to be of very moderate surface. Thus deter-
mined, we pursued our way to the E.N.E., about three and
a-half miles over a succession of forest ridge and narrow valleys,
when, again intersecting the Logan at our eleventh mile, we
were induced to halt, as our bullocks were much exhausted.

"At daybreak on the 9th August, the Commandant despatched
two of our party with letters to Brisbane Town, and by that
opportunity I wrote to the officer in charge of the commissariat
to forward to me at the Limestone Hills on the Bremer a further

144 Genesis of Queensland.

supply of rations to enable me to perform the journey I had in
contemplation from that station, south-westerly to the pass
through the mountains discovered in June, 1827.

" On resuming our journey this day, we left the Logan and
repeatedly made attempts to pass to the westward at points
appearing likely to afford us a passage through. All our essays
were, however, in vain, for the dense repulsive thicket soon
stopping our progress, showed us that the utmost we could
possibly effect would be to pursue our course to the northward
and eastward. We therefore continued over low forest ridges,
takino- care to clear the brush which occasionally stretched down
them to the narrow intermediate valleys, in which we again met
the Logan, and as we had completed our tenth mile we halted
on its bank. From this encamping ground we observed the hills
connected with Birnam Range, the central part of which bore
nearly east from us, and appeared to be distant ten miles.

"At our second mile to the north, in our stage of the following
day, the Logan, which we had traced from its source, left us
altogether by trending away to the E.N.E. Throughout the day
we were climbing hills, with Flinder's Peak continually in view,
the base of which we were unable to approach, it being perfectly
surrounded by steep and rocky ridges.

"It was not until after sunset that water was discovered for
the use of our exhausted bullocks and selves, and although it
was found in small quantity, and in a stagnant state, we were
exceedingly glad to close our labours for the day at it. Early in
the morning of the i ith Captain Logan and Mr. Eraser left me
for Brisbane Town, distant about twenty-four miles. As my
views were entirely directed to the station on the Bremer, I
directed the course of my party to the northward and westward,
and after effecting a stage of ten miles over a hilly uninteresting
country, timbered thickly with ironbark, we rested in a valley
affording both excellent grass and good water to our wearied
oxen.

" We had at length passed sufficiently to the north of the
range connected with Flinder's Peak to be enabled to shape a
course to the westward without further interruption from a
difficult country; we therefore, on commencing our last stage to
the Limestone Station, penetrated directly west among some
stony hills, and after some exertion in the first two miles gained
a more moderate country, and at the seventh mile of our stage

Lhne Burning of Yore. 145

came out upon the skirts of a plain, on the surface of which
scattered fragments of calcareous rocks, flint and agate, fully
announced to us our near approach to the Limestone Hills^ at
which we immediately arrived upon crossing the plain to the
north-west, where I found the provisions I had demanded from
the commissariat had already arrived by a boat under charge of
my servant. Here I reduced my establishment to two bullocks,
a driver, and my two servants, sending back to Brisbane Town,
agreeably to the request of Captain Logan, the other two oxen
and two servants.

"As I shall have frequent occasion to refer to this station
in what I have further the honour to communicate for your
Excellency's necessary information, I take leave to make a few
observations on its situation and general productions.

"In the course of the last year Captain Logan, in tracing the
Bremer (of the late Mr. Oxley, who merely passed its mouth in
1824) from its junction with the Brisbane, discovered at ten
miles through its many windings from that point, the calcareous
hummocks on its right bank, now named the 'Limestone Hills.'

" Landing, he was much struck with the singular appearance
of the lofty Xanthorrhoeoe or grass trees, "^ which abound on the
open flats, low hills, and forest grounds at this particular part,
and which the Commandant had not inaptly compared to
bee-hives elevated on stools.

"Some months after this discovery a kiln was built, and a
party of convicts, consisting of an overseer (acquainted with
the operations of sapping and mining), and live men were
stationed at these hills to commence lime-burning. It was not
long before the station was visited by the wandering aborigines,
who, after threatening the lives of the white men, seized the first
opportunity to run off with their tools.

" To protect the lime-burners from further molestation from
these savages, a corporal and three privates were stationed on
the spot, and from that period no natives have ventured to

* As this extraordinary plant (the genus of which gives a peculiarity to the
vegetation of New South Wales) was not in a flowering state during my stay at
Moreton Bay, I had no opportunity of determining its species, but from the length
of the decayed last year's scapus or flowering stem, in respect to the amentum or
spike, I am disposed to view this plant as distinct from both X. arborea of our
colony, and X. Australis, hitherto found only in Van Dieman's Land, each having
an arborescent caudex.

146 Genesis of Queensland.

approach the huts of either soldiers or people, although they have
been repeatedly seen prowling through the adjacent woods.

" From three hundred to four hundred baskets of excellent
lime (I am informed) are burnt weekly at this station, which is
regularly conveyed down by boat to Brisbane Town, and there
used in the buildings in progress. The limestone of Bremer's
river is very different in appearance from the calcareous rocks
of Aro-yle, Bathurst, or Wellington Valley. From these it differs,
not simply in colour, which is either yellowish brown or
brownish white, but also in its quality, it containing much
earthy matter, without impressions of shells or organic remains.

" As far as the hills have been opened, no stratification has
been observed ; on the contrary, it appeared in irregular masses
mixed with reddish earth and large blocks of a blackish flint.

'' In some specimens of the latter rock, which I caused to
be broken, I found beautiful specimens of chalcedony, containing
cavities filled with groups of minute crystallised quartz.

" Chalk is also found among the hills, in which are nodules
of flint. A stratum or seam of coal has been observed on the
Bremer, both immediately above and below the station, and as
that mineral was noticed three or four miles to the north, in the
steep banks of dry creeks dipping to the Brisbane, and again in
another mile, in the bed of that river, it is highly probable that
the seam extends nearly horizontally throughout. The soil of
these hills and adjacent country is of a black colour, and, if one
mio-ht judge from the luxuriant growth of vegetables cultivated
in a small patch of garden-ground, belonging to the soldiers,
is of a rich quality. The flats and undulated grounds are well
clothed with grasses, and as they are not under any circum-
stances of season, other than of a dry character, they form a
sound range of sheep pasture, at present supporting a small
flock belonging to Government.

" During a stay of five days at this station, in which period
the rest and good pasture afforded my bullocks most materially
benefited them, I determined its geographical position as
follows, viz. : — mean latitude by meridional altitudes of the sun,
27 deg. 37 min. S. : longitude by the mean of distances of the
sun and moon — on both sides of the meridian : distances of the
planet Jupiter and moon, and distances of the star Fomalhaut
and moon, mean 152 deg. 47 min. 20 sees. E. : variation by
azimuths, g deg. 45 min. E. Its distance from Brisbane Town by

.^ Riveting the Link. 147

water has been estimated at about forty-Hve miles, whilst its
bearing from that settlement is S.W. by W. (true) only eighteen
statute miles.

" From a hill in the immediate vicinity of my tents I took the
following bearings to points in the south-western country about
to be examined : — Mount Forbes, of Mr. Oxley, a remarkable
hill rising from a level country, and in shape ridged like the roof
of a house, S. 48^ W., about sixteen miles; mountain gap,
vS. 385 W., perhaps forty miles ; Wilson's Peak, of Captain
Logan, S. 12 W., forty-five or fifty miles ; Flinder's Peak, S. 19
E., twelve miles.

"Journey to the Gap in the Dividing Range.

" On the morning of the i8th August we proceeded from the
Limestone Hills south-westerly, towards the hollow in the ridge
of the principal or Dividing Range.

" Immediately on leaving the limestone base, and entering
the closer-timbered forest, the land gradually rises and the soil
changes to a lumpy grit, productive only of small and stunted
timber and brushy plants. At our second mile an open
moderately undulated forest ground, appearing at S.W. by S..
we pursued our course in that direction through a variety of
nearly level country, the rock formation of which was chiefly a
coarse sandstone — quartz and very fine specimens of jasper
being here and there strewed in the forest ground.

" Occasionally the land became more thinly and lightly-
wooded, the soil of which was of a dark rich quality, strewed
with small fragments of calcareous stone, the general appearance
altogether inducing a conclusion that we were approaching open
downs.

"Almost immediately, however, the more lofty timbered
forest succeeded, continuing for several miles level and of
monotonous feature. Passing at length a tea-tree flat bearing
obvious marks on the surface of partial inundation in seasons of
protracted rain, we came upon the bank of a narrow but deep
creek, falling north-easterly towards Bremer's river, which,
although at this season a mere chain of stagnant pools, exhibited
on its banks traces of floods twenty feet above its then low level.

"Crossing, we left this creek winding from the southward,
and continuing our route to the southward and westward to our

148 Genesis of Queensland.

eleventh mile, I despatched a man to search for water in the
direction of the remarkable level-topped hill seen from the
Limestone Station, and named by Mr. Oxley in 1824 Mt. Forbes.
Such had been the lengthened period of dry weather that we
were obliged to extend our stage beyond the strength of the
bullocks to the thirteenth mile, ere we found a sufficiency of
water for our consumption.

"No natives were met with in this stage, although patches of
the forest grasses had been lately fired, and the recent traces of
these people were noticed on the trunks of the tea-trees, from
which they had torn off the outer paper-like bark to roof their
huts.

" After some heavy showers of rain in the night accompanied
by thunder, the morning of the igth (August) broke upon us
exceedingly clear, pleasant, and cool, the mean temperature of
the atmosphere at six o'clock being 61 deg.

" Our route to the northward and westward was resumed
about seven o'clock, and having traversed a level patch of open
forest on the eastern side of Mount Forbes, abounding in grass,
w^e reached some hilly ground at our third mile of very rugged
stony surface. On gaining the summit of a ridge, a most
pleasing and extensive view was laid open to us from S.W.toS.,
and then to E and E.N.E.

"At E.N.E., and thence to E.S.E., a large patch of plain
lying N. and S., appeared beneath us, at a distance of about
three miles, in many parts very verdant, and watered evidently
by a large creek, the course of which was marked by a line of
swamp oak winding through its centre. To this plain I attached
the name of Bow'erman, as a compliment to my friend, the officer
in charge of His Majesty's magazine at Parramatta.

" The elevated irregular ridge connected with Flinder's
Peak still further to the eastward was very conspicuous,
presenting four distinct pinnacles; and to all the more distant
points in a southerly direction, extending as far as Mount
Lindesay, which was distinctly recognised, bearings were taken.

" On quitting the ridge, we descended to a grassy vale, and
then continued our journey to the S.S.W., through a forest tract,
plentifully clothed with grass, but as far as our observation
extended, destitute of water. As every part of the timbered
lands, through which our course led us, bore manifest proof of
the long existing drought that has prevailed through this, and

Bullock Impediments. 14c)

other parts of New South Wales, I began to be apprehensive
that we should not readily meet with water for our evening's use.
On completing our tenth mile at the pitch of a low ridge, the
ground appeared on its S.W. side to dip easterly. I therefore
sent one of the people to make a diligent search for water in
that direction. This was almost immediately met with in deep
holes, and as there was abundance of good grass around for our
oxen I again halted. At night a wind from about S.S.W. sprang
up, which freshening to a hard gale, obliged us to secure our tents
by strong wires, to prevent their being blown down. The wind
continued with unabated violence throughout the night, and until
about sunrise of the following morning (20th), when it moderated
considerably. Being by estimation about twelve miles to the
N.E. of the Pass through the Dividing Range, it was my fullest
intention to have penetrated as near to its immediate base in the
course of the day as the nature of the interjacent ground would
permit us. We therefore quitted our encamping ground, soon after
sunrise, but soon had to regret the inability of the bullocks to
travel over some stony hills, which lay in my course in the earlier
part of our journey, owing to the extreme tenderness of their
feet, increased probably by the stages of the preceding days,
which the circumstances of the country had obliged me to
lengthen in our search for water. In consequence, I was obliged
to halt in a valley among the hills, having made only four miles
towards the Pass. At noon I found our latitude to be 27 deg.
56 min. 48 sec. S., and in the afternoon observed an azimuth,
which gave a variation of the compass of 10 deg. 3 min. E. The
smoke of natives' fires was seen curling above the trees a little
to the eastward of us, but these people kept themselves very
quiet, not a voice was heard, or a person seen.

"Aug. 20th. About noon we made another attempt to
the foot of the main range. Climbing a forest ridge at S.W.
without difficulty, the bullocks descended (by the care of my
people) amidst much fallen timber and loose stones, to a valley
stretching north and south, which we crossed, continuing towards
the range over an irregular surface of forest ground to our fifth
mile, when we intersected the stony beds of a mountain torrent,
twelve yards in width, at this season perfectly dry, but evidently
at other periods filled to the depth of six feet. The position of
the drift wood on its shallow bank showed us that its fall was to
the south ; it, therefore, most probably pours its rapid waters into

i=^o

Genesis of Queensland.

the Richmond of Captain the Hon. E. H. Rous, the trunk of
which it doubtless meets at a much lower level.

" Passing the stony channel of this watercourse, we traversed
an apple-tree flat, pursuing our way over some hilly ground to a
narrow valley, when meeting with fine water, we again halted
within four miles of the actual mouth of the Gap. As it was
early in the afternoon, I despatched an intelligent man to look
at and examine (in a partial way) the hollow in the mountain
ridge directly open to our encampment.

"After an absence of five hours he returned, having failed in
his attempt to climb to the pitch of the Gap — a wall of perpen-
dicular rocks rising from a ravine stopping his progress after he
had advanced in direct distance about three miles.

"From the precipitous aspect of this hollow in the Main
Range, its elevated appearance, its breadth between the boundary
heads, added to the total impracticability of gaining its level
from the spot on which our tents stood, I was induced to
conceive that the Gap, into which I had simply looked from its
western side in June, 1827, and which certainly did appear to
oiTer a very practicable passage through to the eastward, was
very distinct from the one now before us, and as the Dividing
Range to the north of us trended out easterly, I felt disposed to
believe it was to be discerned a few miles in that direction.
With this impression on my mind, we left the spot on which
we had rested on the morning of the 22nd, to proceed
round the extremes of the lateral ridges, a day's journey to
the north ; intending to observe attentively as we travelled
along the grassy valley we had crossed every indentation of
the main range. We immediately entered the valley, and in
five miles reached its head, which to the eastward is bounded by
rather elevated open forest hills. On passing a very moderate
grassy ridge, stretching E. and W., I observed the latitude.
Continuing about two miles, we descended to an apple-tree flat,
watered by a creek running to the northward, on which we
encamped.

" The low grassy ridge, although of exceedingly moderate
rise above the plane of the country on either side, is nevertheless
sufficiently elevated to give opposite directions to waters dis-
charged on our east coast, but at points widely separated from
each other. We remarked that those streams falling on the
northern side (its direction being east and west) eventually

Uncongenial Company. icx

joined the Bremer, whilst those descending southerly meandered
through a length of valley to an open country lying south-west
from Mount Lindesay, and without doubt are received into the
Richmond, the embouchure of which Captain Ross has recentlv
discovered upwards of one hundred and sixty miles to the south
of Moreton Bay.

" As I had determined to remain encamped during the 22nd,
I despatched two of my people at daybreak to the summit of a
very steep forest ridge immediately to the westward of us, with
directions to penetrate to the highest point of the Dividing Range
from which they would be able to make such remarks of the
western country as would enable me to form a just idea of the
situation of the Pass of the last year, and especially by anv
bearings that might be taken to the extensive downs, then
discovered on the western side of this formidable range. Mean-
while, I ascertained our situation, latitude by observation 27 deg.
55 min. 45 sec. ; longitude, deduced from the meridian of the
Limestone Hills, 152 deg. 27 min. 30 sec. E. Among the brushes
that overshadowed the creek on which we were encamped, grew
most luxuriantly, the native bignonia and a fine clematis, and
being intertwined and abundantly in flower, formed the richest
festoons.

"Whilst on the subject of the flora of this fine country, so
generally interesting in all its features, it may be observed that
leaving the viney banks of the Brisbane out of the account, the
whole line of the country through which we have travelled since
we left Brisbane Town, important as really certain portions of it
are to the grazier, has nevertheless proved by no means so
interesting to the botanist,

" The grasses are chiefly those of the colony, the richer flats
and alluvial grounds being adorned with the blooming vetch
called by botanists Sivainsona, with lotus Anstralis or bird's-foot
trefoil, as also a geranium and a senecio frequent in the Bathurst
country. The collections of dried plants that were formed were
therefore detected on the barren rocky ridges and stony
mountains that lay in the way of our expedition.

" In this place I will merely notice the singular association
of our common eucalypti with the tree of a genus whose splendid
scarlet flowers renders it very conspicuous among even the more
brilliant subjects of the flora of intertropical countries. The tree
I allude to is a species of eryfhrina or coral tree, which I first

1^2 Genesis of Queensland.

observed in an excursion to the foot of Flinders' Peak. Under
the Dividing Range I frequently met with it, in a forest of blighted
uncomely ironbark forming a tree thirty-five feet high with a
smooth trunk, but thorny branches, and during the winter
months without leaves.

" Its last year's pods continued hanging at the extremities
of the branches, and although pigeons (which abound in the
woods) and other faboevorous birds had eaten most of the seeds,
still many of a brilliant red colour were found among the grass
beneath each tree.

" It was late in the afternoon ere my two men found their
way back to the encampment, when I learnt from them that
from the grassy ridge which they had ascended in front of the
tents, they had gained a lofty point of the Dividing Range, to the
south-west, from which they observed among the very elevated
mountains bounding their view at west, a valley extending
through them in the direction of N.N.W., to a very low declining
country at that bearing, but as no appearance of plain could be
perceived, and as there did not appear any part of the main
range to the north worth the examination for the Gap, so obvious
in the writer's journey in 1827, it was rationally concluded that
either the hollowback we had just left was the identical pass of
the last year, or that it was in its immediate vicinity. With this
view I concurred, and therefore on the morning of the 24th we
returned southerly towards it, with the fullest determination to
examine leisurely the main range about it from the extreme points
of which I felt quite certain the last year's gap would be discovered.

" About one o'clock we passed a mile to the southward of
our last position, and entering a valley, w^e pitched the tents
within three miles of the entrance of the Gap, now suspected to
])e the Pass of last year's journey.

"It being early in the afternoon, I sent one of the people
{who, having been of my party on that long tour, knew well the
features of the country lying to the westward of the Dividing
Range) to travel a series of forest ridges which appeared to lead
directly up to the foot of the hollowback of the range. To my
utmost gratification, he returned at dark, having traced the ridge
about two-and-a-half miles to the foot of the Dividing Range,
whence he ascended into the Pass, and, from a grassy head
immediately above it, beheld the extensive country lying west of
the main range.

Link Riveted. 153

"He recognised Darling and Canning Downs, patches of
Peel's Plains, and several remarkable points of the forest hills on
that side, fully identifying the hollowback with the Pass discovered
last year at the head of Millar's Valley, notwithstanding its very
different appearance when viewed from the eastern country.

"Resting my oxen on the 25th, 1 determined to occupy the
whole of the day in the examination of this very important
passage from the coast lands through a formidable main range
of mountains to a vast, and for the most part, undefined extent
of pastoral country on their western side. Accompanied by my
servant, with an odometric or measuring wheel, we commenced
our interesting labours of the day at 7 a.m.

" From the valley in which we were encamped we immediately
ascended a low forest ridge at south, tending S.S.W. and S.W.
throughout the first mile and a-half. The acclivity proved most
gradual, and the surface of the ridge, although occasionally
rather rugged, was rendered so by small fragments of rock easy
to be removed. Continuing to trace the leading ridge, we found
an ample passage between detached masses of sandstone, which
were covered with parasites (of ferns and dendrobia, or rock
lilies) of species heretofore only found within the tropical circle.

"In another half-mile the ridge takes a decided bend to the
westward, and its surface becoming wider presented an open
patch of forest ground, timbered chiefly with oak and apple tree,
in quantity sufficient for a small farm. The ridge at length narrows
again, but the acclivity continues most progressive. Patches of
brush now clothe the sides of the ridge, as also the gullies falling
from it, leaving its back clear of wood, open and grassy.

" At about two and three-quarter miles the ridge bends to the
northward of west, and immediately the summit of the Pass
appeared broad before us, bounded on each side by most
stupendous heads, "^ towering at least two thousand feet above it.

" Here the difficulties of the passage commence ; we had now
penetrated to the actual foot of the pass without the smallest

* I had at the time great pleasure in giving names to these very elevated
points of the Dividing Range, which are very distinctly seen over fifty-four miles of
wooded country from Brisbane Town. The south head, which forms a long-
backed mount with a lofty point at each extremity I have named Mount Mitchell,
in honour of the Surveyor-General of the territory, whilst the north head was
entitled Mount Cordeaux, as a compliment to Wm. Cordeaux, P^sq., of the
Surveyor-General's department.

154 Genesis of Queensland.

difficulty ; it now remained to ascend by a steep slope to the
level of its entrance. This slope is occupied by a very close
wood, in which red cedar, sassafras, palms, and other ornamental
intertropical trees are frequent.

"Through this shaded wood we penetrated, climbing up a
steep bank of very rich loose earth, in which large fragments of
a very compact rock (a whitestone) are bedded. At length we
gained the foot of a wall of bare rock, which we found stretching
from the southward into the Pass. This piece of naked rock we
perceived (by tracing its base northerly) gradually to fall to the
common level, so that without the smallest difficulty, and to my
utmost surprise, we found ourselves in the highest part of the
Pass, having fully ascertained the extent of the diff.cult parts
from the entrance into the wood to this point not to exceed four
hundred yards. We now pushed our way westerly through
this extraordinary defile, and in less than half-a-mile of level
surface, clothed with a thick brush of plants common to the
Brisbane river, reached the opposite side of the main range,
where I observed the waters fell westerly to Millar's Valley,
beneath us.

"Climbing the northern summit of Mount Mitchell, which
bounds the Pass on the south, it was with no small pleasure that
I passed my eye over the beautiful tract of country, at which my
labours of the last year had closed.

"Portions of Canning and Darling Downs, with patches of
Peel's Plains w'ere distinctly recognised at distances of twenty
and thirty miles. The entrance to Logan Vale, indicated by the
table-topped hill named last year ' Mount Sturt,' was also
observed, as was the forest ridge overhanging that rich valley
beneath which my tents stood several days at that period. My
elevated situation on Mount Mitchell enabled me to take
bearings to points whose positions are fixed, as well on the
western as the eastern sides of the Barrier Ranges, and thus
most satisfactorily affording me the amplest materials to connect
<jn the map of the country the northern points of my last year's
journey with th(-' penal settlement on the Brisbane River. The
day was considerably advanced by the time we had effected these
truly interesting observations ; we therefore descended to the
Pass, and making the best of our way along the eastern forest
ridge, reached the encampment about eight o'clock, having been
occupied in severe exercise about thirti.'en hours.

Spell Broken. — The "Pass" Stormed. 155

This passage through the Dividing Range is geographically
situated in latitude 28 deg. 2 min. 40 sec. S., and longitude
(reduced from the meridian of the Limestone Station) 152 deg.
24 min. 20 sec. E., and lies S.W. from Brisbane Town fifty-four
miles, being also in direct distance from the sea coast near Point
Danger (of Captain Cook) about sixty-four geographical miles.

" The weather had favoured our operations throughout the
whole of the day, but we had scarcely been seated within our
tents half-an-hour, before the sky became overcast, and heavy
clouds pressing over us to the eastward in a rapid succession,
presaged the storm that was gathering in and beyond the heights
above us. I had timely taken the precaution to direct the
securing of the tents by extra guys, and, therefore, felt fully
prepared to meet the impending tempest. The thunder (which
the otherwise stillness of these solitudes had allowed us to hear
in the distance) at length approached in rolling peals, and,
accompanied by the most vivid lightning and a deluging rain,
commenced a storm as awful, at the same time as grand, as any
that are to be witnessed in elevated intertropical countries.
With unabated violence the tempest continued until after mid-
night, when, as if suddenly exhausted, the wind moderated, the
clouds broke, gradually sinking down towards the horizon, and a
bright moon, just past the full, now burst forth with many a
brilliant star, to assure us, by affording us light to observe the
extreme pinnacles of the mountains perfectly divested of clouds,
that at length calm, serene, and settled weather was again
restored to us. During the whole of this thunderstorm the tem-
perature of the atmosphere continued without variation : the
thermometer stood at 64 deg.

" On the 26th (August) we commenced our journey back to
the Limestone Station, distant something under forty miles.
The surface of the soil felt to the foot quite saturated with the
rains of the last night, and vegetables, generally speaking,
assumed a lively verdure, evidently refreshed by the showers
that had fallen. We soon reached our last encampment on the
creek that ran northerly to the Bremer, and thence pursued a
course to the north, with the design of passing to the westward
of Mount Forbes. This line of route led us over some exceedingly
moderate forest ridges, clothed with a luxuriant carpet of grass,
and timbered with loftier and statelier ironbark than we had for
some time previous remarked.

156 Genesis of Qiieensi,and.

" In two miles these undulated grounds, which furnish
excellent sheep and cattle pasture, dip to the level of an apple-
tree flat of very rich soil, which appeared to extend northerly-
several miles, and forming, by the gentle hills on its eastern side,
and the forest ridges connected with or fronting the Dividing
Range westerly, a most beautiful valley, well watered by the
creek, on which we had rested on the 22nd.

" Continuing north about three miles, through this very level
valley, a patch of plain opened on our view, round the skirts of
which the creek, which we had just previously crossed, bent its
course. This plain, to which I feel gratified in attaching the
name of Lieutenant Bainbrigge, of His Majesty's 57th Regiment,
and at present the very active engineer at Brisbane Town,
measured a mile and a quarter in diameter, and is of an irregular
square figure. It contains about eight hundred acres of beautiful
land, of as truly a level as it is possible to conceive any patch of
ground could be, untouched by the hand of man.

" Nothing can possibly exceed the richness and mellowness
of its fine black soil, and, certainly, there is not in any explored
part of New South Wales a more beautiful subject for the pencil
of the artist than the landscape presented to the traveller from
the centre of Bainbrigge's Plain, to which no description of mine
can possibly do justice. On its north-western side Bainbrigge's
Plain is bounded by a hummocky ridge of rising wooded forest
hills, forming a chain of pretty grassy mounds, behind which the
more colossean main range uprears its bold and towering heads,
stretching its rugged outline far to the southward. Immediately
on the S.E. low forest ridges, and some detached hills, meet the
eye, and one rather elevated and of remarkable figure I named
Mount Eraser, after my friend and fellow-traveller. Whenever
this country is thrown open to the grazier, and a public road is
constituted through the mountain defile just explored to the
exterior western pastures, then will Bainbrigge's plain become a
stage, being nearly equidistant from the Limestone station and
the Pass, from each, when a well western road is formed, not
exceeding a day's journey.

" In about six miles further to the N.N.E. we made the foot
of Mount Forbes, when I determined to rest a whole day, as well
to fix its geographical position as to obtain from its commanding
summit a full set of bearings to all points around, and by them to
connect and close the sketch of my journey.

Northward ho! — Range Subsiding. i^j

" From this elevation, which is certainly five hundred feet
above the plane of the circumjacent country, the eye surveyed an
interesting and varied panorama, consisting of every description
of country to be met with in New South Wales, brought fullv
within the reach of vision. I set up an excellent Schmalcalder's
compass, and, beginning at a point, took bearings to everv
eminence of moment on the circumference of the circle. As the
bearings were to points, already frequently mentioned, ncv
observation need again be made of them. I would, however,
simply remark that from their station I was at length enabled to
fix the true situations of two lofty hills marked on the chart of
the country to the southward, which I named Mount Edwards
and Mount Greville, the latter in honour of a very distinguished
Scotch botanist.

" Of certain parts of this curiously diversified country it
may be important to know that, upon passing to the eastward ol
the range of Flinders Peak, the land appears a perfect level to
the coast, which an eastern line would intersect about the
southern extreme of Stradbroke Island, so that if it should at
any period be deemed expedient to order a road to be formed
from this hill direct to that part of the coast, when, perhaps,
shipping might ride in safety in w^hat is termed the Southern
passage, there appears no difficulty on passing the line of ridge
stretching southerly from Flinders Peak to prevent its being
fully effected.

" The seeming valley through which the Brisbane river flows
easterly from the sources at N.W., is bounded on the north by
an elevated range of forest hills, in which I perceived, at an
estimated distance of forty miles, a break, through which I
could discern a very distant low country to the north of it.

" Tracing this northern range in a westerly direction, it was
observed to decline at W.N.W., and at length to soften down to
the distant blue line of horizon.

" The principal or Dividing Range, so formidable a barrier
as it really is, in and to the southward of this parallel of latitude,
was observed from this hill to bend its lengthened ridge to the
N.W. and west, and in about thirty-five or forty miles to
terminate, leaving a space between to the western extreme of
the northern forest range above mentioned, so truly level that
the sight is lost on the vast levels that meet with no visible
boundary to the westward.

1^8 Genesis of Queensland.

" Here, then, is an opening between the ranges through
which a fully equipped, well-directed exploring party might pass,
with the view, not simply of carrying on the sketch of the
interior from these points to the tropical circle, but also of
acquiring more precise notions of the aspect and capabilities of
the distant internal country bearing in a W.N.W. direction,
than we at present possess.

" The summit of Mount Forbes presents a narrow level
ridge at its southern extreme, from which it gradually contracts
northerly until it becomes a sharp ledge of rocks, having on the
eastern and western sides precipitous falls of two hundred feet.
The rock is an ironstone, upon which the decomposing effects of
the elements were everywhere obvious, and which, doubtless,
has given the mountain its sharp figure, when viewed either from
the north or south.

" 26th. Having ascertained the situation of Mount Forbes
as follows, we prosecuted our journey to the north, along a
continuance of the valley traversed on the 27th : — latitude, 27
deo". 47 min. S. ; longitude, 152 deg. 35 min. E. At noon our
latitude (observed on the bank of the Bremer), placed us five
miles south of the Limestone Hills, which bore from us E.N.E.
about fifteen miles. This distance we effected through a level
open forest country early in the afternoon of the 30th, after
havino- been absent from that station twelve days.

" I have now laid before your Excellency a detail of all the
leading circumstances of the journeys of geographical research
which I had undertaken during my visit to Moreton Bay, and I
now close this lengthened communication with a few remarks on
the future importance of Bremer's river as a navigable stream,
and the direction to be taken in the construction of a line of
road from the Limestone Hills, southerly, to the Pass and Great
Western Downs. During my stay at the Limestone Hills, and
just previous to my return to Brisbane Town in September last, I
traced the Bremer, through its various windings, to its junction
with the Brisbane, measuring on its bank the length of each
reach ; and from the material I then collected I have now
constructed the accompanying outline, to which I beg to refer
your Excellency.

" Bremer's river, which at its mouth is about forty yards wide,
preserves an uniformity of breadth of thirty and thirty-five yards
throughout its tortuous course of ten miles to the Limestone

Road to the Gap. i^g

Station, which point may be considered the head of navigation,
for, almost immediately beyond, ledges of rocks occupy the bed
of the river, which at length rises and separates the fresh water
from the salt. To this station (up to which the tide flows) the
Bremer is of sufficient depth to be navigable for boats or craft of
thirty or forty tons, and as it expands and forms a natural basin
a short distance below the station of upwards of one hundred
yards in width, and with a depth of water sufficient to float a
large ship, the importance of building a wharf on the right-hand
bank of this basin, to which the produce of the interior might be
conveyed to be embarked, will be at some future day seen. The
circumstance, moreover, of this river being thus far navigable
for craft of a certain class, and the consequent saving to the
farmer of that expense which is necessarily attendant on the
wear and tear of a long land-carriage of internal produce to the
coast, cannot possibly fail, when this country becomes settled
on, to be duly considered.

" It is therefore highly probable that upon the site of these
Limestone Hills a town will one day be raised.

" With reference to the direction of a line of road from this
station south-westerly to the Pass through the Dividing Range, I
observe that, in order to avoid the stony hills, among which my
outward bound course led me, on the eastern side of Mount
Forbes, the road should be conducted on a line drawn from the
Limestone Hills south-west, by compass, eighteen miles, which
will not only pass through an open country of slight undulation,
in which one bridge will be required to be thrown over a creek,
but it will extend fully to the valley along which I travelled north
in my return from the Pass, leaving Mount Forbes to the
eastward : after which it might be continued through this vale
south to Bainbrigge's Plain, at which may terminate the first stage.

" The road may then be carried on without the slightest
difficulty south twelve miles to the spot (distinctly marked on
chart), on which my tent stood on the 24th and 25th of August
last, and which may be readily recognised by an intersection of
the following bearings to points in the vicinity of the pass: south
head of Mount Mitchell, S. 37 W. magnetic ; north head and
station on Mount Mitchell, S. 47I W. ; centre of Pass, W. 24 S.,
distant 2| miles; Mount Cordeaux, W. 35 S., distant three miles.

"The particular spot being ascertained from which the above
bearings were taken, the forest ridge leading to the base of the

i6o Genesis of Queensland.

Pass will be immediately seen. In continuing the line of road
along the ridge little labour will be required, as the stones and
masses of rocks that lie in the way are detached, and may be
easily removed.

" In the formation of a practicable road through the last
quarter of a mile to the pitch of the Pass, the skill of the
practical engineer will be called into action. There are
abundance of materials of stone and large timber on the spot at
his command, and there is sufficient room to avoid the abrupt
face by which we ascended, by taking a sweep round so as to
intersect the wall of rocks further to the southward, and then by
tracing it northerly to the point at which it terminates in the
Pass.

"The passage through the Pass westerly to the head of
Millar's Valley requires simply the brush to be cut away, the
construction of a small bridge over a narrow water channel, and
the ground (otherwise quite level) smoothed, by a removal of
some rounded stones from the surface, which have evidently
rolled down from the overhanging heights. Although time was
not afforded me to trace Millar's Valley down to Darling Downs,
still I feel fully satisfied from the observations I made from
Mount Mitchell that no difficulty exists in the fall of the vale,
which appeared in every part exceedingly moderate. The
distance from Darling Downs to Brisbane Town by the nearest
line of communication overland is about seventy-seven miles ; in
consequence, however, of there being a sufficiency of water in
the Bremer to navigate small craft of forty tons ten miles to the
Limestone Hills, the land carriage from the Western Downs is
reduced by the above projected line of road to sixty statute miles.

" An excursion made in September last (upon my return from
the Pass) from the Limestone Station, north to the channel of the
P)risbane, which I intersected in five miles at a point visited by
.Mr. Oxley and myself in 1824 and which I clearly recognised,
has enabled me to connect most satisfactorily (as regards
geographical position) the westernmost point to which our late
very able Surveyor-General had penetrated on his second visit to
ihc Brisbane, with what I have now attempted to effect. The
tortuous course of the river is therefore carried on upon the
accompanying chart to that point.

"Beyond this spot the river was subsequently (in 1825)
traced up in a north-western direction by Major Lockyer, of

All Gaps Filled. i6r

which boat excursion a notice appeared in a late number of
Wiltojt's Quarterly Journal. It is to be regretted that
possessed of so much zeal and perseverance, this gentleman had
not provided himself with the requisite instruments for the
determination of position of his several stations, and more
particularly of the extreme points, to which the means he
possessed had enabled him to reach. In latitude (which I am
fully disposed to believe would have placed him — had it been
observed — considerably to the southward of 27 deg. S.) would
have been very important to the geographer.

" Being thus aware that this excellent gentleman had no
means of ascertaining the geographical situation of this point,
and as he has not furnished us with a single bearing of any one
known fixed point, I have left the river just where my late friend
Mr. Oxley did, rather than add to it the trace of its channel by
Major Lockyer, which I observed marked on a badly engraved
chart of the colony recently published by Cross.

" I beg now to close this communication, which I have the
honour to lay before your Excellency, accompanied by a reduced
geographical sketch, and two plans of portions of the country
traversed : and I respectfully trust that your Excellency will feel
fully satisfied, upon a perusal of this report, that I have
endeavoured, to the utmost of my ability, to render perfect my
journey of the last year, overland from the colony, by carrying
on my sketch through the Dividing Range to the banks of the
Brisbane river and shores of Moreton Bay, and thus filling up
the map of the country by the very ample material collected in
the progress of my several excursions to the parallel of 28 deg. S-
" I have the honour to be. Sir,

" With the utmost respect,
" Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant,
" Allan Cunningham,

" H.M. Bot. Collector.
"To His Excellency — ■

" Lieutenant-General Darling,

" Governor."

Thus, in the march of time, from the first glance which James
Cook — the very Triton among our British sea-scourers — cast
upon the outlines of Moreton Bay from the deck of the
" Endeavour," to the first grasp with which Allan Cunningham

1 62 Genesis of Queens lajtd.

reduced its interior wastes to enrolment among the fixed places
of the earth, in his progress of patient and persevering explora-
tion, steps forth into the first rank of Australian forces the
magnificent young recruit to the squatter's phalanx — Darling
Downs.

What suggestions for the future, what aspirations, what a
glow of success must have spurred Allan Cunningham's keen
imagination, while he crept upon the brilliant though distant
view of the plains of the upper Condamine river. What might
be the fruit of his discovery appears at once to have grafted
itself upon his hope ; and doubtless, when he was grappling
with natural impediments to advancement, he collected to his
eye many a reflection of what the settled parts of this vast land
had once been, and had become in his own day. Never,
however, could the suspicion that time was already pregnant
with coming events, brought to the birth long ere this year 1887,
grown, as their facts are, to such marvellous stature in those till
then unknown regions, have dawned upon and dazed his, any,
even the most sanguine castle-building fancy.

Little could he have dreamt that the expanse he was gazing
on, decked with virgin beauty, would so soon be desecrated by
the iron tramp of a messenger and minister serving man by fire,
smoke, and shriek ; one, indeed, he knew not of, which would
buffer with scorn the speed and endurance of the well-tried horse
which had borne him to this land of the golden fleece : which
would crush the clumsy dray, and efface every feature of rude
life (and of the world itself as he had looked upon it in his days)
from the sight and comprehension of Allan Cunningham : the
railroad !

But the season for reaping the fruits of Cunningham's
discoveries had not yet revolved. It took thirteen years for the
rare stalk on which he had grafted the first shoot of civilization
to bear even a bud : but then how rapid the blossoming ; how
plenteous the harvest !

The circumstances of the times were combining in 1840 to
compel the squatters of the northern district into some more
genial climate. The cold winters were said to be a great
drawback to thorough success in sheep-breeding and fine wool-
growing. Some who had bought stations there were already
seeking, and at times finding purchasers for what dissatisfied
themselves : albeit held under the easy rent of an annual ten

IVool a Pioneer. 16-;

pound license — for ever ! as it seemed — with a small assessment
upon their stock.

Of course, New England was the district farthest north.
By-the-by, the term " squatter," as applied to the class which it
now designates, was not in vogue until two years after this.

Inquiry and discussion were at boiling point about the
rivers Clarence and Richmond : the country upon their banks
was dubbed unequalled ; but alas ! the difficulties of transit from
the table land were declared to be so grave, that many turned
themselves to other points of the compass.

There was Arthur Hodgson, who had sold his run of
" Cashiobury " to Todd and Fenwick, to which the same purchasers
soon added the adjoining station " Yarrowitch," hitherto occupied
by the brothers John and Francis Allman.

His name cannot escape mention, as he first showed those
symptoms of restlessness which, ere long, very generally fer-
mented.

"Where shall we go," was Arthur Hodgson's daily and
nightly vigil. With keen judgment he awaited the result of
an exploring journey which was then being made by the
pioneer of Darling Downs, whose name is still a household
word among the regrets of those who survive those good
old days, whether yet nursing existence among the same scenes
or basking in England beneath the sunshine of full-grown
prosperity, of which the pastures of Darling Downs had cradled
the infancy.

Patrick Leslie, of Collaroi, in the district of Cassilis, New
South Wales, a little before this period had been much "exer-
cised " about looking for new country on which to depasture
sheep and cattle.

Active, energetic, prince of " bushmen '" and good fellows,
full of "bush-fire," he was a man not likely to sit down satisfied
Avith the first thing he happened to meet with : one, who, under
the rowel of squatters' ambition, wanted the best of everything ;
so he set about providing himself with the best run for stock to
which patience, perseverance, and pluck could help him. He
was well seconded by two estimable brothers. The one Scotch
family, of which he was a scion, had no small reason to be proud
of its representatives in the southern hemisphere. Well !
Patrick Leslie's notes must speak for themselves : no need to
deprive them of their characteristic syllables.

164 Genesis of Queensland.

It must here be remarked that a volume had just (1877)
made its appearance at Melbourne, in which there was so much
error in regard to the early times of Moreton Bay and its
environs, that some newspaper hitting out soon warmed the
question affecting the accuracy of several statements respecting
that district.

Thus also did Patrick Leslie, thirteen years after Allan
Cunningham had let in first light upon one of Australia's
brightest scenes, usher in first life thereon, and by the activity
and work of life begin the development of the treasure which
Allan Cunningham had unearthed. So far man's Genesis of
Queensland.

But all was not coiileiir cie rose to the struggling squatter on
Darling Downs and that limited pastoral area. Few beyond the
small circle of survivors are capable of weighing in just scales
the cost at which profit was, in some cases, ultimately attained.
The scarcity of labour, and, as a rule, its despotic and insolent
worthlessness ; anxieties consequent upon the hostility of the
aboriginal tribes — anxieties the more harassing when fears
among the men became exaggerated to an absurd extent by
their own unreason and cowardice ; the consciousness that the
sheep, and the very modus vivendi were thus exposed to any
and every outrage ; the surfeit of debt, may be, to some bank or
Sydney merchant, at whose mercy the squatter lay — and where
the exception in those days now of elation, now of depression ?
— with its burden sickening effort of head and hand ; the fall, so
sudden and capricious, in the marketable price of wool and
stock ; the dread of scab and catarrh ; the encroachment of some
lazy loafer fresh from the southward ; in fact, forty and odd years
ago the consciousness that at any moment, he might be hoist on
the petard of his own venture, did not admit that rest to the
brain, or that quiet closing of the eyelid which, in all conditions,,
should nurse mind and body in health's service.

^'Patrick Leslie's Diary.

"Friday, the 21st of February, 1840. — Dr. John Dobie^
Walter Leslie and myself arrived at Falconer Plains, New

* Sent to me, with remarks added on Sutherlands's Book, in 1878, from
Wartle, Auckland, New Zealand.

Patrick and Peter. 165

England (then in the occupation of Donald Mclntyre) for the
purpose of trying to find a road down the Clarence river. We
were accompanied by two men ; a convict named Peter Murphy,
alias Duff, per ' Countess of Harcourt,' 1827, from Dublin, who
was a lifer, and assigned to me on the 9th of December, 1838.
I mention these particulars, as the man was about the best
plucked fellow I ever came across in my life, and as good a
servant as master ever had.

" To return to our subject. On the 22nd of February,
Dobie, Walter Leslie and I started from Falconer Plains with
Peter Murphy and one of Mclntyre's men, named Crawford
(Dobie's man being left in charge of our spare horses), and
proceeded towards the Dividing Range between New England
and the Clarence river ; spent four days in trying in vain to find
a road, and returned to go out to Darling Downs.

" Before leaving Sydney, I had heard from my old friend,
Mr. Allan Cunningham, the discoverer of Darling Downs, full
particulars of his journey out, and he most kindly offered me the
use of his map to assist me in my exploration, and wrote to my
old friend. Admiral King, who had such map, asking him to give
it to me to copy ; but, unfortunately, Admiral King could not
find it, and I had therefore to manage as best I could. Admiral
King gave me the exact position of Ben Lomond, in New-
England, and such was of great use to me as a starting point,
and I worded in day by day a sort of rough dead reckoning of
my track as I went along.

■' In company with Peter Murphy only, I left Falconer
Plains on the 2nd of March, and staying a day or two at Beardy
Plains, we reached Garden and Bennett's station on the 8th of
March. This station was on a branch of the Severn river, some
twenty or thirty miles north of Beardy Plains, and at that time
the farthest out station to the north, on the east side of
New England.

" On the loth of March I left Garden and Bennett's station,
and passing through much broken country, came on the 13th to
a large stream, on which, following it to its junction with a large
river, we encamped. This river was afterwards called the Mole
river, and the large river into which it emptied itself was the
Severn.

" On the morning of the 14th of March, crossing the Severn
river, we came on the junction of a large stream nearly opposite

1 66 Genesis of Queensland.

the junction of the Mole and Severn. This was afterwards
called Pike's creek. We followed this creek up a considerable
distance (encamping several nights). We crossed a range and
made a large creek, afterwards called Sandy creek, and following
the valley thereof, made the Darling Downs on the 20th of
March, about four miles above Toolburra. On the 20th and 21st
of March explored up the Condamine to Canning Downs, and
crossing a ridge, came down the (afterwards) Glengallan creek,
and leaving the Downs about five miles below Toolburra made
south by Canal creek, Quart-pot creek. Mclntyre brook, Severn
river, &c., and on the 31st of March made Cameron's station on
Bannockburn Plains, and on the 4th of April came to Dobie's
camp on Falconer's Plains ; tried hard to induce Dobie to follow
us out to Darling Downs, but in vain ; he remained wedded to
the Clarence.

"On the 12th of April Walter Leslie arrived at Dobie's
camp, with our sheep, drays, &c., and encamped three miles
up the creek from Dobie's Camp.

" Our stock consisted of four thousand breeding ewes in
lamb, one hundred ewe hoggets, one thousand wedder hoggets,
one hundred rams, and five hundred wedders, three and four
years old.

"We had two teams of bullocks, twenty-four in all, and two
drays, a team of horses and dray, and ten saddle horses.

" We had twenty-two men, all ticket-of-leave, or convicts, as
good and game a lot of men as ever existed, and who never
occasioned us a moment's trouble : worth any forty men I have
ever seen since.

" On Monday, the 14th of April, we started from Falconer's
Plains camp, and went on by easy stages by Beardy Plains,
Waterloo, Vivers, &c., to Mclntyre's station, at Byron Plains,
where we arrived on the 26th of April, and remained till the ist
of May, on which day we came on to George Wyndham's
station, on what was supposed to be a branch of the Mclntyre
River, the then farthest north station in New England (west side.)

" On the 3rd of May we left Wyndham's, and I marked the
first tree of * Leslie's marked-tree line,' close to Wyndham's
.stockyard ; a blazed line was marked from this to ' Leslie's
crossing place,' on the Condamine river, between Talgai and
Tumma\ille, and we arrived at the Condamine on Wednesday,
the 4th of June, without the loss of a single animal, or breaking

Leslie' s " Blaze."

167

a bullock chain. On our outward route we kept as much as
possible on my tracks, when returning from the Downs in
March.

" On the 6th of June, leaving all stock, drays, &c., in charge
of the men, Walter Leslie, Peter Murphy and I left the Condamine
camp, and explored the country up the Condamine, by Canning
Downs, Killarney, Glengallan and Dalrymple creeks, returning
to camp on the 13th, and on the 14th moved up the river,
arriving at the junction of Sandy creek with the Condamine on
the 2oth. Here we made a temporary camp, intended lor our
first sheep station, and for the protection of men and stock,
made one station on the north bank of the river and two others
opposite — one on either side of Sandy creek, thus giving mutual
protection, and at the same time deep water between each camp.

"From this camp, on the 21st of June, Walter, Murphy and I
struck across the Downs to the northward, and crossing by
(what is now) Allora, Spring creek. King's creek, Hodgson's
creek, and on to Gowrie and One Tree Hill, and finding nothing
we liked as much as Canning Downs, we returned as far as
Glengallan creek, and ran the Middle Gap creek up to
Cunningham's ' Gap,' crossed it, following a creek down to the
Bremer river, intending to go on to Brisbane, but on second
thoughts we feared going without credentials, and re-crossing
the ' Gap,' we returned to our camp on the ist July, and next
day we left the sheep at their stations, and moved down some
four miles to Toolburra, where we formed our head station. We
afterwards sold Toolburra to Gordon, and formed the Canning
Downs head station. We took up the country from the bottom
of Toolburra to the head of the Condamine, including all
tributaries. Afterwards we gave up what was (afterwards)
called Glengallan creek to the Campbells, and Fred (Bracker)
the German's creek and Sandy creek to the Aberdeen Company.

" Well, to return to the 2nd July, we encamped the drays,
&c., on the knoll on which Toolburra head station was afterwards
built, and, on the 7th July, I left Walter at Toolburra, and
making my way by our own marked tree line, I met Dalrymple
on the 9th, with our cattle, at Quart-pot creek ; camped the
night with him, and next day I went on and made the Severn
river on the 12th. Found Cox had formed a cattle station since
we passed up. Stopped the night there, and having next
morning made Blaxland's station on Frazer's creek — also formed

1 68 Genesis of Queensland.

since we passed up — on the 14th July came on to Wyndham's
station, where we commenced blazing our line on our way up
(vide 3rd of May).

" On the 19th of July I reached a station belonging to Cash,
of New England, and having heard that Hodgson and Elliot
were encamped some three miles off. I made their camp and
stayed the night there. Hodgson was very unsettled as to
whether he would go to the Clarence or follow out my line to
Darling Downs, but I had no difficulty in persuading him to take
the latter course ; and I told him of a fine country and how to
reach it from Leslie's crossing place at the Condamine.

" This country was Etonvale, to which he went straight.
" On Wednesday, the 22nd of July, I made the Peel, and
spent the night in the hospitable house of Charles Hall, the
Australian Agricultural Company's superintendent there, when
I slept in a bed for the first time since I left Garden and
Bennett's on the loth of March.

" On Monday, the 27th, 1 reached Maitland, and on the
28th went down by steamer to Sydney.

" Hodgson must have reached the Darling Downs early in
September, being the first who went off on my line. We were
the only people on Darling Downs for fully three months, we
arriving on the 4th of June ; Hodgson in September.

'' I think King and Sibley were the next settlers ; or probably ■
Isaac, who went out with Hodgson, may have selected Cowrie
before King and Sibley arrived. I am not sure of this, but if
Isaac selected before King and Sibley, the latter had their stock
up before Isaac.

" It was Frederick Isaac who went up with Hodgson.
" It is a fact beyond any doubt that the farthest northern
stations in New England, when I went out to the Downs, were
(}arden and Bennett's on the east side of New England, and
George Wyndham's station on the west side of the same
district ; and drawing a line from Garden and Bennett's to
Wyndham's, no squatter had ever a hoof to the northward until
we took ours.

" I believe no white man (but runaway convicts, and I believe
none such ever were on the Downs) ever set foot on Darling Downs
from the time Cunningham discovered them till I went there.

" As for any stations being formed before 1840, it is simple
rubbish.

Leslie J the Centaur. 169

"When our blacks became so far tamed as to hold communi-
cation with us, they told us that the thing which terrified them
most (when they first saw me and Murphy four miles below
Toolburra on the 20th of March) was our dismounting, th(;ir
full impression being that man and horse was one animal. Is it
likely such would have been their impression had any white man
ever been out on the Downs, as the Messrs. Sutherland say ?

" As to Warwick, it was never thought of till the end of 1847,
when Government instructed me to select a spot for the township
on the Condamine, below Canning Downs, and it must have been
in 1848 when the first settlement took place.

" In 1847 George Leslie had a sheep station on the very spot
where Warwick now stands. I think it was in 1848 that the
first land sale was held. The Survey Office can give the date ;
and I was the first man who bought a lot, being instigated to
such speculation, extending to £4, by a sawyer named John
Russell, a well-known character in those days, who, when the
first lot was put up, addressed me as follows : ' Come,

Mr. Patrick Leslie, buy the little lot for luck ; you were the

first man here ; be the first to buy.' And I bought it. Thi^
pretty well settles the foundation of Warwick.

" If I remember rightly, Rolleston as C.C.L. had to approve
of the site for the town : he may remember if it was so. At first
it was named ' Canningtown,' and we all objected to the name,
and Government changed it to ' Warwick' at our suggestion.

"Of the settlement of Drayton, and afterwards of Toowoomba,
you will know better than I do : but this I know, that neither
one nor the other existed till long after we were on the Downs.
Why! in 1848 Drayton consisted of Bill Horton's (the Fiver)
public-house and a shanty or two, with only one well for the
town ! and it was such a one, as to get a bucket full of water,
one had to go down with a pannikin and bale it into the bucket I
and a long time it took to fill a bucket. I remember that at the
time of the races, Toowoomba then did not exist. If, as stated
by the Messrs. Sutherland, there were early settlers and early
townships, where did they get their supplies from ? The penal
settlement was a close one, and no one could go there except by
permission of the Government, and the first supplies were mine
and Hodgson's, which went there in 1840 under permits signed
by the then Governor, Sir George Gipps. Even if supplies
could have been got from Brisbane, such could not have been

1 70 Genesis of Queensland.

taken to the Downs, as we all know that no wheels ever made
could have crossed the Main Range, when we first went up
there. Cunningham's Gap on our side, and the old 'Hell-hole'
road, Drayton side, were the first roads, if they could be so
called, and they were cleared by us, Hodgson, and others.

" I see in your letters that the printer's devil has once or twice
put 1 841 for 1840. It was the latter year I went out. On
September 9th I was 'spliced,' and that is a day one don't
forget. My dates as given throughout are perfectly correct. I
would swear to any one of them, for my journal kept on my
trips, and written every day, is now before me.

" One pretty convincing proof that I was the first man who
settled on Darling Downs may be found in the following : when
I returned to Sydney at the end of July, 1840, the then Governor,
Sir George Gipps, sent for me, and obtained from me all the
information I could give him as to the Darling Downs, as well as
the unsettled districts between the outside New England stations
and the Downs. Sir George expressed himself much pleased at
such a large and fine area of a country being explored and settle-
ment commenced ; and he asked me if there was anything he
could do for me. I told him I wanted nothing for myself, but
that my companion was an assigned servant, a convict for life,
who had behaved splendidly, and stood by me when attacked by
the blacks, when most men in his position would have run ; and
I asked Sir George to grant him a ticket-of-leave, and the
Governor said he would not only do so, but also would recommend
him for a conditional pardon ; and he did so, and Peter Murphy
got his pardon accordingly.

"If Darling Downs had been previously settled"^ Sir George
Gipps would never have acted as he did. If old Peter is alive

* Messrs. Sutherland, in their History of Australia, had published the
following : — " After the discoveries made by Allan Cunningham in 1835 " (!) " the
squatters of New South Wales had hastened northwards, in order to depasture their
flocks on the fine lands of the Darling Downs. They founded many little towns,
such as Ipswich, Drayton, and Toowoomba; and when in 182Q" (!) "a pass leading
across the Dividing Range from the Darling Downs to Moreton Ba*^ was discovered
by Cunningham the squatters on the west of the mountains began to hold frequent
communication with the settlement of Moreton Bay, from which they obtained
convicts to act as shepherds on their runs." (! !) Iti:.is at this incomprehensible state-
ment that Mr. P. Leslie aims this abstract of his diary.

In the Qiieenslandcr paper there appeared in this year, 1878, the following
notice among the " Deaths " : — " Murphy — On the 6th April, at Charters Towers,

How Er}-o7^s Grow to Facts. ^n^

now he is pretty sure to be about Brisbane ; a better servant or
a * gamer ' man never was seen.

" When I was at Falconer's Plains, and about starting to look
for the Downs, Murphy was the only man I had with me, and
not liking to compel him (a convict) to accompany me, I told
him what my intentions were — viz., to go out to look for the
Darling Downs, and to take only one man with me, and I asked
him if he was willing to go, telling him I left it entirely to
himself. He looked at me, and said: "Go with you sir? I

would go to with you !" I said I did not intend to go

there at present, but was well pleased to have him to go out
with me on my little expedition. We had a pack-horse and a
sheep-dog with us, and carried biscuit and bacon, tea and sugar,
trusting to our guns for fresh meat, and lines and hooks for fish,
and we lived exceedingly well. We had a spare shirt and
pair of trousers each, and a single blanket.

"March, 1878."

" I cannot think what could have put it into Sutherland's
brain that the Downs country was settled in 1830. His quotation
from Pugh's book as to the flocks of the squatters following
Cunningham in three years is, I think, due to a misprint (in
Pugh's) of three for thirteen, for the latter would just make it
come out right: difference between 1827, Cunningham's time,
and 1840, my year.

"The Downs settled in 1830! Why for seven long years
after that date there was not a hoof across the Liverpool Range.

"Well, you will be tired of my scribble, but so far as it has
gone it is gospel truth, and not one bit of it from memory : but
all from written dates.

"I will look with considerable pleasure to your knocking the
M.A.'s of some second or third rate university into a cocked hat!

Queensland, Peter Murphy, aged 72 years, native of Dublin ; came to the colony
in 1819, and in 1839 he came overland with Patrick Leslie from Collaroy, New
England, to the Darling Downs. They were the first two pioneers from New
South Wales to Queensland."

In this short notice there are three errors ! 1819 should be 1827 ; 1839 should
be 1840 ; and Collaroy was a farm within the settled district of Cassilis, no small
distance from New England. !

CHAPTER VIII

To be called into a hitge sphere, and not to be seen to move in't, ar^ the
Jioles where eyes should be, which pitifully disaster the cheeks.

— Shakespeare. (Antony and Cleopatra.)

My first trip out of Sydney was in 1840. Staying at Petty 's
Hotel — and an excellent hotel it was — I felt lonely enough. I
had long delivered or posted letters from friends at home, but
some mischance seemed to have overtaken them. Why are my
introductions to His Excellency Sir George Gipps so manifestly
ignored ? Why do I not hear from Mr. Boydell ? His relatives
in England earnestly asked me to make myself known to him,
confident that he would send me an invitation to the Paterson.
I was received very kindly by his relatives at WoolloomoolcK* :
hope I said nothing rude to the young lady there — how handsome
she was too ! — who took me all aback by asking me (the newest
curiosity from fastidious England), "What! really thought of her?""
And the Bishop was very kind : so was that dear old Major
Barney at the point by the waterside, and his delightful family.
What can it mean that so many others neglect to acknowledge
my calling upon them ? with credentials too ?

Thus perplexed, I sat in Petty's verandah and smoked : not
a pipe yet, however. " Well ! that Aldis has good manillas !
could not get them in London like these. HuUoa ! Who comes
here? Surely I know one of those faces." "Why, it can't be
you !" " Yes, it is I, but who are you ?" " I am Pemberton
Hodgson ; my brother, Arthur, is in Sydney too." How glad I
was ; I could recall the face I so well knew when he was a boy
at Harrow. I had never met his brother. We soon got deep
into question and answer, and were truly happy in this rencontre.
" I'm going up the country to New England," said Arthur
Hodgson to me a few days afterwards ; " I've sold a station
there to Todd.' Oh, you don't know Todd: quite a new chum.
Will you come with us ?" He had been in the colony about
eighteen months, I think.

I was quite grateful for this chance of seeing something of the
country. "Got a horse, Russell?" "No; where can I get
one?" " Well, the only place decent in Sydney is Douglas and
Sutton's." " I will go at once; when do you start?" "Well,

A Very New Chum. ij^

we have to go to Maitland by a steamer at night, take our horses
on board, find ourselves probably at Newcastle in the morning
for breakfast, then up the river Hunter some miles, and land at
Morpeth, saddle up and take up our quarters at Cox's Hotel,
East Maitland. Let's see, we will say in a week." " I shall bej(
delighted."

In England I had thought myself a fair judge of a good
hack, but here I was quite at a loss. Small the lot to select
from ; blindfolded chances were as much in my favour for a choice
as they were with my eyes open. Whatever the brute seemed
to be, the price never varied. Sixty-five pounds ! Such a rough
no-paced, hard-mouthed animal — horse but by name and nature
— -as that which I could not help myself but by buying — and of
all colours black — took my appetite away for dinner on mv
return to Petty's. " Oh, you can't get a good horse in Sydney,"
said Hodgson, that evening; "all the best are in the bush."
He was right, I afterwards found. Well, where to get a saddle?
"Oh, go to Brown's, in George-street." And so to Brown's I
went, and a very excellent saddle on a Peate tree, and appur-
tenances, did Mr. Brown, a capital fellow, supply me with.
"But," said he, "you're going up the country: you will want
saddle-bags, and — let me see — halters, spare girths, and so on."
I had never seen such stable belongings, but consented to be
caparisoned completely en regie.

"Well, I must call on the Major before leaving," thought I
two days after ; so to Dawes' Battery Point, as it was called,
went I. I had ventured to pour my complaints into the ears of
his truly kind and amiable wife, by reason of the disappointment
I had felt at having been three times refused admittance at old
Government House. " It is very strange," she remarked, " I
know Lady Gipps had four letters, and told me some time ago
that she was very sorry that she had not seen you. Ah ! there's
a ring." I rose to leave, but she requested me to remain until
this visitor had gone. A lady entered. " Oh ! Lady Gipps,"
madame exclaimed, "allow me to introduce Mr. Stuart Russell."
" What !" ejaculated the visitor, " were you the bearer of those

letters from some time ago?" "Yes; and I have done

myself the honour of calling three times since, but was invariably
refused admittance." " Oh, dear ! I am so sorry; it has been all a
mistake ; there was — well ! one of your name whom I declined to
receive — I can't explain — but, orders had been given — you

174 Genesis of Queensland.

must have been supposed " " Not another word, I beg, Lady

Gipps," and flattered and consoled by the denouement, I made
my grateful conge, wondering whether there were many Russells
at the antipodes ! I soon found there were, to my distress.

At the beginning of March, then, Arthur, Pemberton
Hodgson and myself left Sydney, one evening, by a steamer —
one of the old Hunter River Company's — which started from a
wharf at the bottom of the hill at the back of Petty's.

Leaving Sydney, then, for the first time, I must, before
saying au revoir to it in these memoirs, tell what I thought of
the place I had arrived at some time before. There was no
getting alongside with a ship of nearly a thousand tons
measurement. Watermen's boats were plentiful, so I hailed one.
Once more on terra Jirnia, after a passage of one hundred and
fifty-four days, I felt none of the elevation of spirits which I had
anticipated. I found myself unconsciously going away from
rather than to the town, which I could not see from the landing
place. The hot, sandy dust made walking very disagreeable.
It seemed to me when I did get into Sydney it was but a long,
dirty street, called George-street, which in fact was the town.
I could see no handsome buildings. There was a Post Office,
with some stone pillars which supported its porch entrance.
Buildings were rising but none seemed to be finished. Most of
the larger seemed to have been built in one governor's time,
L. Macquarie, for Government purposes. A new Government
House was being got up, as well as a new gaol. The present
gaol is in George-street, — not a nice place for hanging, I think,
being the thoroughfare. But they did hang, in profusion, for the
edification of passers-by. Hardly any places of public amuse-
ment : an unclean theatre in Pitt-street (burnt down long ago),
small botanic, very incomplete, garden, the main feature in
which was one Norfolk Island pine tree. I speak of it as it was
in my eyes then : a mere lounge for a Sunday idler; and it did
not extend beyond a road which peremptorily cut it off from the
water-side, and so commanding no views of the beautiful harbour.
The Australian Club was decidedly the resort par excellence,
but a member then, as now, could not introduce a friend beyond
the strangers' room. The building had shortly before been a
hotel — The Pulteney. The great advantage of this — the only
club — was that it was frequented by the men most worth meeting
in the colony. There was a good billiard table and accommoda-

Hotels and Horses, 175

tion. Here it was possible to live without being ruined, which
seemed to be out of the question at the hotels ; or even, at
certain times, at any good lodgings, which were scarce. Decent
providings of existence — cooking, cleanliness, and chambers —
were most expensive, and there were few things, except wine,
to be had under double the price asked in England. All
trades, however, semed to be particularly flourishing. Sheep
were being sold on all sides at thirty shillings and up-
wards, herds of cattle from live pounds ten shillings up to
eight pounds, and nine pounds even ; and, as to horses,
nothing on four legs — and out of the four, as a rule, two good
legs could not have been patched together, — under lifty pounds !
Before inquiring prices I soon found that I could rely upon
a reply of sixty-five !

Such was my coup d'ceil in 1840.

Horses, saddles, saddle-bags, hobbles and selves bundled
together on board a steam craft remarkable neither for size,
symmetry, sweetness, nor civility, nothing noteworthy affected
us in our night passage more intolerable than the smell and
presence of enormous cockroaches."^ At Newcastle, which
seemed to me but a rock called Nobby ; a breakwater created
from the Nobby material ; an enormous glistening yellow mound
which made one's eyes sore by looking for the town ; the
semblance of a church built, alas ! on sand, we stopped awhile,
then proceeded up a muddy uninteresting river called the Hunter;
disembarked in front of a public house, called, I think, Anlaby's,
at a filthy kind of platform, where we saddled up and jogged on
to East Maitland. There we took up our quarters at Cox's
Hotel ; glad indeed to escape from the cockroaches ; counted
twenty-three habitations on the way to it ; now saw a court-
house and was told there were barracks not far off, called the
"Stockade." "Who is that, Hodgson?" "As tine an old
gentleman as ever breathed ; that's the P.M." ("How d'ye do,
Mr. Grant," en passant). They call him Paddy Grant.

Well, at Cox's Hotel we were comfortable ; saw many
going to and fro, who, I was told, had just come from New
England. A good deal of card and billiard playing that night in
which I took no hand ; a good deal of noise too.

*A young lady passenger, within hearing, woke me in the night with " Yes,
mama! cockroaches! but only kings, mama!"

176 Geitesis of Queensland.

In the morning, as I was standing at the white gate in front,
one came riding in, who, I was told, was Major Lettsome. He
stared in a pecuHarly offensive manner at a gentleman, who, I
found afterwards, bore the name of Boyd, close by with Arthur
Hodgson. " Did you see that, Hodgson?" he passionately cried

out; "that was an intentional insult! By I'll have him

out!" (And so he tried to do, and a great row ensued, which did
not come to an end -till it reached the Supreme Court, much to
the Major's discredit.)

Dangerous country, thought I ; better not see too well !
From Cox's through West Maitland ; and there a nice little inn
called the " Rose " by Cohen ; on by a road, which mile by mile
lost the semblance of a road ; in fact it bore the distinction, I
found, only when supported on either side by fences, which by
confinement of traffic only made it the worse ; on by such road,
I say, towards Patrick's Plains. " Here's Black Creek, Russell ;
further on is Kesterton's Inn; but I must take you a little off the
road to see two nice old English gentlemen ; very particular ;
well, you are rather dusty ; but you can go in by the back way,
you know, and you can ask the footman to brush you down
before coming in. Their names are Henry Hughes and
Henry Isaac. This is their farm ; we must turn off here ; that
cottage out there is Dr. Blick's, their next neighbour and medical
attendant." We reached the house, but in vain did I look for a
back entrance ; neither did I see a front approach ; the building
\\as not imposing ; I looked diffidently for that scrupulous neat-
ness about dwelling and garden, the distinctive dress of old
bachelordom, and saw it not ; hesitatingly I dropped behind ;
"Come on, old fellow!" shouted Hodgson; "come on old
Hodgson," shouted two voices together from a low verandah, the
utterers of which in so cheerful tone drew my attention to
two individuals seated, each on a keg, smoking. Little,
apparently, over twenty years of age ; covered with dust ; shirt
sleeves tucked up to the elbows ; doubled up by the heat of
work; straw— I found they were called "cabbage-tree" — hats,
ribandless, and once perhaps of a lighter tinge , heavy boots,
which knew not blacking-brushes ; each with a silver tankard in
hand, a short clay pipe in mouth, there they stood laughing, as I,
guileless of suspicion hitherto, laughed Avith them in recognition
of Hodgson's " merrie " jokes with a new chum's initiation.
And in one of these two, not long ago borne to the rest of

Surprised by Old Soldiers. inn

a good man and honoured name, I found in after years the
kindest and most valued friend I ever had.

A Mr. Colburne came in afterwards, likewise en route,
and a cheerful, joyous party we were when we all left the farm
in the afternoon and rode on to Patrick's Plains. I heard much
discussion about landholders on either side as we rode on,
especially of one " Bob Scott," of Glendon : of a family of the
name of Dangar, and many whom I cannot recall. Colburne
was riding a somewhat fretful animal, whose temper seemed to
infect my own black brute "Nigger." Colburne, I found, was
also a " new chum," wore strangely loose inexpressibles,
inveighed perpetually against the insect pests of this hot country,
declared the pace was slow and wearisome, would sit down
aw^hile, and canter sharply after us for a change. " I'll catch
you directly, you go on." And so we went on.

Presently I heard a shriek, looked back, and saw Colburne
furiously stripping himself. His ejaculations were in keeping
with his gesticulations. Bare legged in a moment, he danced
like a maniac, his alarmed horse throwing up his head in retreat,
dragged away at the reins, which Colburne was holding on by
with one hand, while he slapped and belaboured his natural
limbs with the other in the most demoniac manner. Horror-
stricken at such strange antics, "What on earth's the matter
with Colburne." Looking round, there, hardly able to sit on his
saddle by reason of the agony of amusement — Hodgson ! " It's
the old soldiers!" he roared. "Old soldiers! why, where are
they?" " Up his legs and back," screamed Hodgson. "He's
been sitting on a bed of them !"

" Old soldiers " in a young country !

" I shall ride in breeches and boots," I logged down at once
as a rule for the future.

There were two inns at Patrick's Plains : Cullen's, at the
end of a dusty lane to the right ; Singleton's, at the end of
another to the left of the track on which we were. Hodgson
and the rest to Cullen's ; I to Singleton's, who had room but for
one. I led my " Nigger " to the stable and left him there ; sat
myself down in the verandah to await their rejoining me. In a
few minutes I was tapped on the shoulder ; looked up at the
man who did it, rather nettled. Didn't like his looks. " Is your
name Russell?" "Yes." "Henry?" "Yes." "I want you;
here's my warrant. I arrest you, Henry Russell, at the suit of

178 Genesis of Queensland.

" But for anger and amazement I could have laughed !

"I wasn't in this country at the date of that warrant." "Oh,
that won't do for me. You must come back to Sydney with me."

" Confound my name. I'll change it to Here comes

Hodgson."

Well, he being known sufficiently hereabouts, was able to
obtain my release from the hands of my disappointed captor.

On to Muswellbrook ! That was the pleasant resting place
for pilgrims northward-ho ! No small roadside inn, nor dwelling;
ugly, monotonous, up and down ridge ride all the way from
Patrick's Plains to Muswellbrook.

Hospitable, cheerful, revered Skellatar ! Never to be for-
gotten, joyous Bengalla, and all the delights inside and outside
of that dwelling ! Nagoa ; and its kindly, hearty master, John
Cox ! Merton ! Overton, and the gallant brothers who bore
their soldier-father's gallant name, Allman ! St. Heliers! and
all the warmth of English hand-shaking, and heart-winning
reception, at the bidding of a fair and noble hostess ; and
the elf-like considerateness of that bright-souled minister to
the wants of the bush pilgrims who passed that way — Aunty
Bell ! Truly St. Heliers' house was a beehive of busy
thoughts for the world's weal around. There was a magnetic
power within the magic environs of Muswellbrook forty-seven
years ago.

" We must get through to the Page to-day " as we left
Nowland's pleasant hostelrie, at Muswellbrook, a few days after-
wards. I was told that it was quite forty miles, and after the
trial I had had till then, looked at my " Nigger " in doubt and
dismay. "Spurs are used, that's a consolation, so see to it you
* Nigger'!"

Aberdeen ! What, an Aberdeen ! Here stood one house,
and that a public. And they call it Aberdeen. Why? I saw
no dwelling but a public-house. Ah, yes ! there was a black-
smith's. All the country round seemed to have been not long
since in the hands of one man, Potter McQueen, well known to
have ruined himself years before by contesting an election for
Bedfordshire. I knew him in England ; last met him at dinner*
at the old University Club, Suffolk-street, London ; known to
have been the recipient of a large grant of land — by grace

* He knew that I was on the point of going out.

Bridge of Size. i^ri

private — in New South Wales; he had then recently returned,
in 1838. A question had been raised, he told me, by the
Downing-street authorities as to the most practicable com-
munication between Port Phillip and Van Dieman's Land.*
Committee of Inquiry summoned Potter McQueen to give
evidence, as he had been to Australia. In words tantamount to
the following, as he told it, the result was amusing : —

" When I entered the room, a plan seemed to have been proposed
and agreed upon before my coming in : and my opinion was desired
with a view to deciding the matter, and going to work at once. Some-
thing like the old ' Leith smack' mail service thought I : never dreamt
of a steam service : there were but two little steamboats about
Sydney when I left, that I ever heard of : so I waited, without any
conception of my own to lay before them. I hadn't to wait long :
' Mr. Potter McQueen, you will be kind enough to join us here in our
consultation : you know the desire to bring together more closely that
magnificent country, Van Dieman's Land, with Port Phillip on the
mainland of Australia. Now, here is the map, which is doubtless faith-
ful : the distance across this water is the only separation, and is narrow
enough to look at : it is proposed to throiv a bridge across, don't you
think it can he done F "

And now I found myself on Potter McQueen's own grant !
On to " Scone :" a wayside there, too, " Chivers' :" did'nt stop
long : on over Warland's Ranges — the first real rising ground I
had seen yet : a cut-throat sty a short way to the left was
pointed out to me, called " Northy's," just before we reached
their foot : down again on the other side, and so gladly (to my
feelings, and doubtless " Nigger's") we reached the one and the
last public-house of accommodation for travellers, which was
lying so snug on the confines of the settled land, beneath the
frowm of Liverpool Range, on the banks of the river Page.

Pretty spot this on the river Page. There was a store
opposite, and post-office : all postal work on this road is done, it

* July 23, 1840. [Sydney Gazette.) " Ignorance relative to Australia."
(Extract.) . " I have myself seen letters in the Sydney Post Office, from London,
addressed — A.B., Van Dieman's Land, Sydney." " It is not many years since that
an honourable M.P. gravely proposed to obviate the expenses of a double govern-
ment by throwing a chain bridge from one colony to another, and the proposition
excited no more surprise than an allusion to the Menai. In Sicily and Italy I
have had great difficulty in showing that Van Dieman's Land was a separate
island, and maps not thirty years old have been procured to prove my error."

i8o Genesis of Queensland.

seems, by horse : further back by mail cart and pair, one in
shafts and another traced to an outrigger.

Three miles next morning to the " Hanging Rock :" it and
Doughboy Hollow, in the heart of the range, became famous
afterwards for bushrangers more than once : especially through
the gallantry of that fine old soldier, Denny Day, at this time
police magistrate at Muswellbrook ; afterwards at Maitland.
Away again from the range, merrily over champaign country —
Liverpool Plains — went smartly by Loder's station : pulled up
awhile at Paddy Davis' — the next habitation, at Currabubula — •
(I recollect wondering how it was to be spelt) : pushed on to the
river Peel, and were housed at a station, the property by Crown
grant of the Australian Agricultural Company, by their
manager and superintendent, Charles Hall. He, the very
prince of " open-door" hosts : ever kind, ever considerate
to wayfarers, who, by their number, the frequency of their
visits also, I afterwards found, their exactions upon his larder
— ever well supplied — their invasion of his space, which
ever seemed to yield like india-rubber to the strain which
the unconscionable company of his visitors brought to bear
upon his dwelling, must have been endowed with special
good humour, a marvellous gift of patience, an immeasurable
sympathy, an unbounded sensibility to the elements of
genuine camaraderie, to have borne with genial unruffled
mood at all times the burdens which he ever made so light
of, and the assaults upon his resources which he ever met
with the self-control and unselfish bearing of a very cavalier of
the " olden times."

I owe a tribute to the man who, in an after day, took me as
a helpless, apparently dying, sufferer beneath his roof, tended
me, nursed me — probably saved me — with all the gentleness of
a woman, big, bearded man as he was ! and so sent me out
again with face northward-ho ! a hale, sound, renewed, and
grateful man. I believe that he also has passed on and away
from the earth : his name — with a blessing on it — never from
my heart while I am here.

On our road then again, to the river Macdonald came we.
Camped on the river bank ; out of cigars — compelled to smoke
a pipe, and that, too, with " Niggerhead;'' for the first time I
found the smoking thereof rather strong ; took to it, however,
too much in time.

"Nohhy" Duval. i8i

"Here we are," next afternoon said Hodgson, "at
Salisbury — Bob McKenzie's. He's not here, though ; he won't
go out of Sydney." (Became Sir Robert, dwelt on the Brisbane
in after years, and took his part in ministering to infant
Queensland.)

Bearing away from our course northwards next day, we
made some twenty miles of easting. Hodgson proposed having
a pot of tea — nothing but green in the country then — close to a
small, conical hill, which he called " Nobby," on our way.
" What do you think happened to me here nearly a year ago,
Russell?" "Can't say, really; perhaps a pot of tea."
" Nothing half so comfortable. I was alone, going, as we are,
to Cashiobury, jogging along and thinking; woke up at the
sound of a horrid voice, which said, ' Stand ! or I fire.' My
word, I did stand ; even my hair. I became conscious of looking
right down the barrel of a gun which a villainous looking fellow
was coolly 'potting' me with; out off my saddle to the ground
like a lamplighter : so quickly that the blackguard was gratified
and laughed. That laugh made me feel better. ' What do you
want ?' said I. ' Your horse,' said he. ' Do take that gun down,
I beg ; now, like a good fellow, take that gun down.' ' Oh,
you're all right, I see,' said the rascal, 'so you can jog on.'
'What will you do with him 1' said I. ' Ride him till he's done
up.' 'Now, my good sir," said I, so coaxingly ; 'when he's
knocked up will you do me the great kindness of tying this card
round his neck?' 'Well, I see no objections; maybe I will.'
He seemed quite amiable as he said so. I had to stick the card
in the saddle-flap. Walked on a hundred yards ; saw the brute
mount mine ; took off my hat and saluted him, which he cour-
teously reciprocated, dug his spurs into Beverley's flanks, and
here, when I came to myself, 1 stood, disgusted. Well, it isn't
far on to Denne's. I trudged on, and next morning got to
Cashiobury. Do you ever think I saw ' Beverley' again ? Yes,
I did. The man — my first bushranger and ' sticking-up' was a
gentleman — rode him to a standstill ; tied my card round his
neck. That card, ' Beverley' too, not many weeks after came
back to me. I say that fellow was a gentleman. He was hung
about three months after."

We called at the Messrs. Denne's station to-day, at which
we found two brothers, gentlemen from the county of Kent.
The buildings — all of slabs, split, covered with sheets of bark

1 82 Genesis of Queensland.

stripped from the larger stringy-bark trees, I understood —
seemed to me to be more substantial and homely than any I had
yet observed since leaving the precincts of the river Page.
Sheep and wool were the only topics discussed, too, since w^e
entered into the more unsettled districts. They did not vary
here ; in fact, the interest about both was intensified. I heard
much, too, which I as little understood respecting catarrh,
footrot, and sheep ailments, of which the climate, in the opinion
of most, was made to bear the odium. However to me, the
weather at this time was most delicious. The air of
New England, which I was told I had entered after crossing the
river Macdonald, was, to my senses at least, equal to that of the
finest autumnal breath of Old England. I could hope for
nothing more enjoyable, more healthful, more appetising, so I
could not join in condemning it because of the effects of the
winter season on sheep. But I had many a lesson to learn.
Alighting at Cashiobury in the evening, I was at once made
known to the superintendent, James Rogers (had heard a " Cocky
Rogers" spoken of and joked about on the road), and this I
found was he — smart, lithe little man ; quite what I fancied must
be a good " bushman," keen-witted, cheerful, and with his eyes
everywhere. He had not been apprised of the sale, so Hodgson
took him aside and told him all about it. All was bustle and
excitement, and our friend Todd, Hodgson's "new chum,"
became full of inquiry and inquisitiveness.

I had led for a long way a lame horse, at Hodgson ^s
request, which belonged to this "Cocky" Rogers, and much
relieved I was to give the brute up to his master. I made a
mental vow that 1 would never lead a lame or any horse again,
unless someone rode behind him with a persuasion thong.

" On the other side of that creek, Russell," said Hodgson,
the following day, as I was again training myself up in the
indulgence of " Niggerhead," "lies ' Yarrowitch,' a station,
which belongs to those two good fellows whom you met at
Muswellbrook, the brothers John and Frank Allman. of Overton,
but there is only an overseer there at present."

The scenery was identical with almost all that I had yet
passed through : the method of life w^as the same as that of
every habitation I had yet entered : the green tea was always in
the same kind of quart-pot : the mutton chops were always
fried : the beef was alwavs salt and boiled : the flour and water

Bus h In consist en ces .

183

baked in a large oval shape in red hot wood ashes, called
'• damper," always equally hard and heavy : the sheet of bark, or
canvas stretcher, for sleeping on, always ricketty, and creaking
at every change of posture. Yet, to my wonderment, there
were health, elation of spirits, ogre's appetite, dreamless, vigour-
renewing sleep, sociability almost fraternal, sanguine hope,
bright prospects, energy of body and mind : and in many
instances brought home to the perceptions of a new chum — a
standard of educational attainments, and high-ranked acquire-
ments, bred whether of book-learning, or whether of busy, deep
and earnest inquiry, which seemed quite at variance with the
visible means in this bush supplied for the feeding of body and
mind, which set me a-thinking. To me, who had hitherto thought
some attention to the welfare of one's digestive powers requisite
for cheerful spirits and peaceful periods, it was a new light to find
that salt beef and damper, damper and salt beef, salt beef and
damper — three meals a day, differing but by name — ever waited
upon by the quart-pot satellite, green tea, in no wise disturbed
the "arcana" within, so sedulously guarded by our old nurses at
home. I could see no books, save " Youatt's Horse, Sheep, and
Cattle," volumes ; yet digressions from those invariable themes
did at times betray knowledge and learning, which displayed the
talents and po'.;'ers of the principals engaged in discussion or
controversy. The outward became to me at times a startling
contrast to the inner V.^e of some individual station-holders.
Such instances may have been exceptional, but they would come
in view in unexpected and rude recesses of the squatters'
regions.

But, whether eating or arguing, all would end in the
inexorable smoke. " Come, old fellow, let's have a pipe," seemed
to be, J^ar excellence, the end of all effort, whatever the character
thereof. At first, too, that " Niggerhead " would light up my
own, after sundry whiffs, until its lightness became alarming.
But these were results which, like the mosquitoes, only assailed
the "new chum," who, after his conventional seven years, was
emancipated, which meant acclimatised, like the surrounding
iron-bark trees. Quickly was Cashiobury made over to the
hands of Mr. Todd. Then came unceasing debates which ended
in no decision, as to "Shall we try the Clarence, or the
Richmond?" or "get away to the westward out of these cold
winters?" "Why Boyd lost, I hear, 1300 sheep by catarrh last

184 Genesis of Queensland.

winter! New England will never do for me," exclaimed
Hodgson, chewing his lips, a habit of his I saw when in doubt.
One morning he suddenly brought his fist down on the table: "I'll
wait for Pat. Leslie; he must be back by this ; I've heard why
he has gone to the north, and he has good hints to guide him.
He's going to try to follow Cunningham's line. By Jove, I'll
find him out."

Having no part in this matter, and fearing too that, in such
a crisis of migration to — somewhere in nubibus — I might be de
trop, I resolved to go back to Sydney ; and, from what I had
gleaned in this ride and the experiences of two hundred and
eighty miles, felt inclined to take steps towards becoming a
squatter myself.

And so, having started alone from Cashiobury with my two
black brutes, "Nigger" and " Undertaker," after wishing my
kind-hearted, cheery friend (does not Montaigne say that " the
most manifest sign of wisdom is cheerfulness?") and friends
every success, with every hope that we should meet again, I
found myself in Sydney on the loth of May. It was Sunday. I
can recollect having listened to an excellent sermon from the
Rev. Robert Allwood at the only steepled church, St. James',
on " the inconsistency of professed Christians and the bad
effects of the example they set in the business of life." I had
observed no churches — but the sembfence of one at Newcastle —
out of Sydney.

CHAPTER IX

Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.

— Goldsmith ,

There is a house at the corner of Macquarie-place, and what
is now (1887) a northerly continuation of the old part of Pitt-
street, which not long ago w^as used as an office by one division
of the Department of Lands. A verandah, supported by wooden
pillars in 1840, abutted from over the first floor windows. It has
been removed many years since, I suppose, for I saw the other
day that it is being re-erected, but in different fashion, with
much plate-glass bedevilment.

In 1840 this was an excellent, almost the only good
boarding-house in Sydney. It was kept by a Mrs. Butler. Here,
in May, I took up my quarters ; here I again met John Allman,
who had been appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands at
Bathurst ; here, also, Owen Macdonald, brother of the esteemed
Commissioner of Crown Lands in New England ; and Arthur
Maister, who had a sheep station in that district ; was much
gratified, in a few days, by being introduced to that able, ill-used
Dr. Bland ; also to Captain Stanley, in command then of H.M.S.
'' Britomart," son of the, now late. Bishop of Norwich ; Captain
H. H. Brown, who lived upon the North Shore, and seemed to be
a kind of water police magistrate, and illicit still detective.

I heard from Hodgson, whom Gilbert Elliot, Aide-de-Camp
to Sir G. Gipps, had joined in partnership. Found that he was
at Maitland, waiting to start his drays thence northwards, but
was detained by the state of the roads and the heavy rains.
There was a very pleasant ball at (old) Government House, being
the Queen's birthday. Invited, I went to it ; late, or rather
early, in the morning I left with the last dancers. Close by
were my lodgings ; to obtain re-admission seemed hopeless.
Happy thought ! I'll swarm up one of those pillars into the
verandah above ! Hardly seven feet from the ground a gruff
voice challenged. " I've ' cotched ' you at it, have I ! Come
down, mate ; it wont do ! Come down, I say !" " Policeman, by
jove !" gasped I, shinning further up. He made a spring, grabbed
the tails of my best dress coat ; he tugged, I strained ; crack
went they from the very buttons ; crash went he on the hard bit

1 86 Genesis of Queensland.

of pavement supine: an oath and a "rattle;" up sprang the
sleepers within, and up jumped he ; up threw I one of the
windows above, and launched myself into the night-apparelled

arms of A scream ! a light ! an imprecation ! I fled, and

left my tails in custody !

Sydney was a very pleasant place in 1840. Visits to be
paid, and so paid, were pleasant passages in one's daily devoir.

The result of one to which I gladly fled — perhaps ashamed
of my loss, like the fabled fox — the day after the constable had
misappropriated my coat tails, recalled me to a sense of the
burden which I bore about me in the lack of my individuali-
zation. I had fumed over the unproductive effort in my behalf
that the letters — of course letters of introduction from England
— had made, which I had posted in the early part of the year.
After that one denouement at Major Barney's, deafness to
pleadings of such kindly calls through the letter-box, caused
me no further chagrin on the reflection that Smith, Jones
and Robinson had suffered more for their names' sakes than
I had ever done.

To the one of some half-dozen residences kept apart, one
from the other, by a scrubby wilderness in the heights of
Woolloomooloo, which was called Brougham Lodge, that of the
Chief Justice, I hied me. Being admitted, I found but the two
estimable young ladies at home, the dominant senora being
indisposed. " How did you like the Patterson ? You've made
a long visit, Mr. Russell," made me stare. "The Patterson!
where's the Patterson?" "Why, haven't you been there ever
since you left Sydney?" " No, indeed ; I have been to New
England, and come back again ; but where's the Patterson ?"
That there was a puzzle was plain ; what it w'as, not plain at all.
Almost nettled at a silence which seemed to emphasize little
belief in what I had said, I asked again. And at the moment I
had again to bow gratefully to a coincidence similar to that on
the former occasion — Mr. Boydell, of the river Patterson,
walked in ; young ladies greeted him as " Uncle John," I think,
but am not sure to this day whether such relationship existed —
looking shyly at him and me ; " Here is Mr. Russell ; this is
Mr. Boydell " — but we were utter strangers ! I must divest my
present pen of that past explanation, and give it in a few
syllables. It gave me many an after laugh, the faint echo of
that with which it was greeted before I left.

Uneasy Name and Night. 187

I had enclosed the home letter with a few lines from myself
to Mr. Boydell : had left Petty's, when a reply — a most kind one
too, asking me to come and stay as long as I liked — had been
brought: returned on delivery, but endorsed ''Try H. R. of some
other place :" got into the hands of one of my name, steward of a
Hunter's river steamer : he would not adapt himself to its
friendly contents : and so the kind letter passed on, " tried" by
many of the same brand, the last of whom had taken advantage of
it, and accepted my invitation ; was received as my identity for
many long weeks, which had strangely escaped every test : made
himself peculiarly objectionable to my indulgent host on my
account : and so / had been turned out of the doors of the well-
known mansion on the river Paterson : and now, forsooth, had
come to air myself with prim and demure bearing in the good
graces of the charitable folks of Sydney.

A few days afterwards, wishing to compare the country
south of Sydney with that which I had seen to the north, I
started with Macdonald on a ride to a river called the
Codradigbee, or Little river. He had purchased a station, with
sheep, in that quarter, and was going to take delivery, reversing
the object of my ride with Hodgson to New England. I was
told it was about thirty miles beyond the town of Yass, fourteen
beyond the Murrumbidgee, a river of which I had heard much in
England, from glowing descriptions given me by the late Sir
Thomas (then Major) Mitchell. (He had been summoned to
England that he might assist the unhappy Colonel Gurwood in
compiling the memorable " Peninsular War Despatches," and in
London I had met him and his family.)

Two " new chums " starting from Sydney for an unknown
station on a queer named river ! I was the " old chum " now.
Macdonald's first ride in Australia ! With the intention of
staying that night at Parramatta, at which, we were assured, we
should find the crhne de la creme of good accommodation at
the "Red Cow," kept by Mrs. Walker (I think that was her
name) — of course we took the wrong road, and evening brought
us to an inn kept by Solomon. A sofa and debauched-looking
blanket gave me all the rest that fleas and bugs would, in small
pity, grant. Hoping to leave such civilisation parasites behind,
passed on to Dunston's Inn, Stonequarry, after crossing Razor-
back — wondrous scenery in peeps ; but never wished to cross it
again. Berrima next day — good quiet resting-place at Berrima,

1 88 Genesis of Queensland.

the " Surveyor-General," Mrs. Ann Richards. Met Bishop
Broughton. Have seen nothing yet comparable, in my opinion,
to New England. Got to an inn called " Joe Peters','' but its
name and that of the locality I cannot remember. Jogged on to
Goulburn thence, about eighteen miles. At Liverpool I had
stayed with Solomon ; here with " Moses," who let me in for a
horse. (On my return I gave Moses ;^20 to take the animal
back again, i.e., on return of the balance of my purchase money,
;^65 ! Even thought him then " a brick !") " There's an inn,
Macdonald ! The name is Bond. I'm glad it isn't Samuel or
Abraham." So there we stayed in Gunning the following night,
and very cold it was. Yass received us next day, and there we
saw a gaol and a courthouse. Little else, besides the wayside
verandah, we entered, which I read was the " Rose Inn,"
Middleton ; and here we were attended to by a positively civil,
good fellow of a waiter. Hoping to reach our destination in the
evening, we started early for the Little river, en route through
the one Yass road, and having called upon a Captain Macdonald,
a friend of my conipagnon de voyage suddenly pulled up. "Why
surely we have been here before ! " And so we had, We were
going as fast as we could, back to Sydney, turned and were
launched upon the right track across a plain ; and of course
continually got on a wrong one. Suddenly saw a broad river ;
on its banks a hut. This, then, was the Murrumbidgee ; so said
a gentleman who came out of the hut, who informed us that his
name was Sharp, and that we were some five miles out of our
course, and he — good fellow that he was — made us stop for the
night ; and verily made us comfortable with his hearty welcome.
His farm — he called it one — was the snuggest I had seen;
three large paddocks under excellent cultivation ; all wheat, but
complained of " smut." The river — more worthy the name than
any stream I had yet approached, was full of wild fowl and black
swans. How I did crave for a day's shooting. Fish no end : the
blacks dived for and so caught them. Sharp work ! Sixty feet in
breadth and evidently very deep. In the evening a Mr. Ferguson
—new chum — staying here, came in, and a most agreeable
symposium — tea — had we.

More careful next day, we went as the crow flies ; came
to another range; higher than Liverpool Range — which bore
the name of " Cookmundoon '^ as far as I could gather it. Up,
over, down into a valk-y of no beauty ; a small watercourse

Buying a Pig in a Poke. 189

running through. " There's something, Macdonald !" It was a
hut, and my foreboding spirit sank at the thouglit, " is this our
station ? " Up we rode ; dirty man and sulky came out. " Is

this •?" asked Macdonald. "Yes." "Where are the

sheep ?" " Whoay thereabouts " denoting the direction with a
hoist of his right boot." " Is there an overseer ? " " There
be'ant any but Dick and I." "Where's Dick?" "Along a'
the sheep." " Well, I have bought this place, and must stop
hereto-night." " There be'ant noa sugar, and noa tea; there
be a bit o' damper; but the cask be near out. Dick don't get
nothin till to-morrow." Pleasant lookout, thought I. " What
shall we do now?" "Hobble our horses, and go to see the
sheep, if you don't mind the walk." We soon found the sheep ;
also the man Dick ; a chirpy little man, very much unlike any
shepherd I had seen yet. They all seemed to be dull, cumber-
some and witless. " Be you the gentleman as has bought this

'ere lot ? " " Yes." " Mr. came over a week agone,

and said they were sold, and that the gen'leman as had bought 'em
would pay wages from this 'ere coming week." " All right, my
man," said we, "but tell me about your sheep, — these are ewes, I
see." " Yes ; there they be ; five hundred and twenty-seven to
the head, as given in my charge last month. Two miles down
the creek is a flock of lambs, in all five hundred and nineteen ;
look well, doant they ?" " Yes," said Macdonald, his face less
gloomy and anxious, "but that is not the full number ; where are

the wethers ? " "They be with the lambs ; but " Well, what ?"

" Have you bought these 'ere hout-an-hout ? " "Yes." " Well,
its no fault o' mine, they're all — that be the ewes, all rotten. "
Poor Macdonald ! neither of us knew what "rotten" sheep were,
but it was the climax of his trouble. He had bought sheep
and station at Sam Lyons' auction rooms.

Cold as it was, I preferred a bed outside that kennel ; next
day, finding that I could be of no service in any shape, I said
good-bye, and away for Sydney. We never met again.

Lost myself ; got ten miles off my road to Yass ; found a
place called Cavan, Major Lockyer's: strayed again upon a plain
till it was dark, cold, and miserable. "Well, the back must be
warmer than the saddle," it struck me ; so I took my saddle off
my horse's and put it on my own. "There's no means of seeing
or feeling my way, no moon, no stars ; perhaps the brute knows
better than his burden ; I'll try." So I took the bit out of his

I go Genesis of Queensland.

mouth, jumped on his warm hide, and dug spurs into him. The
" Nigger" seemed surprised into life, slewed himself right round,
and before long I found myself suddenly among trees, at some
distance a fire, and — by jove! dogs barking, and cattle
bellowing! At the fire I jumped off joyously, saw a man
squatted on the other side, looking the picture of what is
underlined ''brigand." Pipe in mouth, he ejaculated, "Hallo!
where do you hail from ?" " I've lost myself on the way to
Yass " : ''and I've lost myself with cattle on the way to Port
Phillip, on Faithful's track." I began to explain myself, when
he nearly floored me with an imprecation and a shout — " \yhy

what are you doing here, Russell ? Well ! this is a

land of marvels." "Who can you be?" "What! don't you
remember Hallett. of Oriel ? nearly four years ago we went to
Ascot together ; I returned to Oxford that night, and was
rusticated at tempus infinitum. Why and how I find myself
here I'll say by-and-bye. You've knocked the breath out of my
body ! What wondrous chance brought you to the antipodes ?"

Very small the amount of sleep that night. By daylight we
found ourselves ten miles out of the way, near an inn kept by a
man of the name of Davis. I made way to Yass : found a case
going on at the court-house, McDermot v. Lowe. Met a
Mr. Burnard, and a Dr. Hely : got on to Gunning wet through:
and so day by day through mud and water to Sydney by the i8th.
Found Arthur Hodgson there : he had with thoughtful kindness
bought some sheep for me : " Take them or not ; all the same to
me, old fellow :" and I did not take them. Went with him to
Dawes' Point that evening, and passed it gaily by the fireside of
that united family of the gallant major's.

I had taken the names of all the roadside inns as far as
Stonequarry, on my return from Yass. Amusing to compare
the state of then with now on that same track. I must give the
list : Yass to Grosvenor's Inn : thence to one on Breadalbane
Plains, the only dwelling in sight ; Moses, and McKeller's, at
Goulburn : thence to Joe Peters' : thence to Paddy's River Inn :
on to Gray's Inn : then passing an inn on the left to Berrima :
ten miles on to Cutter's " Kangaroo Inn," " Bargo Tavern,"
Sharker's " Woolpack," Jones' " Cross Keys," Lupton's " Wool-
pack," Crispe's "Traveller's Inn;" and then Dunsdon's Inn at
Stonequarry.

CHAPTER X.

They have in England

A coin that bears the figure of an angel

Stamped in gold.

— Shakespeare. (Merchant of Venice.)

The morning of the 22nd of this month — June, 1840 — the
morning of our gracious Queen's marriage ! in the evening
thereof, and in a very deluge of rain, I was on board the
H. R.S.N. Company's steamer which bore her revered name
" Victoria," passenger for Maitland.

Word had by some means been received of Patrick LesHe ;
stationless sheep owners were on the qui vive ! He had already
taken up magnificent country, it was said, on Darling Downs ;
years before seen at a distance by Allan Cunningham, and by
him mapped and named ! Moreton Bay not more than a hundred
miles away for a shipping port ! For what Patrick Leslie had
done, and was doing at this time, I must refer the inquirer to his
own diary. I will not poach on his plantation.

The night of that passage by the " Victoria '' was dark,
rainy and cold, but we did reach Newcastle by five the next
morning, stuck fast in the mud flats about a mile higher up;
detained there until mid-day, we did not reach Morpeth until
three o'clock. At Cox's again, of course, with old Oxford
friends, Henry and Alfred Denison ; there also their particular
friend, Edward Hamilton, the latter of Cambridge, who was busy
preparing his drays for a start to his recent purchase, Collaroi.
I helped Hamilton next day, went with Henry Denison to buy a
horse from Cutts, and returned to Cox's, having decided to
await Hodgson's arrival from Sydney, and then share with him
the fun of seeking a new country to the northward — fit for sheep
in all respects.

On the 26th, Hodgson and Elliot arrived from Sydney: with
them Frank Forbes, Skellatar's eldest son. Forbes and Elliott
slept under Archibald Bell's, Hodgson and I under Ferriter's
ever hospitable roofs.

Poor Forbes was driving tandem ! What a mess he made
of it ! We all met again at Patrick's Plains — scene of my
arrest — the next day, and were again dispersed according to our
several inclinations. Elliot stopped with a lame horse : Forbes

ig2 Genesis of Queensland.

off to the warm welcome ready for him, on the threshold of the
door ever held open to friends or foreigners by the genial and
o-enerous owner of the land which commemorates his name on
the banks of Glennie's creek : Hodgson and I to the stately but
friendly walls of Ravensworth, lord of which was Dr. Bowman.
Close on the heels of his son and tandem, on ! next morning to
Sir Francis Forbes' charming " Skellatar" : and after a glorious
breakfast, the round of happy visits within the social ring, which
encompassed the well-known village of Muswellbrook as with a
halo of beaming smiles.

But rest was not durable for such as we were. Away to
the Page ! must look in at those fine specimens of English
country gentlemen, Darby and Goldfinch, on the way. Hie ! on
over Liverpool Range again, and thus walking, jogging,
cantering akin to galloping suddenly came we on drays camped
close to Loder's. " I'll be hanged ! if these are not Allan
Macpherson's," said someone. "How are you, Macpherson,"
cried Hodgson, " bound northwards, eh ?" " Yes, old fellow !
but not your way, I suspect." "You have heavy loads." " Yes,
I'm not going to live like a savage : but come in to my tent:
have some brandy and water." " Gladly," was the cry.

In we went. " Sleep here all of you, to-night, hobble your
horses ; lots of grass ; won't go far ; come now, say yes ; I'm
miserable. I can't leave my tent for an hour but these ruffians
of mine spring my plant and drink my brandy ; and now they're
all so ill that I can get nothing done ; have to do all the work
myself ! " " Why, how's that ? what makes them ill ? Ague ? "
"No, tartar emetic," and he threw off his look of distress and
roared aloud ; we joined in and passed the night merrily ; but
not a man could stir to work, and so we helped, and there was
no damage done. " I'll tell you all about it ; wherever I planted
my brandy — except what I get out, they can't get at — they were
sure to find it. I put in a precious dose this morning, thinking
to detect the scamp ; but, by Jove, the're all bad. I must have
men. I can't discharge 'em all ! No! I'm not going into the
bush like a savage ! I have a good cellar, a piano, cigars, eau
de cologne, scented soap," — and we dropped off, one by one,
into a snooze till the sun rose.

Some weeks afterwards Macpherson and his drays were
stopped by bushrangers, who tried to drink the eau de cologne
and eat the scented soap. The cellar suffered, but they didn't

Charles Hall, of Killala. ig^

try the piano. Next day passed through the gap of a range,
called, to a new chum's discomfiture, Currabubula; and spurred
on to the scene to which the lessening distance, mile by mile,
added much of gladness, as we approached again the Good
Samaritan who dwelt at Killala — Charles Hall.

On the 4th of July we found Pemberton Hodgson with the
drays camped upon the head of the Peel, close by store and a
tent. In the former I made the acquaintance of an old gentle-
man of the name of Stubbs, whose fair wife — like many mothers
in same case — was bemoaning the delay of her son's arrival from
England. In the latter, was introduced to a Mr. Irving, late
lieutenant of the 28th Regiment, a detachment of which had been
quartered at Port Stephens or Macquarie, I forget which. The
store was a matter of partnership, "Stubbs and Irving." Why
an officer of a crack regiment should prefer holding office in a
"bush store " and give up the music of life in a gay and gallant
service, for the hideous discord of laughing jackasses and
screaming cockatoos, puzzled me. Slept under a dray : my first
submission to lying beneath a bed rather than on it ; jumped up
in the night and treated my head badly, by a knock against the
axle ; the morning found me in excruciating pain, all over.

My kind friends took me back to Killala. It was on this
occasion that I met with those guardian services — rendered in so
gentle and chivalrous a spirit — at the hands of that true model of
a Christian practitioner — Charles Hall, — to which I have already
alluded.

From the morning of the 5th of July until the 20th I was for
the most part unconscious ; but I could feel at times the
presence of some helping and ministering hand, and hear a low
voice, to which I could make no sign with my lips. J did not
know where I was. My head seemed ever growing to make
room for further growth of bursting and again bursting spasms.
One thing I do recollect. I heard a strange footstep one day ;
was aware of some pacing round about me ; could hear, by-
and-by, loud talking in the adjoining room. "Poor fellow! I
shall be back in a few days from Muswellbrook, Hall ; I will
come and see where you have buried him."

From the 20th, when I became, comparatively speaking,
myself again, until the 27th of the following October — a date I
logged down — I can recall little that can exercise my pen, of
which even an indulgent person would take heed ; in the record

194 Genesis of Queensland.

of that little, however, lies a very insufficient discharge of many
a debt of grateful acknowledgment — to some — many of whom
(are there any?) can never know the impression upon my
memory of their unswerving friendliness and fellowship.

Elliot had returned from Muswellbrook, en route northwards
after Arthur Hodgson and the drays. Pemberton Hodgson had
left the drays and passed by again, Sydney-wards. I made an
attempt to jog on with my face to the north, but on reaching the
Macdonald lost my own horses, and was too weak to look for
them or to proceed. And so, having a mare of Hodgson's which
Elliot had left behind, returned to dear old Hall, in company
with two new made acquaintances, Dalzell and Milne both
going down, i.e. to Sydney, reversing the usual term to the
metropolis. A Mr. Rusden had started from Killala one
morning for Maitland, and I pursued but did not catch him.
Myself camped at Currabubula in a terrific storm ; got on to
Forbes' station, Werris' creek, drenched and disfigured. (Found
there an excellent fellow as overseer — McCulIum, I think.) The
mare had slipped, fallen, and deliberately rolled over me in a
mud pool. Back on the old track, was kindly received at
St. Aubin's, near Scone, and breakfasted. The gallant owner of
all this land. Captain Dumaresq, rode with me, on my way, as far
as St. Hellers'. Slept at Muswellbrook, where I fell in with
Denny Day and Frank Allman ; and we were joined by Frank
Forbes. (Dead long since. One whose qualities of head and
heart were never worthily appreciated.)

Thinking to make another effort to follow up Hodgson and
Elliot, I resolved to recruit health and strength in these pleasant
purlieus of the spot I have learnt to like best ; would await
Pemberton Hodgson's return from Sydney and eo volente, ride
on with him and reach the reported paradise in the far north. So
what between Bengalla's sweet homestead ; its talented master's
ready wit ; races on the course in front, flat and hurdle ; pig-
sticking ; (he had been long an officer in a cavalry corps in
India) ; paying excusable attention to any and every fair face in
the bright neighbourhood ; what with mooning about from one
warm-hearted host and hostess to another within a circle of
some ten miles all round, the days passed very, very happily,
and my returning strength stepped out sturdily with them.

Often had I almost made up my mind to push on towards
these Darling Downs alone ; but, being a new chum, many

Due North at Length. 195

remonstrances prevailed, and there I lingered doubting, —
enveloped by the excuses of my inclinations.

One fine morning it came to my ears from New England
way that Pemberton Hodgson had passed by, knowing nothing
of my plans or wishes. Short was the time it took me to throw
saddle on and leg over it ; and away I went till I met a true type
of the great name of Magnus McLeod, from New England, who
said that he whom I was pursuing by land had gone up to
Moreton Bay by sea, where he hoped to meet his brother
Arthur.

Back again, inconsolable, until my gloom was utterly routed
by paying a visit to St. Heliers' on the way home. An enchanting
proprietress herself in the midst of her throng, her brother
Butler, and two young ladies of the name of Reece, Miss
Mathers, the ever bright and charming Aunty Bell, and some
sweet children.

On the 17th of August a letter from Pemberton Hodgson,
in Sydney. From the Australian Club : " I want to see you ;
pray come down." Went at once, but he met me at Maitland.
We returned together to Sydney on business, and found our-
selves back again within the week at Cox's.

It was not, however, until the evening of Wednesday, the
28th of September, that I had reason to feel confident that I
should succeed in making a final start to the north. I had
had occasion to pay Sydney yet another visit, and was now en
route. Dined that evening at Cox's hotel with Henry Denison
and " Paddy " Grant ; a trio, two of whom have rarely been
excelled, I should think, in conversational and generally enter-
taining powers. [Dear Henry Denison ! he dined with me at
Brighton, in England, in 1857, ^^^ died a few days afterwards.]

On the 30th Pemberton Hodgson had gone on from Muswell-
brook with one of two men — Foster — who had been overseer of
Allman's sheep station, Yarrowitch, and a pack horse. The
following day with the other of the twain — John — (poor fellow !
he was afterwards killed by the blacks at Etonvale) I caught
up Pemberton Hodgson three miles before arrival at the Page,
(the inn had been till then kept by " Tinker" Campbell, who
became shortly afterwards a station-holder on Darling Downs),
Did not stop at the inn : proceeded and camped at the Hanging
Rock. The 'possums made sleeping out of the question : but
then I found in the morning that I had been lying on an ant-hill:

ig6 Genesis of Queensla^id.

not, however, one of old soldiers. On to Loder's : met Denny
Day : pushed on through Currabubula to the Peel : of course
paid Killala a visit : Hall absent ; but his French cook, Louis,
tended us, fed us, did for us en prince.

Having bought two kangaroo dogs and a bull-dog, seen to
arms and ammunition, reached the Macdonald on the 9th of
October: picked up two travellers on our own course, a Cameron
and a McAllman: at Ross' hut by the riverside, George Gammie
with a dray — all for the north. Passing Salisbury, went out of
the way to pay a visit to "Jock" Maclean, of Bergen-op-zoom.
Back to Turner — manager for Robert Mackenzie at Salisbury —
o-ot on to Armidale, and there found the estimable and courteous
o-entleman whose functions were those of Commissioner of
Crown Lands for New England. George Macdonald, whose
brother I had accompanied beyond Yass.

Here we met a son of Sir Maurice O'Connell, Commander-
in-Chief, in Sydney. (He became President of the Queensland
Council Chamber in after times, and died at Brisbane.) He
invited us to his station, which proved to be beautifully situated
on a running stream. Became acquainted with his friend
and superintendent, Captain Park, and enjoyed ourselves much,
shooting and so on.

On the 1 8th October, reached Cash's station, near which we
camped on the river Bundarrah : on thence to Cameron's cattle
station, and by the evening to Clark and Ranken's on the same
river, and camped on the 20th near an out station of Peter
Mclntyre's.

On the 20th, from a low range which we were crossing over,
we had the first peep of the country through which our course
lay ; extending in one uninteresting plateau on all sides till lost
on the horizon : apparently thickly wooded : bright spots in one
direction showing forth " Byron Plains." By the evening we
reached Wyndham's, from which station began Patrick Leslie's
labour in a marked line for the guidance of his drays, and those
who followed. Quoting his diary, now we know that he on the
3rd of May last " left Wyndham's and marked the first tree of
' Leslie's marked-tree line' close to Wyndham's stockyard : a
blazed line was marked from this to ' Leslie's crossing-place on
the Condamine.' " On hence to Gregory Blaxland's cattle station
on Eraser's Creek, on the 22nd evening. The "marked-tree
line" had been taken to the back of this station : we picked it

Bill OrtoUj ''The Fiver." i^

up next morning on the other side of the creek at George
Gammie's station. (In after years this Gammic changed his
name to Maitland. I saw him in Warwickshire — at Rugby — in
1875. Unconscious of giving offence, I named him Gammie ;
but he was not Gammie.)

On the 23rd made the Severn, alias "Sovereign " among
stock-keepers, but which is the river Dumaresq ; went off to the
right to a cattle station belonging to my friend John Cox, of
Nagoa, Muswellbrook. Here we were supplied with the best
that the keen-eyed and kindly attentive stock-keeper, whose
name was William Orton (" Bill" among his brotherhood — " The
Fiver " on the river, and surrounding occupied country), could
supply us with, — eggs, milk, butter, which were indeed, to us,
luxuries.

The Severn is broad and deep in parts here, and at this
time was infested by blacks. Just before our arrival they had
attacked John McDougal's station, not far from this, driven off
the cattle, killed one man, seriously wounding another with a
spear, and committed other depredations.

I took a liking to Bill, " The Fiver," and found that he could
wile away the time very pleasantly with bush yarns, and his own
narrow escapes from the "darkies," and their treachery. He
was a great authority among his mates in most matters ; his
features spoke of great determination. His natural endowments
showed me that under happier circumstances in earlier
life, he might have made his mark creditably at least,
anywhere. Now who was "Bill the Fiver"? (called "The
Fiver" by reason of his "luck" in a bush game at cards, in
which the number " five " somehow meant winning.) Well, his
story was painful. I verified it years afterwards on visiting
England. Bill had been a convicted felon at the age of thirteen.
Convicted of having ran away from a cruel stepmother ; convicted
at thirteen of having fallen among evil associates, who, much older
than himself, had utilised him for stealing a coat for their own
behoof; he, almost unconscious of guilty intention. And so, at
thirteen he was sent off amongst forgers, burglars, and criminals
of every type, for the good of a country which scaled as infants
men under twenty-one years of age, and punished as men
such infants as had fallen into manhood's misdeeds. Thus was
this lad condemned to get his further education amid the dark
horrors of a 'tween deck prison ship in 1830. He was born a

igS Genesis of Qiieenslmid.

well-known Worcestershire farmer's son ; a truer Englishman
never breathed. His nature sterling: his faults — the fruit of
the terrible training through which his years, since the Bow-
street judgment, had been dragged.

I did not know all this at the time that I was seated on a
log by the hut-door, the next day ; for we stopped here on the
24th. While so seated, a dray, to our astonishment, came up —
just from Darling Downs ! On it was Frederic Isaac, the
younger brother of the old gentleman whose acquaintance I had
made at Black creek, near Maitland. He had accompanied
Arthur Hodgson after my detention, by reason of illness, at the
Peel. News from Darling Downs, by the first dray that had left
it looking to the south ! Greedy as Pemberton Hodgson and I
were for descriptions of all that he had left behind him, our
appetite was for the time appeased by the pleasing intimation
that " Arthur was close up ! " His surprise when he did come
was the greater, for he had thought that both of us had returned
to England ! The remainder of the day did not exhaust the
theme — Darling Downs — where, what, and its wonders ; but it
exhausted the patience of our recovered friends, who were as
eager to hear about the land they had left behind so many weeks
before. Night mostly passed over me while writing for home by
this opportunity, and the twenty-fifth sun of October rose upon
the shaking of hands and the shouts of good-bye, as dos a dos
each party resumed its route. The last word was from Arthur
Hodgson : " Look out, old fellow, for me with cattle, next
February, if all's well."

CHAPTER XI

Have many British readers actually arrived with us at the new promised
country ; is the philosophy of clothes now at last opening around them V Long
and adventurous has the journey been, from those outmost vulgar, palpable
woollen halls of man. — Carlyle. (Sarto Resartus.)

That day we passed a place where the blacks had had a
" corroboree " after the affair at McDougal's, and of course
examined it as new-chums, with no little interest : having
camped a short distance beyond it, and the following day skirted
a thick scrub which had been more or less near us on our right
all the way from the river, we got into a little clear country : but
soon fell on it again on the deep banks and shallow water of
Mclntyre Brook. Having again got on quickly on the 27th, in a
heavy storm, we reached the camping place of some drays of
Leslie's, which we had heard were ahead of us, and with them
found his relative Dalrymple. Got away early next morning, and
after smart riding reached a tree marked by Arthur Hodgson to
tell travellers to beware of " poison " in the herbage : took care
that our horses did not get a bite, and in about six miles
descried the first plain of Darling Downs. We, innocent
creatures, thought that this first peep little tallied with the
glowing accounts which had warmed our fancies : we could not
understand how the herbage on the river Condamine banks,
which to us seemed to be all weeds ; how a soft puffy black soil
full of holes, up and down and every way but pleasant for riding
over, could be such a magnificent possession : the river itself a
dirty looking boggy little bed of a stream, stagnant on both
sides, as we entered the " crossing place."

The day was, to us, terribly hot ; we camped ; came upon
another plain spreading on every side : saw some blacks : new
chums preparing for action was a picture : no action after all on
our side, for the blacks set fire to the grass, which seemed to be
very high where they were, and covered us (they being to
windward) with thick black smoke and dust. Proceeded by a
track about two miles to a marked tree : directions given to turn
to the left across the plain, and so find Hodgson and Elliot's
station. We both thought we could see more blacks on the
plain, just in our way ! " What shall we do?" " Oh, we must
go on in any case." With all the keenness of a new sensation.

200 Genesis of Queensland.

said we would gallop towards them : they would surely run
away ! So we did ; but they seemed to await us in quiet
contempt. " I say, what an immense head of hair !" " Yes, but
do you see that tremendous spear ? seems to be sticking right
out of his head ! We're in for it ! They won't run ! Up
guards, and at them ! What are they going to do ?"

Teeth clenched, carbine in hand, nerves paid with black
pitch, we dug spurs into our wretched animals, and not until we
were within a couple hundred yards of the enemy did we realise
the fact that they were not blacks after all. Hideous grass-
trees ! We looked at each other shamefacedly, and, with
diminished martial ardour, burst out into loud laughs to hide our
emotions, and nearly rode headlong over the perpendicular bank
of a dry creek which passed like a pitfall through the base of
the plain. Having followed up its course for a couple of hours,
we were not a little relieved and delighted by the sight of fresh
sheep tracks, and at once came upon an out station of Hodgson
and Elliot's. There instructed, we rushed frantically over some
three miles, reached the head station for the time (it being a
tarpaulin), dropped off our fagged horses almost into the arms
of that expert in bush and wood craft. Cocky Rogers ! Great
was his astonishment, greater his delight : his loneliness — for he
was alone — was at an end.

We then understood that Elliot had left him, taking the
drays, to attempt crossing the range and reaching Brisbane, to
which, by permit, he would be admitted, as well as goods for the
station, which were to meet him there from Sydney by water.

After a few days' rest, during which my first impression of
Darling Downs was quite and for ever effaced, as I became less
green to their real worth, apart from the wealth which they bore
upon their bosom in essential adaptation to the requirements of
the sheep farmer ; the varied richness of herbs and grasses ; the
depth of fat soil ; the open plains, on which four thousand
sheep could be watched by the shepherd with as much ease
as five hundred in the closely timbered forest land to which
they had been accustomed ; and, above all things, the evidence
ere long that the climate was of so happy a medium that
catarrah lost its terrors ; and the prognostications of knowing-
ones far away south that the wool would, so near the
tropics, quickly became "hair," were set at naught by
manifest improvement — I was assured — in some respects, which

Ely si an Fields. 201

I did not understand ; no burr ; no grass seed ; no well !

I was in an Elysian field — and truly it was — as I learned to take
in all its features, a scene of great beauty, and beauty stamped
with value I had no sense of yet. And this tarpaulin triangled
upon the ground by a few poles lashed together at the tops by
" green hide " was a head station ! only temporary, however.
One little tree leant away from it — the trees were very sparse on
the ridge at the back; a dog, cross of greyhound and 1 know
not what else — in fact, " lurcher "-like — was chamed to it ; the
ashes of a fire which was played out by sun-heat ; a few quart
pots, iron pots, a double-barrelled gun (Rogers') ; and under the
tarpaulin a cask, which was full of salt mutton : half the inevitable
damper on the top of it ; and hidden by another tarpaulin pegged
to the ground, the necessaria quoedam alia vivendi : tea, sugar,
tobacco, &c.

The plain in front, sloping down to the creek, such as it
was, for about half a mile, rising again from the other bank,
gently ascending to the opposite lightly-wooded ridges about
three miles away hence (that hill away to the left on the other
side is named by Gilbert Elliot " Rubieslaw," a reminiscence of
the Scottish home, his birthplace) ; the long reach of treeless
(barring those absurd grass-trees and their top-knots) grass
plain from the east and up the watershed, narrowing as it
ascends in that direction, widening as it descends to us, and yet
widening, until it elbows itself out into that expanse of prairie
through which we had ridden from the crossing place ; the long
rank grass wavering and shimmering under a light breath of air
now and then, soothing the glare of the sun ; the ridges and
forest dwarfed by distance, and always — in me at least — raising
the wish to know what was beyond them again : the feeling,
above all, that we were among the few who, having run Leslie
to earth, had yet set eyes on these new spots, which themselves,
as yet untrodden, beckoned us on and on — all combined to
light up a panorama of present enchantment which receded into
a dissolving view of recesses yet in gloom. Hope of discoveries
yet unprobed !

"Well, Rogers, what do you think of this part of the world?"
" Think !" shouted he, short black pipe and all, " the finest spot,
the finest country for sheep in creation ! Bah ! New England,
why it would ruin the Bank of England ! How-as-ever (a favourite
conditional phrase with Rogers), how-as-ever, let us be thankful

202 Genesis of Queensland.

we're well out of it and Cashiobury !" with the emphasis of
scorn. " Look'ee here, now, they may say what they like about
finding runs" (with pitying sarcasm), "but if you want to find a

run, and no mistake, you must come to James Rogers,"

He seemed somewhat excited, did the neat, dapper little man —
nettled too, about something — (he and Pemberton Hodgson,
who had brought him a letter, had been some time talking
together at a distance) and it was not long before I saw cause.

"Yes," smoking puffs, "to James Rogers! D'ye think
Mr. Arthur Hodgson could have found this run for himself : my
word, he would have been a long time getting here, but for

J. Rogers ! And now, by , that I've put some thousands into

his pocket ; aye, made his fortune, I'm to have the dirty kick

out ! How-as-ever, J. Rogers don't care : I know where to find
a better thing than Messrs. Hodgson and Elliot's. Well,

Mr. R , you're but a new chum, and don't know much about

it : but you don't know what J. R. can do. I'll go down country
and bring sheep up before the end of this year, and find a run
for them which will take the shine out of Messrs. H. and E. by
long chalks. Now, Mr. R., look'ee here ; I'll give you the whole

^yarn. After you left us — as some of us thought a 'croaker' —

at the Peel last July, we pushed on, that is, you see, Mr. Hodgson
and me, after camping with the drays at Cash's. There we
didn't know what to do : I saw 'twas no use giving him my
opinion, which was, in course, to follow Leslie's tracks. How-as-
ever, who should drop amongst us one evening, when Hodgson
had almost sworn he would go to the Clarence after all, but
Pat Leslie himself. That was on the igth July. Well,"
tossing up and then stroking down his beard — longish
for so a little a man, "Well! the long and short of it was
this, Pat Leslie and Hodgson had a long talkee-talkee together.
Leslie said that Dobie was a — I won't say what, 'cause I'm
sure he did'nt mean it (but, you know Pat Leslie is always
' shaking the shingles ' when he talks), well you know Dobie
would not go out to these ' Downs ' ; so he came on : heard we
were camped here and laid us on his line. Bless you ! did not
Leslie call me aside : said he knew that I was a regular
' bush card,' and that after all Hodgson was but a new chum ;
but he wanted him to find a good run. By Jove ! J. R. could take
a wink as well as a nod, and I done my best to get this. Ha !
ha ! But I must tell you : — 'I'm your man ! I'll bustle up a run

An Etonvale Yahoo. 203

which you won't sneeze at, Hodgson,' said I, when he asked me
to go out with him after Pat Leslie had gone. Leslie slept with
our drays all that night, so I had everything pat. How-as-ever,
to this very creek we did come straight as a die ; crossed many
a nice one away out there," pointing to the south "but he'd
promised Leslie not to meddle with his marked trees on any :
he had taken up all for friends (how-as-ever, two blokes, old
Sibley and King, have taken up a week or so ago, the creek he
had marked next to us out there, on the way to Toolburra,
as they call their camp on the river), and when we dropped over
that ridge out there, in sight of this very plain Leslie had told us
of, 'there' says I to Hodgson, 'there's your sort! beat that
you can't and say J. R. tells vou so ! ' Now came the fun ! We
followed this creek up, and saw a good many darkies about: won't
say much about them : J. R. don't like 'em : Hodgson liked them
less, I can tell you. Well, you know, he is but a new chum."
(I winced again.) "We camped. 'No,' said I to Hodgson,
'not close to the creek, nor to the timber; you trust J. R., he
knows all about it.' So we made a small fire on the ridge of
the plain half way between the two. ' Now then,' says I, ' I'll
look after the camp, if you'll go for water. I'll keep the fire
bright enough to come back by.' It was dark. Away stalks
Hodgson with a quart pot in each hand : very cautiously looking
around, aloft, everywhere : did'nt seem to hurry himself.
How-as-ever, he went, more quickly I suppose, in a little, for he
plunged promiscous into a water-hole after tumbling over a steep
bank : picking himself up he said, he quickly filled the quart pots
with water and turned for the fire again : hardly had made a
step that way when something made a shrill and ghostly rush by
his head, and seemed to swoop again and again at his face !
something which he caught sight of once, seemed monstrous in
size ; said he : horrified, he clanged his pots together and quicker
than he had ever run before, I guess, clashing them together
over his head to defend it (by Jove! made scarecrows of them),
he threw himself nearly into the fire, buried his face in the grass
shouting out ' Yahoo ! Yahoo ! ! '

"J. R., didn't he laugh and chaff all that night, my word."
And here's the end of it. So much for an owl and new chum.
Such was, more or less, the burden of my amusing friend's
roundelay. He was going soon to leave his present occupation.
Hodgson had no need of an expensive and, I should think,

204 Genesis of Queensland.

somewhat extravagant, though experienced and skilful, manager.
Foster, before mentioned, would for the future be overseer ; he
had, with " John," accompanied Pemberton Hodgson and
myself.

We had a couple of days' teaching on Sunday and Monday,
ist and 2nd November, 1 841, what Darling Downs rain could be.
We profited from it by improving our shelter. Got my hand in
with a tomahawk, and took a good degree in stripping bark.
The rain disturbed my horses, and I then had my eyes opened,
indeed, by Tommy, a black boy from New England, who followed
their tracks with and for me until we found them. Marvellous
gift, that of tracking ; but what could a black do without it ?
Why starve, of course.

" Should you like to see our neighours ?" said Chirpy Rogers
in a few days : "I'll tell you who they are: not numerous eh?
Sibley and King out there," shooting out his left leg over the
way as he lay, with pipe shrouded in beard and moustache, on
his back, " and Leslie's camp further on some twenty miles,"
making another dip at the flies. Gladly, of course, I said " yes."
" What do you think old Sibley called Elliot a little while ago,
to his disgust? Why ; Elliot went over to see him about some
rations lent him from our drays : were getting hard up I can tell
you : they fell out about the matter : Sibley would'nt stump up :
Elliot got into a precious scot, and Sibley followed him as he
rode off, with ' y'oure a — bite: y'oure both of ye bites ! ha ! ha ! '
It came out on Elliot's return : ' Rogers,' says he, 'what's a bite ?
Sibley calls us all bites !' I gave him the last ' new chum's
edition of Johnson's Dictionary, and he didn't ask again ?"

Before leaving Elliot, Rogers and the head station, which I
had thus dropped upon with Pemberton Hodgson, the first efforts
to discover some practical descent and ascent for wheels over
the range which (and it is the special characteristic of the eastern
margin of the Australian coast) sheds a system of waters to the
Pacific on the one side, and on the other to the west, south-west
and south, through South Australia to the Southern Ocean
should not be ignored.

The Jiow to do this, all along the line, had always been a
hard nut to crack. But reaching the nearest port from the
table land had been in all cases a matter of great moment in
considering the most economical means of access to and from a
station, for supplies and the carriage of wool. By the track

Skeletons in the Bush Closet. 205

used to the Downs from Maitland the distance covered was
quite five hundred miles. Yet Maitland was the nearest depot
and port. A road from the high land of New England to the
Richmond or Clarence passable for drays was still a puzzle : and
the puzzle lay in the grip of the same giant wall which
imprisoned the western wilds. Cunningham stopped on one of
his journeys at a "gap" in it which still bears his name. [I once
went down its three " pinches" on foot, because I could hardly
stop myself : to go up again — without rattlins' — I declined.]

On the 4th of June, the bleating of sheep and the cracking
of ox-compelling whips had woke up from lethargy the old river-
god of the Condamine. On the 2nd of July they were established
on the banks at Toolburra : in September Hodgson and Elliot
had been running a dead-heat with Sibley and King, and to the
end of 1840 these three stations only were occupied by their
holders, and stocked. [Yet in a pamphlet on " The Earlv
Settlement of Queensland," compiled by one who ought to have
known — (John Campbell, commonly called " Tinker") — having
himself been in possession of Westbrook, with stock from the
Severn, are included the three referred to among those which
were not taken up before the year of his own arrival. " All
these stations," he writes, "were taken up in 1841." And yet
he w^rote this many years ago. Alas ! the growth of inaccur-
acies.]

Revenons a nos nioutons ! Provisions, as Rogers had
intimated, were failing : boots were now solely reminiscences :
" niggerhead " was the skeleton in our closet; tea, sugar, and flour
suggestive, severally by their diminishing of a prayer for the
blessed cruse at Zarephath of old : in a word there were
" breakers ahead."

Accommodating oneself to circumstances is doubtless a
very wholesome herb in life's seasoning here. With gruesome
smile I had to swallow, and saw swallowed many an unpalatable
leek. Never before were masters — masters in a straight
jacket — less than men. Shepherds, bullock drivers, hutkeepers
were pets in our isolated dependence, and they knew it.
Often have I striven, for conscience sake, in the interests
of my kind friends whose guest I was, in fact I had so
long been, to lend a hand when I could ; would, deferentially
consulting the tastes and appetites of old " mates," fry mutton,
knead up and bake dampers (myself as well), spread out

2o6 Genesis of Queensland.

''leather jackets" or "johnny cakes," watch the quart pots of
green tea until they bubbled ("Jemmy Watson's simmer"),
and endeavour to soothe, day by day, the grumbler over his
engagement, and win him to good behaviour by obsequious
attention to his animal comforts. Many the involuntary impulse
to touch my hat to the sauntering bullock-driver, and wish him
the " top o' the morning." Poor Elliot ! what an indignant
blush lit up his usually unimpassioned face when he yielded, for
very policy's sake, to the persistent desire of a grimy shepherd
to shake "a lord's son's paw" (happy mistake for nephew).
Small trials ? No ! trials of no small calibre when riches and
poverty, success and failure, approval and ridicule were shifting
the balance — questions to be determined outside the "pale" of
J.P.'s and police — with patience, perseverance, and pluck. But
I must hark back again.

" What do you say, Elliott ?" had Hodgson suddenly called
out one fine morning last September, throwing the pipe away
from his lips, as he lay on his back in the grass ; " What do you
say, old fellow? A road over this confounded range from
Brisbane we rniist have, and a road we will have. Will you come
and try ? My word !" (Hodgson was inoculated with this
ejaculation.) " We shall be looking queer enough soon if we
don't. There's Dairy mple coming up all the way from Maitland
with drays ; has been months and months on the road, and will
have eaten up his loads before he gets to the Condamine !"

" Oh, yes," replied imperturbable Elliott, " All serene ! but
let me finish my own pipe in peace. Will you ride Beverly?"
" Of course I shall ; and I'll lend you Jacob or Balaper. Which
will you have?" "Neither, thank'ee!" The one was a
determinedly vicious mule ; the other a spur-proof slug.

So within two days they had tumbled over Cunningham's
Gap : followed much the same course awhile that Leslie had at
the end of last June, and continued on east, hoping to find the
settlement of Brisbane. They had a compass, but followed
their noses. In such pursuit a cry from Hodgson betokened
something. " What is it ?" " Why, nothing more nor less than
sheep dung, old boy ! Glorious ! We must be somewhere now,"
continued Hodgson. " Of course we are," retorted captious
Elliott, " but where ?" That's the question !" " Well, if there
here be dung of sheep, sheep must be near which dung it, you
muff !" was the truism re-shot. " But where are they ?" " Oh,

Taken in Charge. 207

follow the dung," roared Hodgson, nibbling at a pellet to make
sure what it was. And they soon did reach an out sheep-station
close to Limestone (now called Ipswich), and they were politely
taken in charge by a sergeant's guard ! " Can't possibly go on
to Brisbane without a pass!" put an effectual bar to further
progress.

Limestone in 1840! How the recollection of tiiat solitary
Government cottage — hitherto the most northern and western
dwelling in Australia — stands out as the handselled resting-place
for the "jackeroos!" By this wild name the "jumped up"
white men beyond the range had been reported by the blacks
from tribe to tribe until the news reached the settlement, and
all therein had cried "who can they be?" Some said, escaped
prisoners ; and the propriety of sending out constables to see
and seize had been discussed. Then from Sydney had come the
usual every six-months' schooner, and the authorities had been
informed that perhaps white settlers would ere long find their
way to the north and (as far as Brisbane's parallel) to the west.
So the constables stood at ease. Then the approach of " jacke-
roos ") (P. Leslie and Murphy) last June, some moons before,
had been heralded by the frightened darkies ; then (for Leslie
had turned back without approaching Limestone) that they had
gone away again ! They were thus reported as six-legged
monsters : big dogs, which had a leg out of either side, and a
man's body on them, and great was the beseeching that the Com-
mandant and "diamonds " (soldiers, a detachment of the 8oth)
should come and shoot " numkull," the jackeroos ! When "up
jump" "jackeroo" Hodgson and Elliot, and the wondering
stops.

Limestone in 1840 ! — Who, after clearing through the past
stretch of flats, ridges, gullies, and nasty creeks, could have
flattered himself that he should so soon break in upon this
peaceful abode ? But what is the abode without its welcome
greeting? " By golly !" ha-ha'd no end of a pair of strong lungs
from within, followed by a sounding slap on the thigh. " By
golly ! see here, Jane !" and out strode into the verandah the
sturdy frame of George Thorne. Ah ! George Thorne I George
Thorne ! though you have left but your ashes in the soil under
our feet, your name, your humour, your thoroughness, and above
all your integrity of heart, head and hand, lie not there with
them ; they are not even shelved among past regrets : they are

2o8 Genesis of Queensland.

so often dwelt upon among the memories without words [lied
ohne worte) of those who afterwards knew you well, and so
knowing, esteemed and honoured you. See the keen, honest
embrowned features of as good a specimen type of Somerset-
shire and soldier as ever stepped in shoe leather. See, again,
by his side, standing the earnest, active, faithful wife, who has
dared to brighten by her presence this dark corner of the land.
What a contrast ! The upright and intelligent man, and the so
winsome helpmate, willingly allotting themselves to the charge
of a prison post, a gang of hardened outlaws, whose compulsory
labour was utilised under their eyes at the Plough Station
close by.

Thorne had obtained his discharge from the army when
colour-sergeant in the 34th Regiment. He had carried away
with him the good wishes of all who had known him in it and
out of it, not excepting Governor Sir Richard Bourke, whose
very right hand he had long been. It must have seemed a
strange request, when, after leaving the service, he applied for
and obtained the appointment which he now held, at the very
confines of the civilised world, and in charge of unhappy beings,
whom the civilised world had put out of the way.

I think, from what I see, that this happy couple might in all
conscience claim the " flitch of bacon" at the hands of the Lord
of Whichenore. (How pleasant to turn over the old yellow
leaves of a note-book. How painful the after-math : mown
down both : garnered both.)

" By golly !" it's well you weren't shot for runaways. But
come in, come in ; Tommy will see to your horses," when he had
somewhat "shook himself" together out of bewilderment ; '' Jane,
Jane, I say," to his amazed spouse, "out with the beef, eggs,
bacon ; by golly ! all you've got ; well, this is a queer go — haw,
haw, haw !" And so, with a bang of both hands together, their
unexpected guests welcomed, housed, fed in such kindly custody,
passed the few hours of their arrest ; a tame emu and kangaroo,
who had shared the surprise, standing sole sentries over them.

This cottage stood in a bight, formed by the junction of a
deep gully, on the western aspect, with the Bremer, which flowed
by us on the north, about a hundred yards away, and stood some
sixty feet above the western level. [I mention this, because a
flood which occurred shortly afterwards surrounded the verandah,
and a few feet more of rise would have swept the whole building

Thome's Hotel. 209

away. On the other side of the gully, and opposite, Thome
afterwards built the first hotel — Victoria or Queen's — which,
years again afterwards he sold to " Bill the Fiver " my lately-
mentioned acquaintance on the Severn.]

CHAPTER XII.

In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men.

— Shakespeare. (Trollus and Cressida.)

Lieut. Owen Gorman, of Her Majesty's 88th Regiment, was
at this time Commandant of the penal settlement of Moreton
Bay, which had been established about sixteen years. A small
detachment was quartered at the Brisbane Barracks. Of
cheerful and hospitable Irish temperament, he took our wayfarers
into his house, and welcomed them with characteristic
cordiality. Two days after their arrest at Limestone permission
was sent up for visiting Brisbane. There were two Government
stations passed on the road — one at a place called Redbank,
the other seven miles before reaching the town, Cooper's Plains,*
the country all the way uninteresting and uninviting. The first
house seen was the Commandant's, at the top of the bank on the
other side of the river, to which and from which a boat plied.
A horse was made to swim across, being towed by its
owner sitting therein. One horse at a time made it slow
work. Just above the Commandant's house, Deputy-Assistant-
Commissary-General Kent's quarters; then the Barracks; above
them Dr. Ballow's, the medical officer's, at the back of whose
house, and in the main street (Queen-street), was the
postmaster's house and office — such as was required ; — the
Prisoners' Barracks ; the lumber yard ; and about half a mile
further on the abode of the Superintendent of Works,
Andrew Petrie, and his family. The Prisoners' Barracks and
Female Factory were empty ; the prisoners had been sent to
Sydney. Transportation was supposed to have ceased to
New South Wales on the ist of August, 1839. Last year the
system of assigning servants had been discontinued.

About three miles away and down the river on the same
side was a place called Eagle Farm. Here had been erected a
kind of open palisade-enclosed space, in which female prisoners
had at times been confined. It was now untenanted ; but in a
cottage hard by there still dwelt two gentlemen who, having been

* First named "Covvper's " Plains.

HomcBopathy of Life. 211

in former days associates in the old, found themselves again
together in this brush-encircled nook in the new world. The
elder was Stephen Simpson, who was afterwards appointed to
be first Commissioner of Crown Lands — as soon as it was
declared an open settlement — for the Moreton Bay district ; the
other, William Henry Wiseman, years afterwards Police
Magistrate at Rockhampton, where he died and was buried.
The former had been attached to a crack cavalry corps in the
old war : when peace was declared had retired from the army,
become a disciple of Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann,
founder of homoeopathy, come to England, and by practise of
the new doctrine, drawn upon himself so much invective and
ridicule on the part of the Faculty, that pamphleteering and
prejudice had embittered the old world to him, and after twenty
years patient engagement had, in the first of his wedded life,
been left to bear the burden of his disappointment alone as a
widower.

So he, and his companion oft times in Germany, made
interest to be admitted to this recess in voluntary exile ; and
here, with all manner of friendliness, which in some cases
became durable friendship, the wayfarers from westward ho !
were on all occasions called in, entertained, and tended. I say
" entertained" because both were men of no mean powers of
thought, enriched by no superficial study, and tempered by
experiences beyond the role of every day life. They were no
modern sciolists.

The spring of this new era brought out these two recluses
into the world again ; they lived in it all long enough to make
some few who remain feel that the old " arm-chairs " at Eagle
Farm and Woogooroo can never be refilled by kinder hosts, or
more chivalrous gentlemen.

The Commandant and his estimable wife left nothing undone,
if it could be done, to make the sojourn of some days comfortable
and very enjoyable. Truly visitors to Brisbane had — some there
may be who still have — reason to remember Lieutenant and
Mrs. Gorman with gratitude.

But the main object of this visit was to find a road, fit for
drays, back again. If this were not attained, was it possible to
get up Cunningham's Gap again ? and No ! seemed the
inexorable answer. Yet Hodgson and Elliot were compelled to
return without success. The " pinches " of this terrible gap

212 Genesis of Queensland.

ascent seemed to be insuperable for wheels and bullocks : the
pinch superimpending of hunger and starvation and ruin was so.
The supplies expected had arrived from Sydney : they must be
got up to the station. So back they went stumbling over hope,
but not losing heart though sorely "down " dragging themselves
and their scrambling horses hand-over-hand to the Downs again.

In two days they had arrived at the station : kept their own
counsel. Elliot said " he'd chance it." Once at the bottom of
this Gap with the drays unsmashed, " would have burnt his
ships" behind him, and then must go : "somehow" a safe
return must be accomplished, — and so it was ; but by an unlooked
for service.

The first officer sent from Sydney in charge of prisoners —
as commandant in fact — to the spot temporarily fixed upon by
Oxley at Redcliff Point, was Lieutenant Miller, of the 40th
Regiment, who sailed in September, 1824.

Captain Logan's reign at Moreton Bay was the most con-
spicuous throughout its penal existence. His, I have heard
spoken of as "a reign of terror:" I have heard his name
execrated. Again, if he had been severe as a disciplinarian in
so repulsive a task as his was, those before and after him
may by their laxity have afforded a contrast which Captain
Logan's detractors may have made full use of. At any rate, if
severe beyond the very limit of his duty and responsibility or not,
the hatred he incurred among the prisoners in his charge became
proverbial. I find in my old note book of 1841, written at
Brisbane : " This place remembers the name of Logan with
terror. There were many instances, I am told, of men driven to
desperation by the cruelties practised on them, so that they
would cast lots for cutting each others' throats, in order to get
rid of their own lives by being hung in Sydney. This same
Logan was murdered, I am assured, by the blacks at the insti-
gation of the^whites."

In after years I had evidence from a white man, whom I fell
in with among the blacks, and who returned to Brisbane with me
in 1842, confirmatory of the statement made by men on the
gallows in Sydney, that desperation had driven them to murder
as a means whereby they might find relief in the forfeiture of
their own lives. I shall allude no further to reports which I
heard in 1841 at the settlement, which tended to throw a very
heavy burden on the name and memory of the unfortunate

A Commandant' s CurriculiLyn.

Captain Logan. Of the justice of them not any one living can
judge.

I must now revert to Elliot and his drays, which had slidden
down Cunningham's Gap in absolute dependence upon the
Micawber-like " chance it!" They could not, they knew, get up
again with their drays, but surely something must turn up to
help them back again. In some such smoking serenity must Elliot
and his trusty bullock-driver, Joe Archer, have viewed — as
" Hobson's choice" — their position at the foot of that mis-named
Gap : go on we must : get back we must and chance it.

The coming of white settlers to Darling Downs had been a
fright not to the natives only. It happened that in one of the
tribes dwelling between the settlement and the Dividing Range
there had been for some years domesticated — (an exceptional
instance sparing the white man's life) — a runaway prisoner
whose name was Baker. I cannot recollect that which had been
given him by the blacks : I think " Boralcho." He fearing that
he would soon be encompassed by whites on both sides — soldiers
and squatters — gave himself up.

The last Commandant, Lieutenant Owen Gorman, had a happy
thought one day : "Why not go see Hodgson and Elliot, these
squatters to the west? People say it's impossible to get up by
the Gap. By the powers then, why do they call it a gap ?
Bedad 1 Baker must know every inch of the country. I'll take
him and try to find a ' Gorman's Gap,' and no mistake, fit for
wheels to get over. Some one must do it ; bedad, I'm the man."
So, after pumping Baker — as far as the wily Baker could be
pumped — but who promised freely, with an eye to reward
in some shape or other, the Commandant got built, by
convict hands, a queer specimen of the Irish jaunting car :
wheels strong but low : axle of wrought iron, strong enough
to carry himself and his wife and family into the bargain :
shafts heavy enough for a rhinoceros : sides made to fold
up and down on hinges, down over the wheels for a seat on
either side, and footboard; up so as to form a box for storage,
when meeting over all : distance between wheels very small : in
fact, the very sort of thing for the attempt he was going to
make,"^

* I well recollect its dimensions and fashioning, for in after time I bought it
from him, and had it for years in use.

214 Genesis of Queensland.

Away went, then, one day, Commandant Gorman from the
dirty Httle out-station beyond Limestone, bestriding a stout
built, dark brown pony mare, with Baker trudging confidently
by his side, rehabilitated from his tribal garb; and on came
followincf a bis: bullock between the shafts of the small chariot,
supported by an armed constable on either flank, a few days
after Hodgson and Elliot's visit. And so on day after day,
through a country with which Baker had been long intimate —
comparatively happy in his outcast state of freedom — straight on
and on, to the foot of the upheaved mass, which so persists along
this eastern board in making ''Tom Tiddler's ground " of the land
and water which fringes away from its crown. "Eh! what, are
we to get up that. Baker?'' "Yes, your honour," w^as implied
by his straining steps on and on, with barely a halt. And truly,
only here and there, between the gloomy portals of a pass,
pinched in by a dark scrubby gorge on the one side, and a
defiant wall of grass and stone on the other, were any real
difficulties to be met upon a spur of the range, which, by fits and
starts — a short plateau, a short sharp pinch, and another plateau
: — levered the soil towards the coveted level on the summit.
And thus, with effort of no Homeric type — -(nevertheless the
stalwart Commandant did now perform pedestrian prodigies in
pity to the pony) — to the amazement of all but the exulting
Baker, did they find themselves at the top of the range — Com-
mandant, car, cattle, and constables.

They must have stared curiously upon the scene over the
wide land before them, as far as what was soon called " Little
Liverpool Range," on their trail from the east. Strange must
they have thought this new sight over the tops of wooded hills
and ridges which they had crossed and left behind : such fantas-
tically shaped eruptions from the ground's skin, too ! Queer top-
knot that to the left, thickly bewigged with a dense, dark, crisp
crop of brush, save the small bald patch on the poll of his nob,
where one would have thought the wool, or wood rather, ought
to grow.

Yes, the first look upon the view from this and many other
outstanding points on the top of the dividing or main range was
a novel and great delight then ; no longer, however, lit up by
the sense of its absolute innocence of previous intrusion and
invasion by the white race, must be a great delight to many an
eye still.

Drawing a Jackeroo Cover. 215

Our travellers, however, had no time nor desire to
sentimentalise — if in any way given to such emotion — over the
grand expanse. They had met natives on the way at times, and
without doubt Baker had heard from them of the " jackeroos"
and their whereabouts. It was, then, with no hesitation that he
followed the course of a watershed to the westward, which, after
one night's camping at the first supply they could find in this
new system, brought them into the glad view of Darling Downs.
The flow had brought them also to a more pronounced though
dry bed, which ere long proved to have long reaches within its
banks of black soil and reeds, in which could be seen large
lumps of coal, or what seemed to be coal, and, leaving the lightly
timbered ridges, led them into a plain. And what a glorious
passage that plain was to their destination ! They did not know
that the caprices of lovely landscape before them — plain here,
plain there, adorning itself with a belt of timber and ridge to the
very foot of that conspicuous bluff — which they did not know
was " Rubieslaw" — was the domain on which they should find
Hodgson and Elliot's resting place. And so they crawled on
— admiring, conjecturing, hoping, and smoking — until the station
spot was too manifest to be mistaken.

Sincere and warm were the congratulations — on the one
side pride of success, on the other relief in the knowledge that
over anything which that queer car had surmounted, Elliot, of
course, and his bullocks could surely flog their way home again.
Indeed, this issue to the Commandant's effort marked a red
letter day for our Darling Downs tablets that year — memorial
of an act for which to be grateful to the gallant officer who had
in such pleasant fashion led the way for panting teams and
heavy laden drays with a bullock and an Irish jaunting car.

After a pleasant rest of a couple of days, the cavalcade left
this station (which afterwards became known as the "Drum-
mer's " — an assigned servant who had once been a drummer
having been left there as shepherd, when the head station of
Etonvale was removed to its present site, some twelve miles or
more higher up) with the intention of paying our two neighbours
a visit, and so returning by the headlong " Gap."

On the 5th of November, 1840, Pemberton Hodgson,
Rogers and I rode over to Toolburra, having stopped for a while
on the way at the triangular bark dwelling-place in which King
and Sibley eat, drank, kept what provisions they had, smoked

2i6 Genesis of Queensland.

and slept. [That spot was afterwards called Clifton^ — to be
more accurate, the Clifton station was a few hundred yards
down on the same side of the creek — Clifton, after passing
through the hands of Forbes, Marsh, and Pinnock, ultimately fell
into the hands of Tertius Campbell, and from him passed on to
W, B. Tooth.] At Toolburra, I first on this occasion met one of
the two estimable younger brothers of Patrick Leslie — Walter — as
well as Fairholme and Farqharson. Dalyrmple, whom I had
seen on the road some little while back, was also there. The
heavy rain set in again : the Condamine began to run like a mill-
race, and so we waited next day for fine weather for return.
When the flood was at its highest the following evening, a loud
shout was heard from the opposite bank. So unusual a hailing
summoned us out in a body : on the other side, in a pitiable plight
holding his horse, stood Sibley. " What am I to do? " cried the
somewhat corpulent and unwieldly middle-aged gentleman :
"Oh ! what am I to do ! I cant swim ! my horse is dead beat, I
can't go back ! " " Never mind," a voice suggested, "We'll tow
you across." " How get a rope over? " I was foolish enough to
say " I would." With a bight of rope round my arm I plunged
in, and was sucked under a dead log in the stream : got clear
somehow but didn^t like it: the under-tow was difficult : how-
ever, having safely arrived, Sibley proceeded to divest himself of
his outer skin, which having lashed together tight, I proceeded
to make the rope fast round what he had of a waist : he was in
a terribly nervous state. " Are you ready, Mr. Sibley? " " No !
stop. Can't you carry my watch for me across ? " displaying,
out of the grass, an immense old-fashioned silver affair, about
the size of an average Swede turnip. " How do you expect me
to carry such a watch swimming, without damaging it? " " Oh :
I thought you could put it, — put it, like a good fellow — in — in
your mouth."

With feelings, of course, hurt at such a reflection on the
watch-pocket he wanted me to utilise, I declined ; he began to
implore : " it was such an old friend, this watch ; a keepsake,
he'd bless me to the last day of his life if I would do him this

kindness, yes, he'd bl " (I had changed two half-hitches into

a running noose), I made a sign, and into the surging stream
head over heels was hauled poor Sibley ; bubbles followed his

* So named by John Milbourne Marsh (now S.M., N.S.W.), after his birth-
place.

Resuscitation. ^ i ^

body and his blessing : and he was pulled out on the other side
nearly cut in two, — his obesity notwithstanding — amid the most
merciless roars I had heard yet — in the bush. I did, however,
provide otherwise for the watch ; but never volunteered again to
carry a rope " over the water to Charlie."

We returned to the " Drummer's." Nothing that I could
write could mould any idea of what the grass on the intervening
plains was then, for any one crossing them now. The young
features have disappeared, and the country, to the sight of an
old squatter on them, has put on a mask : it may put on another
when this generation has made room for its successor. But I
have to do with then — not with now.

The plains, in the dry season lately, had been burnt off. I
had locked not so long ago over a black sea, but now the
marvellous welling up of an ocean of green, summoned quickly
from the depths by the first bright sun, was a wealth of loveliness
unwrapped so suddenly from its sooty folding as to be almost
beyond belief except under the eye's evidence.

The rains had ceased. The anxieties about Elliot and the
drays was intolerable. They were no less at Toolburra, for on
the 1 2th of this month (November) Dalrymple at once followed
us, and he, Rogers and I made a start towards the head of the
creek, for the purpose of finding, if not obliterated, the tracks of
the " car " which the Commandant had brought up. Tommy,
the black boy, was, of course, with us, and we picked them up
about a mile above the spot on which the head-station of
Etonvale now stands, and followed them up until evening. We
thought we had come about seventeen miles from the Drummer's,
and pulled up, to camp, on a stony bank of the creek, believing
that we were not far from Gorman's Gap. We had just hobbled
our horses, and Dalrymple was still doing so, when we heard a
coo-ee. I looked up and saw a man, whom I supposed was but
Dalrymple returning (not dreaming of any other white man's
approach) but most wondrously changed in apparel and horse.
Rogers and I stared in amazement : when Rogers, with " By
Jove, it's Elliot !" tumbled over the quart-pots of tea into the
fire. For myself, I was so surprised into delight that I let my
horse go and bolted down the ridge and bank to meet him.
[Elliott's announcement sometime afterwards of this our
rencontre to a friend was as follows : " I saw a fellow — I
couldn't make out who — all of a sudden rush at me down the

2i8 Genesis of Queensland.

bank on the other side, and, when I looked again, a pair of
yellow leggings was all that marked his presence, sticking up
high from a bed of rushes."] " Most hurry, least haste !" fully
exemplified. I had tripped over a stone, fallen head-foremost
into the mud of the bed, and stuck in it until extricated,
with a pleasant mouth and nose full. With wry face, I shook
hands with him in all heartiness. " But oh, dear me, Russell !
how is it that you were not buried at Killala ? I'm quite
disappointed."

Soon the drays hove in sight ; they had taken the Irish car
track to Gorman's Gap, and there we were together at length !
We were too much pleased, on both sides, with what that evening
had brought about to think about turning in. Sleep was kept at
bay bv question and answer : one, for news from the west ; the
other, for news from the east. But the merits and demerits of the
road was the yarn of the night. "All I can say is, that Gorman's
Gap has helped us over ; Cunningham's would have seen us some-
where first, but from the foot of the range at the latter place the
road is much less ' cursed ' than that from this one : there's a
stretch of country full enough of gullies and ' break-necks '
which it has taken us the last three days to get over ; full enough,
I say, to spoil a saint's temper, to say nothing of a bullock
driver's: but you see, I always take things easy. When Joe
Archer came to a bad place I would go over to the opposite side,
sit down, smoke, and look at him. I tell you what, Russell ; one
gets a lesson in some ' dead ' languages by this work ! I gave
up looking on, after crossing a deep running creek (Lockyer's).
I had sat myself down as usual, when Joe called out
from the other side 'look out!' and I did look out; for there I
was, and some six hundred blacks behind and on either side of
me. They seemed determined to stop our crossing ; a shot or
two from the other side made them fall back ; and so did I, I can
tell you ! One man got hit with a waddie, but he's all right now.
Well ! all's well that ends ends well, old fellow ! We got up the
gap early this morning. It looked terrible last night ! Dark as
pitch. I dirged it in the name of ' Hell's Hole.'" [Hell's Hole
it remains to this day. It was used for some time, until, in fact,
the ' Swamps ' (Toowoomba) road was found. It soon justified
the name ; the more it was used the less became it a via sacra.'\
Thus Commandant Gorman's unlooked for service helped pig
over the stile, and Gilbert Elliot " got home that night."

An Aide-de-Camp' s '^ Grand Rounds** 219

Not far from the place we camped at was the farthest
spot to which Arthur Hodgson and Rogers had followed
up the creek — that of Etonvale — when searching for this run
some months ago. It is a curious thing that they came upon
the skeleton of a horse at that point, which was always declared
to have been Logan's, which had escaped when he was speared.*
No tribe had ever then crossed the range to the westward :
the few natives who had joined Baker when en route with
Commandant Gorman absolutely refused to proceed over, or even
to the foot of the range. None of them on the east seemed to be
in any way acquainted with the plains of Darling Downs, nor to
have even heard of them, until the advent of the white men
" jackeroos." Not many miles hence, however, the name of Eton-
vale was branded upon this station by a curious occurence, which
can never find a positive explanation. Hodgson and Rogers
had fallen in with natives camped by the side of some timber.
They ran, leaving, like the nursery " black sheep " of old,
" their tails behind them." Among these relics they found a
knife bearing the name of a well-known maker at Hodgson's
own school-town, Eton. And Etonvale it is to this day.

Right glad was poor Elliot — as new a chum as myself — to
get rid of what he called a few stone of dirt, accumulated on the
road during the last three weeks. Dalrymple and Rogers went on
to have a look into Hell's Hole ; Elliot and I cantered on merrily
to the Drummer's, found Pemberton Hodgson smoking, and so
did we three meet again. Up came the drays in the evening; up
came Dalrymple and Rogers, whose peep into the "hole" had
not been gratifying, and down from the well laden drays came
the necessaria quoedam for making bush life exquisite, and the
trials thereof good seasoning for the true enjoyment of pleasur-
able surprises, and happy reliefs from distresses.

" Well, Elliot," one day, " I wonder that you ever cared to
leave the comfort of Government House, and the kindly regards
of the Governor ; what on earth — if it is fair to ask — made you
give it up ?" " Rounds of beef," said he, without a smile.
Seeing me perplexed, he added, " Toujours rounds of beef; Sir
George is a noble old fellow ; the best Governor we've yet had
— that's my belief — looks stern enough, and can be stern enough
on fair occasion and provocation, but is in his own house a —

* Shown afterwards to have been an error.

220 Genesis of Queensland,

well — a thorough brick ; but he was always having fresh rounds
of beef roasted for dinner. Whenever there was a round — his
favourite dish — to be expected in the evening, he was fidgetting
all day long. ' I say, Elliot,' he would say half-a-dozen times in
the day, ' do you think that round is being properly looked after,
do go down — surely you won't mind — just go ; have a peep in
the kitchen, and see if it looks well.' Of course I couldn't say
' No ;' so, whenever Sir George had a round on the brain and
board I was miserable ; I was aide-de-camp, no idea had I of
being chef-de-cuisine; so I jumped at old Hodgson, and here am
I — jolly as a sand-boy at Sir Arthur's round table, up on the
Downs." [Prophetic words which he did not live to see
fulfilled.]

So, by joke and smoke we passed away the monotony,
which, at times, became wearisome. Quail shooting — quails
abounded on the plains — rifle practice, tracking stray bullocks or
horses, with black Tommy, were diversions.

Taking the dogs out after an emu or kangaroo — a hot
style of coursing, which diminished the number of our dogs
by one every run we had : heat too much for them : water too
scarce : the wretched animals would stagger, lie down, and die ;
and so, the kennel becoming empty, our hunt subsided. For a
change, we tried to build some kind of hut for our stores, but
soon left the splitting of slabs and the stripping of bark to the
old hands ; the heat was too much for new chums.

On the igth of this month (Nov.) did the first foal on Darling
Downs see the light — to us quite an event. Pemberton Hodgson's
black mare, bought a year ago at Black creek from Henry Isaac,
presented him with this memorial of her admirable qualities,
which inherited the blood of Killala, far away on the Peel.
The next day but one we were enlivened by a visit from
Toolburra — Walter Leslie and his drays, en route to Brisbane by
that descent into "Hell's Hole," in " Gorman's Gap," at the
head of our creek. The heat almost every day summoned up a
thunderstorm, usually from the S.W. December began with a
heavy sprinkle and an attempted inroad by the blacks. Brought
back Walter Leslie and his drays on the 14th from Brisbane;
indulged me with a hard gallop after two emus, both of which
I caught — rare addition to salt mutton and damper on the i8th ;
which little distractions culminated in my first lesson in shearing,
which began in Hodgson and Elliot's makeshift shed on

Wool-ga th ertnf^. 2 2 1

Saturday (iQth), King and Sibley having kindly sent over two
men to help. Two hundred and nine ewes reduced to a state of
nudity seemed to provoke the elements ; a perfect hurricane of
wind and rain made the wretched animals wish for their coats
again. Some few — for none got them — died out of spite. The
shears lay idle awhile, and so slouching into Christmas Day,
could find nothing for my hands to do but the comforting,
neglected excuse of shaving. Making a plum pudding in such
weather was a painful exercise of temper. Sunday, 27th, was
fine, and so, in spite of all old-fashioned scruple, began shearing
again, and, much to the satisfaction of a shepherd called Mears,
rendered to his charge by the evening one thousand, two hundred
and twenty-five ewes lighter by many a pound of wool, which
seemed to have collected all imaginable filth on their long
journeyings through the year now nearly gone. Then came
(what an impression a new scene, and all details of places and
names and numbers, shouted out so often on this new occasion
of amusement and interest ; and that use of the spade in a new-
fashion — that of digging wool into a wool-bale — make on a new
chum's mental tablets) ; then came, I say, the anything but
delicately voiced shout for "Asplin's " wethers; then "Scotchie's"
ewes ; and then, " by Jove " the next morning, " where are
they gone ? " Yes, all gone ! Watchman fast asleep ; sheep
wide awake ; taken their own line cross country : track 'em down
we must.

"Here Spiers" cried out Pemberton Hodgson, "you must
find them again ; here take my horse : follow their tracks wnth
Tommy, and stick to them." Trouble No. i, — w^hat a loss to a
beginner ! But the old year would not die out with such a blot
upon the promise of which it had presented so many a handsome
earnest, in the successes of these hopeful, ever hopeful aspirants
to a prosperous future. The last hour of its last days' sunlight
waited upon the trusty shepherd Spiers, as he came back with
the sheep that w^ere lost ; some few only having been killed by
the native does.

CHAPTER XIII

Human nature, under very old governments, is so trimmed and penned,
and ornamented, and led into such a variety of factitious shapes that we are almost
ignorant of the appearance it would assume if it were left more to itself. From
such an experiment as that now before us, we shall be better able to appreciate
what circumstances of our situation are owing to those permanent laws by which
all men are influenced, and what to the accidental positions in which we have
been placed. — Sydney Smith. (Review of Collins' N. S. Wales.)

The I st of January, 1 841, took a first look at us through mist,
murkiness, and mugginess. It was Thursday : it ended in
merriment. Dalrymple cantered over from Toolburra : George
Leslie — the youngest brother whom I had not yet met — had
come up from Sydney overland : brought letters : old as my own
were (by date nearly one year) to me they told a message as of
yesterday. Letters soon set us a-gadding about home : they
overhauled for each of us much of the slack of the line which
had dropped out of hand — through the strain of distance, the
yielding through absence, and the lack of interchange of the
"how? where? when? who?" — through the much-missed
medium of Her Majesty's mail. (Letters to me, what I have
of them still, speak only of the dead !)

Clip ! clip ! snip ! snip ! with savage kick, grunt, and oath,
went the shears still day by day : thunder, lightning, hail, and
rain notwithstanding.

Hail ! aye, such hail as had never till then rattled itself into
any of our realities : hail which pitted the weather side of the
disbranched trees in one course, never varying in breadth nor in
direction, like rifle butts. Thunder which seemed ever to
reproach the lightning with instant roars for attempting to
distance it. Rain which ever gorged the crumbling banks of
gullies, creeks, and Condamine, and then truantedin streams of
hide-and-seek among the melon-holes over the rank bases of the
plains. Rats, reptiles, snakes, on each unflooded patch,
sympathisers through common peril : in fright-born fellowship
harmonious, if not a happy family.

Clip ! snip ! the wool must be sent down ; interest of ten per
cent, on overdraft or debt won't do ; a monetary crisis, too, is
coming on ; everyone down in the mouth ; and that wretched
bank in George-street has closed its doors ; what shall we poor

Heir s Hole. — -A Serpent, 223

squatters do. Let's see — the rams are shorn — after such rain
the box bark will strip off gaily ; we must have more shelter for
the wool. Mclntyre, bring up your flock ; oh ! they are lambs —
quick work. At half-past three o'clock, on Saturday, the 23rd,
were closed the shears for this first season on Etonvale creek, at
the Drummer's. Elliot tried his hand at sorting all through ;
Pemberton Hodgson and others at the spade, a-packing and
a-pressing with a long clumsy lever. With glad features did
we all straighten our backs again, after the head-aching study
of sheep, shears, and struggles.

On Sunday 31st, the weather became steadily clear and
bright. Sundays seemed to be peculiarly provocative of the
pipe. More silence, too, prevailed : each inner-life pre-occupied
by his own a-thynkynge,

February. " Will you come with us to Brisbane, Russell ?
I must go down with the drays in a few days." " How shall you
go down ? " " By Hell's Hole ; can pick you up on the way;
you know."

In a few days, consequently, I was awaiting the arrival of
Walter Leslie and the drays from Toolburra, to which I had
lately ridden and returned. Out on the edge of the plain below,
looking for my horses, in preparation, I nearly stepped upon
a hideous black snake. I suppose it was no less frightened at
my approach, than I was at his proximity, because it bolted. If
it had not, I think I should have done so. It was a horrid beast;
black as black, belly bright orange red : a nasty looking flat
head and snubby snout. It was the first of the kind I had seen,
and the desire to kill and possess overcame my dread of it:
followed the brute — the grass was quite short — which made for
a large hole in the soil, like a small burrow : had gone in about
two thirds of his length when the prospect of losing my curio
overcame my discretion : I seized his tail and then marvelled to
find what a powerful hold he had of the ground : he tugged and
I tugged: a sudden cold perspiration broke out all over me, when
I caught sight of his terrible muzzle within a couple of inches of
my hand : he had made a round turn in his burrow, — perhaps
his refuge on other occasions — and his Satanic eyes just pro-
truding beyond the mouth of another hole at my very feet
petrified me. Intent as the beast was on seizing my hand I
dared not let go : he would have struck me in a moment. I
dared not even relax — he would have reached me. I suppose

224 Genesis of Queensland.

my very terror made me hold on : in a few moments — such long
ones — I felt his curled coil yielding : little by little his malignant
features sunk back ; till on the extraction of about one half the
reptile's length, I was able to break its back with my heel, and
had him helpless. Overcoming my disgust — after a smoke — I
could not deny that it was a most beautiful specimen of that
repulsive family : the glossy smooth sparkling ebony : the
blending of the various shades of orange on his belly : and the
expressed hate in the dying eyes were all things to be admired,
and, in their way were very beautiful, — under the latter circum-
stances. The skin made a sweet pair of slippers afterwards.

Walter Leslie and his followers came and went — I with him
— to Hell's Hole, two days afterwards — the middle of this month.
Aptly named, was the admission after the first look at it. Facilis
the descensus with a vengeance: — and although I knew and could
see that drays heavily laden had been lately dragged up — the
manner of such an ascensus was to me — a new chum — a wondrous
feat.

Down we went, and in time went up again : a feat on a day
indelibly branded on my memory, because we all had to put our
own shoulders to the wheel and hump, i.e., carry up on our backs
to our own hurt of hand and knee, each a bag of flour presumed
to weigh two hundredweight, from the bottom to the top of the
uppermost pinch. Leslie's bullocks would not face it, hardly
with an empty dray behind them — but I must not anticipate.

For three days we struggled, flogged, and shouted ourselves
out of this gloomy range over — of course — " stony creeks,"
" swamp oak creeks," and " flagstone creeks," rowels worthy
of the parent spur, and three clear days had lighted us along but
seven miles and a half of the way, and into the heart of an
aboriginal meeting or dwelling place — deserted of course — which
Elliot had described as " Humpy Flat." There were some three
hundred humpies — cabins formed by three sheets of bark propped
up from the open front — scattered over this flat, which gave it a
curious appearance.

Here, when on the point of camping, we were caught up, to
my great surprise and delight, by Arthur Hodgson. He had
arrived with cattle at the "Drummer's" soon after our leaving it.
We had parted on the 23rd of last October at the Severn Station.
All anxious to see how we had got over the range he had ridden
after us ; stayed the night ; confirmed the reports of a very great

Brisbane Uneasiness and Ease. 225

depression in the business world of Sydney, and went back the
next morning.

"How did you like Brisbane, Leslie?" as we jogged along
next day. " You've been there already once." " Oh ! nothing
could have been more friendly than the welcome on all sides,
specially from the mosquitoes, which are a greater plague there
than in the bush." " I suppose that's a welcome all new arrivals
may have to endure. One can get used to it, eh?" "Don't you
believe it. Those who have been there for years complained of
the intolerable pests as much as I did. I must just tell you about
a stout old lady whom I met in Brisbane. She was abusing the
brutes as ' dratted thingummies ' one evening ; so I asked her
how it was she hadn't got used to them by this time. ' Used to
'em ? No,' she cried ; ' they worrit my very life out. I can't
keep em off, cow dung won't, and, if that won't, what will ?
Why, Mr. Leslie,' she whispered confidentially, * when I get
up o'mornings I find knobs on my own body as big as my thimble.*
T wish you could just have seen that thimble : perhaps you will."

In due time we reached Limestone and worthy Thorne.
There was no difficulty in proceeding now as permission had
been sent up for the approach of any of the western " jackeroos"
by Sir George Gipps. Fifty miles round Brisbane as a centre,
had hitherto been the district under " taboo." By proclamation :
it was now removed. Thorne had by this time obtained
a supply of cabbage-tree hats, slops and general supplies, which
were likely to be required by such as we, and future arrivals :
and the speculation was a capital one for him. What fun it was
to buy from the cheery hearty storekeeper and his wife, in the
first trial of his venture. " Should you like to see the Plough
Station close by : I'm going there." " Of course." " By golly,
I've not had many to ride alongside since I've been here : but I
don't like riding alone : come on," with a loud whistle when we
had got about a hundred yards off ; and after us came coursing,
hopping, striding, three npble dogs, a kangaroo and an emu.

What Government sheep we saw were leggy, coarse-
woolled brutes, a cross, I believe, of Merino and Teeswater. But
at the Plough Station there was a cheerful view of many acres
of fine maize. The wheat, however, had totally failed here.
D.A.C.G. Kent would persist — since he had the ordering
of such matters — in forbidding the usual, and hitherto the
successful process of ploughing in the grain when sown, and was

226 Genesis of Queensland.

contented with the harrow over it. Consequently the sun gave it
no chance, being so thinly protected. The heat would turn the
uppermost soil into light dust, and the grain would not settle. A
short continuance of dry weather, in such case, parched it up.

" Aye, Thorne, those are nice beasties out there ! " " By
golly ! they ought to be nice, considering the trouble they gave
at first; but that was before my time. Now, I'll tell you how
these cattle got here ; and when I think of it, it fairly bothers my
wits, it does. Well, you know, Government down in Sydney
could nohow tell how to send us beef up here. At one time, I
remember, they wanted to send a thousand head overland, but
d'ye think they could find anyone they could trust to take them?
No, by golly ! that they couldn't ; and so they thought they'd
try to get 'em up by water. And so, in time, they did get
together, at this very station, about a score : one bull, the rest
cows. They were bought at a place far south of Sydney beyond
the 'Five Islands'" [Illawarra] "and brought up by coasting
craft at the same time. Nice cattle they were too, a bit old
though. Well, for some months they were watched all day, and
put in the yard at night : when they seemed at home here,
orders came from Brisbane to let 'em run, and yard 'em no
longer : so they seemed to settle down, and were just looked at
now and again. We were looking out for calves and didn't care
to disturb 'em. One morning, by golly! they were all gone.
There were no horses for the work, and the man who followed
their tracks got frightened about going any farther. Look out
there now, and you will see a queer shaped looking mountain
don't you?" We did so. "Well, the man came back, dead
beat : said they were making a bee-line to that queer place :
they call it Cunningham's Gap, haw ! haw ! haw ! Why, do
you see that tree ? Well, not long ago, when I heard of you
gentlemen ' jackeroos ' from the blacks about here, I rode, with
some mounted constables right up to it : it must be sixty or
seventy miles away, I should say, thinking to find ye in that
quarter; but when we got to this ' Gap,' I tell ye, that tree" [it
was not far from upright], "that tree, I say, was nothing to it.
How four drays ever got down it knocks the very breath out of
my body. You may be sure we didn't try to get up it, though
you must have been there on the other side. But about these
cattle ; word was sent down to head quarters, and some
constables were sent here with orders to follow the tracks and

Animal Magnetism. 227

bring 'em back dead or alive. Nine days after, they got back
here : had got to that very ' Gap ' as they call it, and were too
frightened to go on : they had some of our blacks too with them,
but when they saw what was up, they left them one night.

" And so there was the very mischief about these cattle down
below : set 'em all by the ears when they had lost all chance of
fresh beef. Haw ! haw ! haw ! soon forgot all about 'em. Now
what do you think had become of them ? They made sure up
here that the blacks had long ago killed 'em all ; but no, not
they. These blacks here said they would be frightened of 'em,
and so they were. By golly! they had — word was sent from
Sydney nearly a year after by the regular six months' schooner
— they had, every hoof of 'em, got back to the place they were
brought from by sea. I tell ye, it beats my brains altogether
how they got there. But that's a fact ; you'll find the whole of
it in the Commandant's report. Wasn't so very long before I
Avas sent up : and they were again brought here the same way.
That's some of 'em."

Some years afterwards my neighbour on the Condamine,
Ralph Gore, came to Brisbane by a steamer, by which he had
brought two carriage horses ; he drove them to Yandilla ; in a
few weeks he lost sight of them ; while in some perplexity
because of this disappearance, he received a letter from Brisbane
which informed him that the two horses which he had landed
from Sydney had been found standing at the same wharf, one
morning, quietly looking at the river. There was no steamer
alongside, or assuredly they would have berthed themselves
aboard.

We returned to Limestone to tea with this pleasant family.
A baby had adorned the scene since Hodgson and Elliot had
broken in upon them. The next day we rode on ahead of the
drays, had a look at Redbank and Cooper's Plains stations, and
met with the now well-tried kindness under the Commandant's
roof-tree.

About this time — I know it was at the time of this my visit
— the intimation, recent from England, that Lord John Russell,
then Home Secretary, had proposed that the squatter's license
should be raised from £10 to £60 per annum, reached me.
Rather startling to one who had, free from any personal interest,
been watching and partaking of the harass which attends the

228 Genesis of Queensland,

early squatter's career in the race to something substantial, as I
had done, I could not help wishing — and of this I find a memo-
randum in a letter of my own, written in 1841 — that " Lord John
Russell could have seen a poor devil of a squatter — worse than
poor, because invariably in debt to some merchant or bank in
Svdney — risking everything at one cast ; spending his last
sixpence, and more, too, on so cloudy a chance — a chance
dominated by catarrh or scab, which might flourish or wither,
just as the quality of a run — in many cases not yet found — and
the climate might decree; a chance dependent, as I had seen, as
much almost on the good-will of men, overpaid for their
grumbled-out service, as upon the energies of the working, ever
hard-worked master — a chance, too, I can now-a-days say in
addition — which the sanguine squatter would strain his life-fibre
to grasp and use primarily, no doubt, for his own aim's sake,
but under the consciousness that he was unearthing a far greater
treasure for others behind, than, in all probability he should ever
earn for himself, by the throwing into the light of day unknown
lands, to which his need was propelling him ; by the development
of resources upon which his own foot had first been planted,
spite of dangers, hardships, hunger and thirst.

Brisbane, at this time, put me in mind of what the ship was
in which I had come out, for the greater part of a passage of
more than five months, in its social aspect. The free dwellers
therein, like the passengers, cooped up within the limits of so
small a circle : thrown much upon their own — such as they
might have been — resources ; glued to routine which, affording
little real occupation, palsied by its monotony : to duties on the
spot — which like the poop or quarter deck — forbade neglect,
absence, or escape, unless overboard, seemed to have fallen out
one with another, because they had nothing else to do.

The ("ommandant's neighbour on the right hand, a little
man with a larg(; beard, was ever in a state of frenzy about the
Commandant : the little bearded gentleman's bulletin of
pugnacious paraphrases would rebound from the impenetrable
Commandant to the little bearded gentleman's neighbour on his
own right hand : from that neighbour to that neighbour's neigh-
bour, and so on, until there were no more neighbours up the
river : the imp of mischief would then fly off at a tangent, nor
leave one idler un-inoculated with the virus of quarrel. Just so
on board a ship — (a sailing ship, if you please : ocean steamers

Stagnation and Sulks. 220

were not then believed in) — the smaller the party the more
closely connected by time, place, and dependence on one another
for a pleasant time of it, so much the more inflated the stupid
quarrels, the childish tempers, until a crisis, perhaps an
ebullition in earnest: then friends again, for a time.

However, all were invariably kind, cordial, and hospitable
to the "jackeroos." To a great extent the "jackeroo" intrusion
had been a blessing: "by hook and by crook" brought some
together again ; stirred up their languishing, nearlv stagnant
springs.

The latter days of March were enlivened at the Drummer's
by the cheery revival of Arthur Hodgson's presence. On his
way up he had met Rogers at Patrick's Plains, on his way
down. Tommy, the black, had thought he also would like a
change. So Tommy, to Hodgson's annoyance — Tommy was so
useful on the station — had accompanied Rogers. But Tommy-
had to return, and very convenient had the meeting been, as
there were cattle to be picked up on the way, and driven to the
Downs.

" Ne pleurons pas mais rions ! Nasty weather, old fellow.
I'll admit, but let's make the best of it!" shouted I to my com-
panion, Henry Hughes, of Worcester, England ; of Black Creek,
Australia. Poured down the rain, persistent, pitiless pursuer, as
we slushed through the rotten ridges, and sticky flats which
prevail over the whole distance between the Condamine " Old
Crossing Place " and the Severn. On the way to Sydney !
Who'd have thought it? Perhaps to India ! Who'd have ex-
pected it?

Squatting : sheep : stations : Wills-o-the-wisp ! had been
my conclusion after the initiation into their profitless mysteries
and parasite miseries on run and road — may be to ruin — for the
last twelve months and more. South I've tried: north too: I
shall not certainly go west : and east alone, will suit me now, I
think. So heigh ! for India.

As yet, at least, I can see no reasonable hope in squatting.
1 have seen no well-managed, old-established and prosperous
station, whether of cattle or sheep : I know no more of business
— as a business man — than sheep do : and I should be easily
"fleeced" in such a matter if I placed myself in the hands of a
— well ! a shearer. The only matter of business with which my
name has ever yet been mixed up was in that horrid affair at

230 Genesis of Queensland.

Patrick's Plains : arrested for a promissory note ! — a thing I
should not even know if I saw. No ! this squatting is but living
from hand to mouth, I think : there's no substance in it : what
there may be gets, I see, into Sydney pockets : and into them
only. Such had been my burthen, in any intervals of silence, all
the w'ay.

Henry Hughes, Henry and Frederick Isaac — brothers — had
been well-known to one another in Worcestershire : had had
interests in the same " Old Bank " in the old city : made up
their mind to come to Sydney together, and in 1839 found them-
selves owners together, by purchase, of the farm at Black Creek,
at which I had in the past year been introduced to them.

They soon found that farming was a poor game : became
dazzled by the prospects — as then viewed — of the squatter's life
and vocation ; placed the farm for sale : and determined to follow
Leslie, and more particularly Hodgson, with whom the younger
brother had already set forth to spy out the promise of the land,
the new name of which was in every one's mouth and mind. So
in the early part of this year, and during my absence at Brisbane,
they had arrived on the Downs on the very heels of John
Campbell — once of the "Page" Inn; then cattle-holder on the
Mclntyre, from which, the blacks having driven him — he had
squatted on the station of Westbrook. [Westbrook was after-
wards bought from Campbell by Hughes, who lived on it,
after the dissolution of his partnership with Isaac : was sold in
1853 by Hughes to Jock McLean, whose sudden death left it to
be dealt with by Arthur Hodgson (who became sole executor —
after the decease of Henry Beit, of Westbrook, — which
occurred soon after) who was at the time in England — 1856 — ■
who came out thereupon ; who had station and stock put up to
auction : and who thus conveyed it, I believe, to the present Sir
Patrick Jennings.]

" Hughes and Isaac " had taken up and occupied with
cattle — as Campbell had done — the next creek immediately north
of that of " Westbrook," and called it " Gowrie." Henry Denis
was creeping under the west fringe of the "Range," searching
for the heads of any watercourse further north, and, ultimately,
marked that of " Jimbour," on behalf of Richard Scougall. On
the part of a friend he marked "Myall creek" for Charles Coxen,
and " Jondaryan " for himself. [It was long before "Myall
creek " was dwelt upon. The first building was put up by me

Eruption — Irruption. 231

in 1846, for the use of Samuel Stewart and his family. He had
been about five years my hutkeeper at Cecil Plains, and, as I
found him bent upon setting up a public-house at the crossing
place of that creek, I so far tried to be of service to one who had
well attended to his work while in my employment. I believe he
died there. I understand that the large town of Dalby has since
risen around the spot. Charles Coxen occupied " Jondaryan "
at once upon his arrival ; Denis remained in charge at " Jimbour."
I shall have to tell of his fate, poor fellow, before long.]

At this time Wingate had found the broadwater, which,
subsequently, gave the name of "Tummavil" to the cattle station
formed upon it by Domville (is " Tummavil " merely a liberty
taken with my old friend's name ?) — by Domville Taylor — for the
firm of Rolland and Taylor ; to whom Wingate — enticed by the
" Severn," where he had left his cattle en route, and sick of the
travelling — surrendered his claim by discovery and "tree-
marking." St. George Gore, who, with his wife and his brother
Ralph, had been many months crawling northwards with a dray
and some sheep, established themselves at " Yandilla " — next
station below "Tummavil" (as the river runs) — upon a creek a
short distance above its junction with the Condamine. George
Gammie — whom I passed months before on the " Macdonald "
river — had taken up " Talgai," and John Thane " Ellangowan "
[purchased afterwards by my present comrade, Hughes, after
Thane's death by drowning, in his attempt to swim the Conda-
mine when flooded], miles above "Tummavil." Owners of stock
from all quarters were pressing out now towards the newly dis-
covered land in the north; among others my good friend "Cocky"
Rogers, who had charge of George Mocatta's sheep from
Bathurst, and who, with some others, who wished to " hug " the
nearest access to water carriage to Sydney, ultimately was the
first to cross to the eastern side of the main range, and sat him-
self down on the run of " Grantham ;" then Somerville, to
"Tent-Hill," of dismal report, with sheep, of Richard Jones' —
("merchant" Jones, in Sydney — " Dicky Jones" everywhere out
of it), to which he annexed the adjacent " Helidon." Then
following on in time appeared those two estimable brothers,
Frederick and Francis Bigge, Evan and Colin Mackenzie
Brothers ; the McConnell Brothers ; Balfour Brothers ; — but I
must not anticipate. The tide was setting in now. The intending
emigrants from the more settled parts of New South Wales

232 Genesis of Queensland.

were beginning to bustle into securing nooks and corners which
might escape the flood ; the inert were beginning already to
play the "cuckoo" with the nests of the energetic; the lazy
to lay themselves supine on beds which they had not laboured to
make ; the greedy and unscrupulous to poach on manors of
which they were not the licensed lords.

But I was on the way to Sydney ; had I been going to St.
Ives, I should not have met with a more varied assortment of
bipeds and quadrupeds than I did on this ride. Creeping away
on the same errand, jostling each other, as if the broad bush
were not road wide enough ; whip-cracking ; oath-snapping ;
joke-clacking; smoke-sucking — on! The dusty tribes pursued
each other to Darling Downs. To me it all seemed to be
squatting-fever at a crisis ; but I had India on the brain at that
time ; little did I think how soon I should be seized with the
fever myself.

We had shuffled over more than three hundred miles, when
on one mid-day I was surprised at seeing a man riding at full
gallop towards us ; unusual pace for a long journey. Up came
he ; pulled up suddenly, looking me hard in the face. I was at
once prepared for another arrest. The suspicion seemed to be
but too well founded. " Is your name Russell ?" in a loud tone.
"Yes, what of that?" retorted I, somewhat ill-temperedly.
Dismounting, without deigning to reply, — " Oh, he's looking for
his warrant, I suppose " — he set to work unstrapping and
overhauling a valise; opened it, drew out a paper. "Take
that." •' Why ?" "Because your brother has sent them to you
from jMaitland." I thought the man was trying to take what I
liad learnt to call " a rise " out of me. So, I offered not to
take the paper — which proved to be a dirty letter — until, in

somewhat forcible language he swore he was telling me " the

truth !" Utterly bewildered ; my brother I believed to be in his
comfortable rooms at Cambridge — St. John's. I sat me on a log
— looked at the address — by George ! it is his handwriting, and —
it is dated from Sydney ! Dear old Hughes ! How hard he
tried to catch me, as I went for six miles as hard as my wretched
nag could lay belly to the ground ! But for its being dead
beat, I should have gone on another stretch. A standstill among
the Warland Ranges was unpleasant, when within seventy miles
of one's destination ; however, I paddled on a-head of my friend,
all day and the best part of the night, until I reached Muswell-

Chafing in Search of a Brother. 233

brook, very sore in the soles of my feet, and the dwelling of the
kindly Frank Allman, who had lately heen appointed Police
Magistrate there. Being in a hurry, I had left my horse in the
range, but recovered him, saddle and all, a week after. My brother
had — as I had done — found his way to Skellatar, not a
mile away. Allman sent him a line by a mounted policeman,
and in half-an-hour he walked in ; gave a blank look at my face,
and asked : " Where is he ?" Admitting that some five hundred
miles in fourteen days, partly on a rough-jogging sore-back,
partly on the soles of my own feet — for my boots' uppers had
lost their bottoms — might have, to some extent, affected my
garb — (a cabbage-tree hat, through which 1 had been fain to let
the filthy water filter, which at times I had been compelled to
drink, because thirsty ; a stained red shirt outside, tail and all,
with a doubt whether it would hide that of my shamefaced
inexpressibles ; a black belt in which were stuck a pair of
pistols, round the tout ensemble ; one dusty bloody spur, and
two old boots, which covered but my instep and hoseless heels ;
a long unshaven face, burnt to the color of sienna) — yet, not
viewing myself with my brother's eyes, my spirits somehow sank
at his non-recognition.

"There he is !" said the amazed police magistrate ; " Well,
here then ;" bringing his fist soundly down on my shoulder.
" Well, but what has become of your eyes?" was Sydenham's
blank ejaculation.

Poor old Syd ! I had become so thin, and my eyes so
sunken, and my dandy-dressing now so dank, dirty, and
disguised.

'Twas some days, I thought, before you seemed to realise
that I was I, old Syd.

Dear old brother of mine. Would that I had never put
Sydney, New South Wales, the bush, the squatter's life — of the
realities of which I had not had the least taste in life when I had
written in such high-flying hope and sanguine certainty — before
his thoughts.

A sweeter-tempered, more patient bushman : a more cheer-
ful, unselfish, laughing comrade, never met the troubles, losses,
disappointments, and trials of the squatter's life of that day with
so unswerving daily an exercise of the mettle of such
endowments as he did, through the few harassing years of his
sojourn in the land.

234 Genesis of Queensland.

Dear old Vicar of Uckfield ! Not so absent-minded, I hope,
in the pulpit as you were on one occasion at a rubber of whist
with that sound-hearted friend of yours, Ralph Gore, as partner ;
when to the quartette horror you pitched your trump over the
left shoulder, and shot your hot h\sic]^^\^ed,n<\ what you followed
it up with, into the middle of the table upon the cards played
out, and in that act of final expect^'^ation, won!

" Generous as brave,
Affection, kindness, the sweet offices
Of love and duty were to him as needful
As his daily bread."

We had too much to say to each other to stop long at Allman's.
We adjourned to old Nowland's Inn, and discussing everything
— slept not that night. A veil was lifted from my despondent
view. The " Bush " idea was renewed in all its first brightness
and intensity ; and that of India evaporated. Stayed a few
days at Skellatar, where all was kindness, which, I fear, we
mischievously repaid by trying a new kind of air tube upon Lady
Forbes' poultry. It certainly proved to be an arm of precision :
she could not divine the cause of mortality so sudden : pot shots
out of our bedroom windows of mornings were so tempting :
cook watched and discovered the cause: gave him a sovereign to
say nothing about it, so he cooked the next victim : and the
detection at dinner one day of a wee bullet in the roasted body
of a fine young cockerel betrayed our ungrateful return for our
luxurious meals. We were very sorry, of course, but the case
— thouo-h it was treated as a joke, became a rod for our own
consciences, and no more poultry died henceforth.

Off we went to Sydney : my brother bought a "capital hack""^
from an acquaintance of the strange name of Pagan ; I think he
was — i.e., Pagan — killed afterwards by the blacks somewhere.
We also bought a flock of ewes at fourteen and sixteen shillings
a head from Arthur Hodgson. There was a severe panic in
the country, and every one seemed to be hard-up. Branches
making no return to their principals' houses in London
were obliged, in many cases, to shut up ; squatters in debt to
these branches were wound-up — but could'nt go on : wool ! wool !

* "Trump," a grey. There were two brothers Pagan, poor fellows. This
one, Cunninghame, was killed by blacks; the other, John, by ivhites, on the
Bund.'irrah.

Panic' s Prcemia — The Prized Past. 235

was expected to carry all over difficulties ; but wool sank
and did'nt : the people could not support the ^oing market
prices of anything, for where these so-called merchants had
not shut up, they could give no more credit, because houses in
England would no longer support unprofitable connections.
Any capitalist arriving at this period had an excellent oppor-
tunity of buying any stock at a low — a very low price in
comparison to what had been the rule hitherto.

On the 17th June we left Sydney together. We had left
our horses at Hughes and Isaac's, at Black Creek : they had not
yet got a purchaser for the farm. On the 22nd, arrived at
Skellatar : Lady Forbes was absent, but we found her nephew,
Milbourne Marsh (at this present time Stipendiary Magistrate,
having been Police Magistrate at Dubbo, Bathurst, and at the
Water Police Court, Sydney), and his sister — now Mrs. G. F. Wise
— locum tenentes. They kindly asked us to stay for some races
at Bengalla, promoted by its estimable owner, Captain D. C. Scott
— late Police Magistrate of Sydney — and we passed our time
pleasantly enough until the week following, when they came off.
Helenus Scott, the Glennies, the Bundocks, and many in the
surrounding district — (I must not forget John Cox, of Nagoa) — •
swelled the fashionable iJionde on the occasion. I rode a horse
of Scott's called " Hair-trigger" in a flat, and one belonging to
Cox — who vi'as sorely hurt in the same — in a hurdle race.

I have already said that to me alone can it be a pleasure to
recount the details of the then passing time — now so long past.
A pleasure, because a memory of so much which marked in our
small circle, and the cycle of occurrences therein, a happy
period to certainly most of us. I — in this attempt — am but
endeavouring to pay a debt due to old friendships and attach-
ments : and if I presume too far upon the patience of any who
knew not those persons or days, which 1 must not, for the love
of " Auld Lang Syne " put aside, I ask their indulgence and
forgiveness for the sake of the purpose for which I have set
myself this task, viz. : to preserve the reliquiae sacrx of our
primitive state from obliteration, however valueless intrinsically.
Heirlooms are notthe less revered and prized and guarded by heirs,
because they are not of gold or precious stones. The little torn
map which is appended to this pamphlet, is but a " pennorth "
of paper scratched over by pen and ink ; but the original speaks
to me of Leichhardt, his last gift at Cecil Plains, by and from

236 Genesis of Queensland.

his own hand — for to Cecil Plains he never again came : I have
nought to live on now but the past: and so I ask pardon.

A month passed as a month always did pass in and around
Muswellbrook. Arthur Hodgson, from Sydney, joined us :
accompanied by a contemporary of his own at Cambridge, to
which he had migrated from Oxford — because he was too fond
of the unlawful delasse merit, said the Vice-Chancellor, of driving
Tollit's coach in from the London road. " Dick " Glover (his
true name was William Henry) had been well-known in my time
as the best "whip " in the University: was an undergraduate at
University College : until his migration. There was, in those
days, a regular four-horse coach which ran direct from Oxford
and Cambridge which, being for the most part in request by
such undergraduates who had to migrate from one to the other,
under the ungentle pressure of rustication, or failure " to put on
tlieir smalls " (in other words to pass their " little go ") bore the
name, in well-known characters, of the " Pluck Coach."
(jlover was son of the then Archdeacon of Norfolk, many years
before, of " John Bull " fame. A good whip, a capital shot — the
loss of one eye from the flying of a cap, notwithstanding — full of
fun, and anecdote, he became a very pleasant companion on the
road. He, Hodgson, and we two, on the 21st of August made a
iinal start to the north : Allman, P.M., Matthew Henry and his
brother Charles, Marsh (who had bought Salisbury Plains from
Stuart Donaldson, of Sydney) joined us : stayed at the inn atScone,
whence we w^entto pay a visit upon that noble old Gloucestershire
clergyman, Morse, and his family ; and a very delightful family)
too ! Also, on Darby and dear old Goldfinch — who years after-
wards removed to a station some distance northwards; not as far
as Darling Downs: next day to the Page Inn : thence to the
bark-roofed and only private dwelling at Armidale, the hospitable
and entertaining Commissioner of Crown Lands — George
Macdonald. Unable to ride, through an accident, I remained
behind. At the end of a week Arthur Hodgson came back
doleful, with the news that they had lost all their horses at Tom
Perry's station, on Ben Lomond, about forty miles distant.
Hodgson was in no little degree pressed to get to the Downs ;
so after a vain search for two days — oh ! how cold it was ! — I
remained at Ben Lomond to continue the search, and lent
Hodgson one of my horses ; so he went on leaving my brother
Sydenham with me ; I rode over the greater part of New

Etonvale in Olden Tirne. 237

England without success, till, being lost in the bush, I chanced
upon a station, belonging to Day, P.M. of Maitland. By the
only effectual means — reward — I got the stockman to accompany
me, and with his help found them about twenty miles
away from Perry's station. The addition of three hundred
miles, which this wretched work had taken me over, was
not edifying. So we brothers, now alone, got away ; lost
ourselves on the Severn country for two days, during which we,
for the first time, felt what it was to be really hungry ; had a
horse bitten by a snake, but he didn't die, so we didn't eat him.
The third day, forty miles carried us to a station : no grub ready:
when it was, couldn't eat, because of starving sickness ; slept it
off, however, and then we astonished the stockman's locker.
Chewing tobacco had kept us up ; saw nothing to shoot but a
crow, and he was too knowing. After this, four nights in the
bush brought us to Hodgson's (the Drummer's no longer) head
station, upon the spot, where it is, I believe, to this day.

And a precious large assemblage of new faces found we
there. There was Murray, a brother of Lord Elibanke, Billy
Barker (afterwards on the Logan), Rose — of the Navy — son of
Sir G. Rose, and an old messmate of Hodgson's in the Mediter-
ranean, the aforesaid Glover, and Brooks, son of a clergyman,
friend to Hodgson's father, the Vicar of Rickmanswortli,
Pemberton, and a younger Hodgson, Frank, a brother, and our
two dirty selves. To this — " Arthur's round table" it was
dubbed — came other red-shirted knighthood off and on : Irving,
of the 28th Regiment once, who was at the Peel stores, dear old
Frank Forbes (long since dead in California), Fred Isaac,
and so on. Round this " round table" in all jollity, and flea-
bitten frolic (the fleas were horrible), would sit " fisting" damper,
mutton, with quart-pot tea concomitant, from twenty to
thirty of Arthur's guests in the open air. Followed up by the
social " calumet," the fumes of which impregnated the unceasing
discussions about sheep, cattle, wool, stations., stores, working
bullocks, blacks, and " Hell-hole" exploits, the knights of the red
shirt awakened the echoes in this gay fashion of contentment,
night after night, where silence had reigned from the beginning.
The last muttered word would usually be (as the mummy-like
rolls of blankets radiating from the central fire became motion-
less), Hodgson's to Forbes: "My word, Forbes, in two years'
time we'll have Brisbane butchers begging for our wethers at

238 Genesis of Queensland.

fifteen shillings a head." A pause, a struggle out of the long
sleeping shroud, and up would rise the gaunt figure of the dozing
listener : " I'll tell you what, Hodgson, I'm pre-pre-pared to
argue that point ; before we get fifteen shillings a head for our
w^ethers out of such a hole as Brisbane, I'll — I'll bet you fifty
pounds that my balloon'^ will be knocking these dirty steamers
into fits. The next time I go to Sydney and come back here
will be — I'm-m pre-pared to bet you fifty pounds will be — by
letting myself down at Clifton, instead of coming up from your
' Hell-hole' as you call it." " Bag your head, old fellow, I want
to take my corker." So Forbes would subside again — and soon
one simultaneous snore all round.

Glover, of " Corpus," Cambridge, was fuming and ever
scratching his head about what he called " that rascally Sydney !"

Of the soi-disant merchants in it, a man of the name of W e

had been one of the lately " shut-up." Glover had brought out

bills from W e's brother's house in London on this brother

here. Of course the bills were as little helpful to Glover as W e

was able to be when they were presented for payment. All that
could be got for the bills was a flock of sheep near Bathurst.
How could he get there for them ? In a word, Hodgson, of
the " Round Table," had come to the rescue : at least here was
a temporary home for a " Corpus " man,— and an Adullamite !

To cut matters short, Glover offered to go into partnership
with us, on conditions named ; to put our sheep together and
"squat!" But where? "We must go see!" Granted on
all sides ; and so W.N.W. from Etonvale we turned our horses'
heads in November. " Stop a bit, who comes here ?" as we said
good-bye. Ha ! letters from England. All right, too ! the quid-
dam necessarium forthcoming ! Aye ! come too ! And so with
light and thankful hearts again away got we. Hodgson had con-
sented to keep the sheep we had bought from him at four
shillings a-head per annum, which was a further incentive to us
to be quick in getting a run for ourselves.

November still. Passing Gowrie, Fred. Isaac joined us, i.e ,
Glover, my brother, myself, and black "Tommy;" reached the
furthest station, " Jimbour " (Scougal's), and beyond that was

* Forbes was inventing a "flying machine," of which he had drawings and
designs. Some of the aeronautic efforts of the present day are supposed to have
been based upon his original conception.

Running Down a Run. 239

terra incognita : plain " all about ;" hot under the sun, hotter
because burning on all sides ; poor Syd's face and neck
"blistered" and "peeled" badly; eyes suffered, too. Hard up
for water, man and horse changed the course to S.W., and fell in
an hour or two almost into a glorious lagoon at the edge of the
nearest timber. There had been a prevailing opinion at this time
that the river we called " Condamine " would prove to be an
eastern water ; that the Dividing Range fell wholly away some
distance north of Jimbour ; and that our Downs' water-shed would
find its way round its extreme point to the east. A week's
travelling — for we quickly rejoined the Condamine — showed us
what moonshine the opinion was. The point was, to me at least,
settled : it was a western water, and would somewhere join the
whole western system. [In course of time this was proved.]
Had it shown the least inclination easterly we should have con-
tinued to follow down. The country was flat, wretched, covered
by enormous bricklow scrub, and so we came back again un-
successful this time.

Glover and I then attempted a start from Jimbour over the
main range with the view of examining any eastern stream
running, say into Wide Bay. The heat had knocked up so
many horses, that the others could not come. Again unsuc-
cessful, could'nt get through the broken country and dense
brushes : brought our animals to a standstill, and crawled back
again in time, as well as we could.

Taken ill at Etonvale (manifestly not climatised, yet a
new chum), Sydenham, Fred Isaac, and Irving left me there to
try another point of the compass : went to Tummavil lagoon
into which the wiseacres of that " lunatic era " declared that
the Condamine emptied itself, spreading over the plains and
so becoming exhausted in flooded seasons. How laughable it all
seerned afterwards. This was the cause of fixing Yandilla where
it was, and is.

They found out the absurdity on this occasion : as every one
knows all about it now, I shall enter into no details as to their
"surprises." [The result was the inarking of "Cecil Plains,"
on which I lived so many years afterwards.] They returned to
Etonvale triumphant, — " but," said they," it won't do for sheep."

So I went into partnership with my new acquaintance — -
Gerald Brooks — in a cattle station : bought some three hundred
or four hundred head from John Campbell, of Westbrook ;

240 Genesis of Queensland.

engaged William Orton (" Bill " of the Severn — the Fiver), who
had become free, as stockman, and occupied dear old "Cecil
Plains " very soon : and began the "squatter's" career.

But the sheep ? Glover must go to Bathurst for these
sheep; he must drive them over, and across country; that will
take many months ; six, perhaps ; this will give me plenty of
time to find a run for them on arrival ; then I must go for my
horse, left on the road, knocked up at Gibson's, Byron Plains, so
long ago ; then there's Syd., he wants to go on business to
Sydney ; he's in too much of a hurry for a ride down — must go
by sea ; must get my license too for Cecil Plains. And so in
fulfilment of these calls upon my temper and time, I worked out
the year (an eventful one to me), until I woke at the very end
thereof in Petty's comfortable hostelrie at the top of Church Hill,
Sydney. 'Twas my turn now for a new thing ; so my brother on
the 25th of January, 1842, entered upon his second lesson on the
road overland. We had bought no end of provisions — through
Messrs. Gore Bros. — and iron-work through Levicks and
Younger (opposite the Bank of Australasia — the old yellow bank
then — the gorgeous one now), and all that swag must go by sea,
of course, and I was to go with it.

I had a pleasant break at this time of the unwonted work.
A note was brought to me : " Dear R., — Will you ride up to
Campbelltown with me ? In a few days we are going to have a
dinner and dance ; do come and let me introduce you to my old
folks at home. Truly yours, — JOHN Allman." There's the old
yellow note of January 27, 1842.

How glad I was to go. How enjoyable the whole ride of
some two days. Captain Allman's house was full : but all that
could make all at that merrie meeting the merrier and the
merrier until morn was done, that thought could suggest, word
express, and deed accomplish by that gay and gentle family — a
fond gathering round the old Peninsular soldier, who yet bore on
his brave front honour won and winning evidence of the slashing
blade of some bean sabreur, and who had endured with cheerful
fortitude a prisoner-of-war's inactivity within the walls of a
French fortress.

Towards the break-o'-day I retired reluctantly to my
quarters, at the only inn in the place. The sign I forget ; the
name was "John Hurley." From beneath the windows of the
sleeping apartments, three in number, in one of which was my

Ball. — Bullet. — Belle. 241

bed, the shingled roof of an outhouse sloped to within a few feet
of the ground. Unwilling to disturb the inmates at such an
hour, I crawled up this roof to the window which I felt confident
was mine. Gently pushing up the window, a terrible voice
assailed me : "Stand ! or I fire !" I fell back at the sound, for
the only object visible was a white night-cap standing up to its
top-knot ; rushed to the next, and thence fled, repulsed by a
fearful female shriek; to the third, in which I found a safe refuge
at length.

There had been no travellers at the inn when I had left it.
I was suddenly awoke, from an over sleep, by a message. — " Sir
Thomas Mitchell did not know that it was you last night : would
be very glad if you would come down and breakfast with him ! "

Sir Thomas Mitchell ! I had seen him last in our own house
in London ! I forgot to make my apologies to the lady : never,
indeed, knew who the lady was, until I met her years afterwards
in the north, and in course of conversation, the whole accident
came out. I then apologised.

CHAPTER XIV.

I shall miss thee
But yet thou shalt have freedom.

— Shakespeare. (Tempest, Act V.)

MORETON Bay was about to be thrown open ! The ban was
soon to be removed ! Moreton Bay was in everybody's mouth
— and mind, I thought. A steamer was laid on by the Hunter
River Steam Navigation Company! To start on February i8th.
Got all supplies on board (I can't recollect her name) : felt so ill
after the work that I went to see my kind medical friend,
Dr. Wallace: wouldn't let me on any account leave Sydney : so I
had to commit our supplies to the good steam-ship, and go back
to Petty's " down-in-the-mouth."

The day of March 19th was one not to be sent after those
gone — and forgotten ! On the evening of that day I went on
board the then largest of three new iron steamers just arrived
from England, for the Hunter River Steam Navigation Company
— the " Shamrock " — commanded by such a good fellow. Captain
Gilmore. As passengers were His Excellency the Governor,
Sir George Gipps; Major, now Colonel, Barney; His Excellency's
Private Secretary, Watson Parker ; Aide-de-camp, Edward
Merewether, whom I remembered as an undergraduate at
University College, Oxon, when I was myself at Christ Church.
Simpson, my hospitable friend at Eagle Farm, Moreton Bay,
who had accepted the appointment of Commissioner of Crown
Lands for the district of Moreton; JoUiffe, of the navy, with whom
I shall have again to recall the accident of this meeting, and may
be, some others who have escaped from my mind.

The Governor had in all kindness a little while before offered
me the position which Elliot had resigned ; but I, with visions of
roasting fresh rounds of beef on a hot summer's day, gratefully
and respectfully pleaded my bush engagements, and declined.
The next was the only day which the weather ahead of us allowed
to be par excellence pleasant. Of course we did not know
how to pass the time : a heavy gale or broken-down engine
might have been almost an agreable sensation ; but we were able
to get it out of days gone by. There was Merewether with his
" University " town and gown work, and " dear old " Plumtree ;
there was the "Quintain" and our club at the " Bullingdon ;"

Pacific Pastimes. 243

" Cowley marsh " and its break-neck night drivings ; there was
Harrow and Eton ; " Lord's," and the school matches on that
difficult but well-loved ground owned now by the " Mary-le-bone"
men ; days from Aislabie to Kynaston ; Ponsonby and Grimston,
"Billy" Broughton and "Billy Warner;" "old" Lillywhite,
Pilch, Cobbett, Redgate, and Wenman ; aye ! in fact, the then
present passed " passablemenf' on the poop of the " Shamrock "
(but I don't think she had a poop). Faute-de-mieux we went
further aft, and then to our delight found following in our wake
an immense " school " of porpoises — not the large dull heavy-
tempered spouter of Cleveland Point, but the agile black and
white sea-pig which poaches on all parts of our eastern board.
Up they waved ; in twenty minutes, after saluting the stern of
the "Shamrock " with a veritable snort and Irish flourish, took to
gambling about the bows. Then a sudden thought seemed to
have struck the whole happy family : they would be sociable ;
they would be " in-riders " and "out-riders" — poursiiivants —
to the new marine vehicle of royal representativeness ; they
would pass on with porpoise-speed to the new realms, the ins
and outs of which their northern brethren knew so much better
than we. Flashing in piebald race-colours astern, ahead, on
port and starboard beam, they appeared to me like boys just let
out of school : no effort in the sport, all natural ; greasily glancing
and glistening beneath a few inches of the shimmering rollers ;
sinking with them in the very luxury of laziness ; they would
neck and neck at the next heave of the surge, spring like a horse
over a five-barred gate, or a double ditch, simultaneously (just as
one may have seen others — not altogether porpoises — in the old
" Pytchley " hunting fields of Northamptonshire), with a snort of
"chaff" and a "blow," poking fun at a neighbour in the pro-
ceeding ; and so disporting themselves that our interest in the
hunt — rather the " meet " — and the fun gave us an appetite for
some participation in it.

" Could you pink one of those on the wing?" said someone
to me ; Jolliffe, I think. Down I ran for my rifle : I would try*
Fair seemed the chance : not much nimbler than a chaffinch or
sparrow from a trap, or a rabbit across a run, thought I : but
that " not much" made all the difference to a ball. There were
no breech-loaders and " cones" then. Disgusted and out of all
conceit, I gave it up. Then tried Jolliffe ; oh, no ! " 'twasn't
like any boat practice he had ever seen." "Give it up, Jolliffe?"

244 Genesis of Queensland.

" Give it up, aye. aye, sirree ; they're all a deal too jolly to be
killed, the grunters !" Ha, ha ! here we were, men proud over
snipe, woodcock, partridge, pheasant, and grouse, and couldn't
hit a big brute of a pig under our very noses with a ball.

" Why, what muffs you are," quietly said John Milbourne
Marsh (now Stipendary Magistrate in Sydney), who had been
looking on, smilingly (according to his fashion), "what muffs
you are ; give me the gun, Russell, I'll show you how to do it !"
" Two to one you don't, if you try all day." "I don't bet.''
naively retorted Marsh. We all gathered round him aft : pig-
after pig pursued : it was long before they came to timber. At
length a following sea had three complacently — each a son aise
— sweeping along until it was about to topple : then the triad
pulled themselves together to clear the space, which two only
reached. Bang ! under my ear had cut off the third. And so
Marsh taught us how to shoot a porpoise on the wing. " Try
again. Marsh," was the cry of chagrin, and the envy of dis-
appointment and vanity : "try again." "Oh, no," said Marsh,
amusedly, but with features as blank with surprise as our own ;
" oh no, I've shown you the way : that's quite enough for me."

Pinking the porpoise, he had played out his purpose ; in
some perplexity about the precision of his practice.

His Excellency the Governor happened to come on deck at
the moment of this finale. His Excellency did not often laugh,
but Sir George Gipps did.

The weather all the way was very hot : the Governor was
very sick. I was summoned by his voice one morning. " I
heard you calling to the steward for soda-water more than once,
Russell; are you suffering as I am?" "No! sir." "Good
thing soda-water for this horrid sickness ? eh ? " " Capital, sir!"
In a few moments, "Barney! do tell that steward to bring me
some soda-water!" I felt very guilty when I heard His
Excellency drinking it. In a moment the dreaded result super-
vened, and 1 felt 1 was in disgrace for the remainder of the
passage.

And so Moreton Bay was to be proclaimed — as Port Mac-
quarie had been — a free settlement !

A great and somewhat acrid controversy had — in this
prospect arisen. Was Brisbane to remain the shipping port —
in spite of the river bar — or was there any other more suitable
spot on the shores of the Bay itself? Cleveland Point was the

Official Floundering — Parker's " Pip'^ 245

only alternative : and the removal of head-quarters thereto found
many advocates. "Well," said Sir George, " I should like to see
Cleveland before proceeding to Brisbane, Captain Gilmore." So
to Cleveland we headed and anchored at low tide about a mile
out from it on the afternoon of the 24th, having entered the Bay
by the Amity Point passage.

Moreton Bay mud and I had once made acquaintance : 1
sought no renewal. His Excellency and suite were boated to
the ooze as far as the depth admitted ; there was no help for it.
Too heavy to be carried, they all had to take to the water, which
was more in conformity with their tastes, it appeared through
the Captain's glass, than the mud proved to be. Floundering and
flopping through such a hundred yards of deep nastiness was
quite enough to settle the question between Brisbane and its
rival. In about two hours the tide had risen sufficiently to spare
them much of such footing on return. There may have been
" deeper" policy in timing such a visit — at lowest ebb — with a
view to prepossessing His Excellency than my simplicity had
been able to wade into.

The Governor had seemed much pleased at the appearance
of Cleveland Point, when we approached it. I observed that he
did not look back — as Lot's wife once did — at the haven in
dispute.

On the 25th his restless Excellency was off to Limestone.
I lent Watson Parker a horse, whereon to bear him company,
but only one of my spurs; he didn't seem to be at home in the
saddle, and I wanted one myself. " A pleasant ride, sir," said I
as they left ; back came Merewether the next day : " Russell,
that animal of yours has thrown Parker at Redbank, and broken
his collar-bone!" Fancy my wretched "Nigger" breaking a
Private Secretary's bones ! I began to think more of the Nigger
— hadn't suspected so much deviltry in the brute. Poor Colonel
Barney, too, he says, is worse for wear. That brute he rode was
a rough one : no report as to the Governor's state of feelings :
but I suspected it, for on the following day, 26th, they all came
back in a boat : poor Parker in it, stretched on a hurdle, looking
very seedy : oh. Nigger ! Nigger ! (dined with them at Gorman's.)

On the 27th — being Sunday — we all went to church, which
invisible church was a room over the Gaol ! The officiating
minister was a German, whose name was Handt : a missionary
on probation : in expectancy of a grant of land, if, in twenty

246 Genesis of Queensland.

years, he could show that he had converted one aboriginal black.
(Time's up! They didn't get it.) N.B. — I couldn't understand
Handt.

On the 28th Brisbane was baptised into the family of
freedmen : commemorated at Commandant Gorman's table by an
excellent farewell feast, for the 30th carried away " Shamrock,"
Governor, and his gathering back to sea-sickness and Sydney,
That day too, if I mistake not, carried away from the pleasantest
of the one or two houses then in the wilderness of Woolloomooloo
a bright bride and a radiant bridegroom, both of whom ere
April had rolled up the scroll of its calendar, would, I fully
believed, bring new-born and unwonted brightness to the domestic
hearth of Etonvale : 'twould be a brave deed to dare the distance
to the Darling Downs : 'twas done, too : first wedded " watch '^
upon the western wastes! — first "Queensland" Queen of May in
Cameliard — thus graced the coming of Arthur Hodgson.

On Saturday, the 2nd of April, my brother Sydenham
arrived here overland from Sydney : brought with him working
bullocks which he had bought on the road at £,\i\ a head, to take
up our drays and supplies, which had preceded me by sea.
Poor old boy ! he takes to the life like a trump : beats me hollow
— laid up as I am, still in a doctor's hands. The only lodging
I could get — and that under sufferance — was in the empty gaol.
On the 15th bought more workers for our drays: three days
afterwards an enormous brown paper parcel of English letters.
Goulburn, Chancellor of the Exchequer ! 19th passed in expecta-
tion of the Sydney steamer's arrival : Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Hodgson
doubtless on board : but there was no arrival but of sailing craft :
pleasant dinner with Gorman and his family, madame, and their
son : rubber in the evening : new faces with string of drays
came in : that queer old fellow. Dr. Goodwin : eccentric, clever^
and excitable James Canning Pearce, Fife, Aikman — many I
cannot recall. They had all come to meet the great novelty — a
steamer from Sydney. Heard that my brother was a good way
on his return to the Downs, but in tribulation, because of
toothache : wished I could follow and help : made an affidavit
before Gorman, which I sent to Commissioner Macdonald,
Armidale : fretting much over my compulsory inaction. What
shall I do?

" How are you, Dr. Simpson ? Wish you joy of so pleasant
an appointment ! " "Well, thankee ; but how are you ? you look

Samaritan Simpson. 247

all wrong!" Blessed meeting: Allopathy had done me no
good : " Will you, in all kindness take me in hand, Dr. Simpson ? "
" Yes ! that I will, where are you staying?" " In gaol ! " So off
we went laughing — to gaol. I have, I think, said that Simpson
had been formerly in the 14th Light Dragoons, left the service
to study physic, a " fad " of his, travelled most of Europe, testing
Hahnemann's doctrine, in some points improved upon it:
published a treatise, clever and amusing, in England, in 1836,
called " A Practical view of Homoeopathy," being an address to
British practitioners on the general applicability and superior
efficacy of the homoeopathic method in the treatment of disease,
with cases, by Stephen Simpson, M.D., late resident practitioner
at Rome. I had read it formerly, having got it at Balli^re's, 219,
Regent-street, London.

Dr. Simpson, when at Rome, had met with a son of the
Duchess of Sutherland in a state which physicians had at home
and on the continent in vain endeavoured to ameliorate. In
acquiescence with the desire of son and mother, Simpson took
him in hand : treated him under the new system, and having
perfectly cured so helpless an invalid, accompanied him on his
return to England ; fell at once, through acknowledgment and
services of his grateful patient's family, into a good practise in
London, and into the " hottest water," which the fiery jealousy of
the faculty could prepare for heaving him into. So having given
up medicine in disgust, he went to the out of the way Antipodes
accompanied by a wife — wedded then, after twenty years^
constancy to engagement — who died on arrival in Sydney ; and
he by permission had since dwelt at Eagle Farm near the heads
of the Brisbane, with his old friend and fellow hermit, W. H.
Wiseman. He now, through the urgency of the same friends in
England, had obtained a recommendation from Lord John Russell,
then Home Secretary, for the appointment, upon the introduction
into which by the compliant Governor I had congratulated him.

" In a fortnight you shall be yourself again, Russell : good-
bye ;" and so he left me in gaol. Long before the fortnight's
end, I had become a happy convert to his " millionth part of a
grain" : read his treatise again with other eyes than I had once
done, and became, indeed, myself again. In such buoyancy of
spirits under the persuasion that I had become emancipated, that
out of gaol I ran to the old windmill at the top of the ridge
opposite : crept up an uncanvassed " fly" to have a look towards

248 Genesis of Queensland.

the Bay. Horror! I found myself going round: lower, lower,
head down, heels up ! just as my cry of astonishment and alarm
had reached the ears of the unseen miller — a happy relief. The
unseen miller had not seen me, and so had set me going with —
how thankful I felt — with but two sails bent.

The 24th of April was Sunday, and no steamer yet. Every-
one said she wouldn't be laid on again for this port : and of
course the river bar on which she had stuck on the first and,
apparently, last trip, was roundly abused, and Cleveland looked
up. In the course of the day the schooner " Edward,"
<:ommanded, I think, by Captain Chambers, we heard was coming
up the river. So I went upstairs to church and heard the rev.
missionary Handt preach a sermon upon — what d'ye think ? —
duelling !

The next day brought up the brigantine " Nancy." Letters
for my brother from his friend Shakespear, and — but none
for me. Glover, though, was at the Peel with thirteen
thousand sheep, having arrived there from Bathurst without
losses. The "Edward" was at the mouth of the river.
"Shamrock" has ceased running, because the company complains
that the settlers patronise the coasters. Heard also from
Downs-ward that Somerville, on behalf of Dicky Jones, was
poaching upon our station of Cecil Plains. Our tracks had
been followed, and this the result. I must appeal to the
Commissioner ; and here are the sheep crawling up, and I've not
found a station yet.

There was a small craft — yawl I might have called it — lying
in the river : I had been told it was to be sold cheap. Beset as
I was by the claim made upon me by brother and Glover for a
run for the sheep : not believing that there was decent country
to be found in the Condamine region, and even if there were,
that the distance from a shipping port would ever be a bar to
success, I determined to buy this oyster-boat, and had got to the
point of " How much do you want for her? let me know quickly."
Lying in gaol upon a stretcher, and laying down my plans, my
fellow-passenger, Jolliffe, burst in on me : " I say, Russell, Petrie
has heard that you are going up the coast to look for the mouth
of a river, and to take up a station on it if you can, in that rotten
looking thing on the river ; is it true ?" " Yes, quite." " Well,
now, you know that I am on the look out for Eales' sheep which
I have left in charge of Last : I want a run, too : will you let

Petrie s Partnership. 249

me join you :" Jolliffe was a sailor : therefore an acquisition.
Of course I assented on certain conditions. "I've had a long
yarn with Petrie about your going, and I will tell you what he
says : you've heard of that Bunnia-Bunnia which the blacks
here talk so much about ; Petrie is the only white man who has
looked for and found it ; he has a bit of its wood, you know ; it's
called Petrie's Pine, and mighty proud of his discovery he is.
Well, the Governor gave him orders before he left to go to the
river on which they say it grows most, and examine it thoroughly
and report. A proclamation has been issued that no settlers are
to encroach on its quarters, and no white man is to cut down
any of it. Petrie says he must go at once ; the place is on the
banks of a river, a little north of the river called the ' Morouchidor.'
Petrie says that queer-looking oyster-boat isn't fit for any sea ;
he wants you to join him; and his work, your own, mine, too,
perhaps, may be knocked of? by one trip." " What boat can we
have, though ?" " Why, there is a five-oared kind of mongrel
whale-boat, which was built by a prisoner here, in a fashion,
which he will take. You know that there will be no more
Commandants at Brisbane (some Government Resident by the
bye is to be sent here), he will take five ticket men to pull, a
mast to stick up, and a bit of a sail when the wind serves ; the
boat is new and sound, whatever she looks like, the other thing's
rotten."

After a little deliberation the matter was settled. My
object was to get to Wide Bay (often called White), in the
conviction that some good stream would be found running into
it from the interior ; and so, after the Governor's commands
had been attended to, we were to proceed farther north, and
examine the coast as far, at least, as the Bay named ; and if
practicable, get on to Port Curtis, the next place of any mark
on the charts of the day.

CHAPTER XV

Time hath a wallet at his back

Wherein he puts alms for Oblivion,

A great sized monster of ingratitudes ;

Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done. — Shakespeare. (Troilus and Cressida.)

About five years before this time I was in London. Walking
from Hyde Park down Oxford-street, I observed a man who was
carrying over his shoulder one of those show advertisements : a
large wooden square frame nailed to the end of a long pole.
On the calico with which it was covered was a bright coloured
daub which represented savages with bows and arrows, some
dead bodies of white men and women, which other savages were
cutting up on the ground, and another squad was holding on
"spits " to a large fire. It was amusing enough to stop me in
my walk : horrible enough to impress the writing beneath this
picture on my mind, " ' Stirling Castle,' wrecked on the coast of
New Holland, Botany Bay, all killed and eaten by savages : only
survivor, a woman, to be seen, 6d. admission." Here then, it
suddenly recurred to me I am on the point of visiting the very spot
of that beastly scene, " Great Sandy Cape," which I had after-
wards heard was the real stage on which this horror had been
perpetrated, and that very spot was the eastern formation of
Wide Bay. I gathered by inquiry that a man of the name of
Eraser, who had his wife with him, had commanded the " Stirling
Castle," and another named Brown had been mate. Before long,
in a very unexpected manner, I heard the details of the whole
terrible incident from an eye-witness.

Excepting by surveys of the actual line of coast from sea-
wards nothing was yet known of the country north of Moreton
Bay. While making preparation for a start upon this excursion,
that querulous, clever, mischievous acquaintance of mine in New
England — Edward Baker — came to the settlement, and to Petrie's
house — the only open house to travellers. With him was a late
arrival from England — Walter Wrottesley, third son of Lord
Wrottesley. He had been a Christ Church man at Oxford.

On the 27th I had a look at our nondescript boat. Petrie
called it a ' gig " : Jolliffe would not venture to give it a name :

Boating After a Run. 251

but being a " middie " in Her Majesty's Navy, was bound to
laugh at it. Certainly, when in the water, with her full burden^
her midships rowlock was but a measured five inches above the
water: for I tried the distance afterwards. Bnt I found that we
could step two lug-sails and carry a bumpkin stuck out for a bit
of after canvas — that was a comfort.

At four o'clock of the morning of the 4th of May, Wrottesley,
Jolliffe, Petrie and myself stowed ourselves away in the stern
sheets, somewhat cramped for room. I had so hoped that that
capital fellow, George Mocatta (whose sheep " Cocky " Rogers
had settled down at Grantham), would have come with us. He
couldn't : at least wouldn't. " Seven men, Petrie ! Well, I hope
we shall have grub enough." Five set themselves to the oars, and
we paddled with the ebb down the river, receiving hearty cheers
from some early risers who came to see us off.

" Who is that man pulling for'ard, Petrie? " " Aye ! he's just
the bonniest o' the lot ! his name's Russell." I asked no more
questions about our companions. " Didn't you say, Petrie, that
you were instructed to take certain bearings and make a rough
map of what you see at all remarkable?" "Oh! yes, I just
took care to stow away a braw sex Boys ! where's the sex-
tant. I would ra " No use looking : the sextant had been

left behind : so certain observations were knocked on the head.
Dead silence for some miles : a fair wind : up stick and straight for
the north passage. After slipping along Bribie's Island as far as
its extreme point under Caloundra Head, jutting out from the
mainland further on, we had hoped to bear up into the passage
between the two, but our five-inch free-board didn't suit on a
wind in a jerky ripple ; and wind and tide were too much for
oars. There was surf over the mud flat at the entrance : in fact
too uninviting for our appetites. To the eastward it didn't look
nice : but there was nothing for it but let go the little anchor
outside the first line of surf and lie there all the night, which was
very dark. A bumping swell didn't make a 'possum sleep
enjoyable : weather bettered towards the small hours : at day-
light up kedge to a nice S.W. breeze, for the mouth of the
" Morouchidor," i.e., " River of Swans," — black of course — the
farthest point northward yet reached from the settlement. A
pot of tea ashore was something now to think of approvingly,
when alas ! we found a forbidding bar of sand stretching
across from head to head, on which a line of breakers gave no

252 Genesis of Queensland.

room for even the suspicion of a passage : away again discon-
solate. " So much for your Bunnia Bunnia report, Petrie ! " The
complacent breeze stuck to us, however, and the next projection
we approached, was logged down " Petrie's Head." Under it
was basking: on the smooth surface a noble turtle : but he was
wide awake enough to dive, and so escape au point nomme.
In the grab I made, I lost my hat, and thus losing two good
things, lost my temper too.

We now came in sight of and took the bearings of some
remarkable mountains westward, by means of a Kater's azimuth
compass, which I had fortunately brought. Following up the
line of coast at a distance out of some three or four miles, at a
better pace than I could have hoped for, towards the evening of
the day after, came to a headland, which formed a small bay
running inland. [In a lately published chart I think it must
have been that formed on the south side by Noosa Head.] We
were beginning to jump to the conclusion that we had reached
the Hervey's Bay of navigators, but on second thoughts the
delusion vanished. My head, from having no decent covering
for it from the sun's heat, had been splitting for some hours, and
pains intolerable were creeping through my limbs, and I longed
to lie uncramped on the sands. As we entered the bay a large
mob of blacks appeared from the low brush bordering the beach ;
they were unarmed, and ran to meet us. There being too much
surf for running our boat through and ashore, we dropped the
kedge in as shoal water as we could, while the natives came
through the breakers to us. Petrie got on the back of one, who
carried him high and dry, and an ugly-looking scoundrel seeing
me helpless, manned and bore me to the beach. The others
followed somehow, but I suffered too much to care to take note ;
there were enough to see to what was needful, and to see to our
safety without me. Some biscuits were given to them, and they
were signed to be off; when night approached they appeared to
demur, upon which more intelligible methods of keeping them at
a distance until morning were yielded to, on securing two as
hostages for good behaviour in the meantime.

I suppose I was in some sort tortured by sun-stroke ; that
night was a horrible seal upon my recollections thereof. One of
the men was trying to make me a head-covering out of some
canvas; but why should my limbs torment me? Well, no
explanation of the cause could have cured me ; and thus I

Benefit of Burial. 253

miserably stared the stars out of countenance with the help of
the dawning day. My friends were alarmed, but could do
nothing. Our two blacks were in such a " funk," that they kept
me wakeful company throughout, though the whites watched in
turn by pairs.

With the sun's return came that of the natives. After much
gesticulation to the party, an old man squatted on his hams on
the hot sand, and with a queer crone began to scoop out a hole
with his hands alongside of me. I took little heed, until it had
assumed, under his vigorous and odoriferous exertions, almost the
appearance of a shallow grave. As a man under his first
'"flooring" by sea-sickness, so was I absolutely careless of what
was going on around. Petrie and others gravely looking on,
rifle in hand, re-assured me on one head, yet I could realise
nothing. I believe I must have been fast becoming unconscious.
What happened I can tell, however, now. When all was ready,
I learnt that two younger natives had lifted me into the grave,
divested of every rag on my back. Our own blacks had assured
Petrie that the old man could put me on my legs again ; he was
too anxious about me to repel their proffered service, as long as
there was no unreasonable means resorted to. Some large
leaves of a water plant had been brought and placed over my
head to protect it, and that again was raised upon the roll of my
own clothes. Well I remember the queer sensation of hot sand
being shovelled by their wooden Implements — "eelamans" — over
me, up to the very chin. After that I knew nothing till I came
to the sense of where I was. In fact I seemed to wake up from
a painful dream. I could move but my head. The leaves were
lifted from my face, and the assemblage at first puzzled
me. Arms had been packed in with the rest, and I was in a
straight jacket of hot sand, pressed in a solid heap upon my
carcase. But I felt no pain. The perspiration was still (for I
was told it had been doing so for the last quarter of an hour),
running in tiny rivulets from my head over my face into my eyes
and ears. I was in a vapour furnace ! Quickly I was unearthed,
covered with blankets or any thing that caught their eye, and
fell fast asleep. When I woke — in about six hours — I was well !
Weak, but terribly thirsty. 1 could have hugged the whole tribe
in my gratitude — but they were all gone ! I could see that the
minds of my compagnons de voyage were much relieved,
specially that kind-hearted Scot, Andrew Petrie. Some efficient

254 Genesis of Queensland.

head-gear had been manufactured for me in the meanwhile, to
commemorate which the hummock at the Point was named
" Russell's Cap."

But what had become of the blacks ? They had managed to
inform my friends that about two days' journey hence a white man
had long been living with the neighbouring tribe; they them-
selves belonged to " Eumundy's," a name known by report in
Brisbane. This ''Eumundy" had the name of being a "great
fighting man," but was well-inclined towards the whites. Petrie
had written a note — not under the impression that the runaway
could read it, but as a token that his fellow-men were at hand,
promising these natives no end of 'bacca and blankets if they
brought him to our camp. We had now been waiting two days,
and the issue might be soon expected. The old stories were
being discussed and raked up of cruelty and punishment, which,
if true, were a disgrace to our colour and our kind ; — and out of
these stories grew intelligible causes for so many having within
the records of the penal settlement escaped and disappeared,
*' chancing " their lives at the hands of the first tribe they met,
and usually losing them.

Why were any spared ? I will answer the question, by and
by, in a manner which to me, at least, was satisfactory and con-
vincing, under the circumstances which accompanied the ex-
planation which I obtained.

In the afternoon of the third day two or three blacks were
seen coming round the bay by the beach : by the glass we were
able to make out that one who carried a spear was not an
aboriginal, though savage looking enough. Petrie and Wrot-
tesley went to meet him, JoUiffe and I took charge of the camp,
in case of some demonstration, for, no doubt, there were plenty
of the tribe hidden around us. The scene was curious. The
poor fellow knew his own name — Bracefell — but could not recollect
his own language for sometime ; had been quite unable to make
out what Petrie' s note meant, but heard enough to convince him
that whites were at hand. At first (of course I now repeat
his own story, which was told at odd times during our trip)
he had felt overjoyed at the chance open for his return
to his fellow-men, but, he declared, thoughts of the settlement
filled him with terror. For awhile he could not be persuaded
that it was no longer the hell-on-earth which he had left years
before, but tried to give every assurance that he would work

Welcome of a White Waif. 255

"his very best" if they would not flog him. He gradually
became better — nerved by a general promise that he should not
be in any w^ay punished. In the past penal times the terrible
" cat " was mercilessly wielded over recovered runaways, in
ready attendance upon heavy leg-irons day and night. He soon
made himself useful in explaining to the blacks that we came
with no hostile intent ; had no wish in any way to molest them •
and, probably, saved us much trouble by so doing in all earnest-
ness. By the natives he was called "Wandi," a " great talker;"
could speak the dialects of four different tribes (and it seemed
that each tribe differed more or less in the manner of language
and expression) ; would take his part in the fights, which seemed
to be frequent with their neighbours, but had never been per-
suaded to turn " cannibal." He was in looks an old man : his
hard life had added its brand to the years of his seamed features.
When washed and clothed, in a few days, he became perfectly
naturalised ; had recovered much confidence, and appeared to be
really glad at having been rescued.

Of the coast of the mainland between Cape Moreton and
Sandy Cape little had hitherto been known. No survey of it had
under any close examination from seawards been made : none
whatever from landwards. Petrie being in the service of the
Government, and acting under Sir George Gipps' instructions,
considered himself authorised to name mountains, headlands, or
any remarkable spot not yet distinguished on a chart as he
thought fit, with the view of sending in his report, under which
such designations would be printed upon the Government maps.
The low bluff which formed the southern and most eastern point
of the sandy bay in which we were he called "Bracefell's Head "
(now Noosa Head), being most suggestive of the occurrence
which had so much pre-occupied us of late. From a higher
ground further back we could see several noteworthy eminences
which we had remarked from the boat when following the coast
line. Of these Bracefell told the native names, which were
written down on the spot. The furthest south and west in sight
was " Mandan :" between that and ourselves, beginning at the
most distant were Caroora, Coollum, Coora, Yuro-Yuro, Kirange,
and Boppol, the last named being a long way to the north-west.
The next headland to the far north was named " Brown's Cape,"
it being the spot on which, we were assured by Bracefell and the
blacks, Brown, the mate of the "Stirling Castle," had been killed

256 Genesis of Queensland.

and eaten. It proved to be the most prominent headland south
of the southern entrance (as soon was found) into the channel
between Hervey's and Wide Bays, and is now marked down
" Double Island Point." The signal fires were rising rapidly in
every direction from native camps, doubtless telling the news of
our arrival, and the surrender of Bracefell.

This man had managed to escape"^ from the chain to w^hich
he was manacled with others, not long after the arrival of
Captain Logan, as " Commandant " of the penal settlement. He
was living with " Eumundy's " tribe, in which we had now found
him, at the time of the wreck of the "Stirling Castle" on '' Great
Sandy Cape." The casting away of this ill-fated vessel was
a signal for a general gathering of all tribes within
reach. Bracefell declared that they came in from hundreds
and hundreds of miles all round, and had a grand " tourr."
" Eumundy," who was, I conclude, king of the tribe, was with
his people, at this rendezvous. The number assembled must
have been unusually great — as the occasion was in their estima-
tion. Captain Eraser, and some of the crew had been killed, for
some cause, which was not explained ; Brown, the mate, was
reserved for future deviltry. The Captain's wretched wife was
spared, and had become "domesticated." It was the possession
of this white woman, and the prospect of plunder, that had made
these "outsiders " so eager to reach the scene of horror, and
thus dare an invasion of a district on which, in fact, they knew
they were trespassers. To open the ball, there was a general
" tourr," alias " corroboree," in the good fellowship of common
rejoicing.

This "tourr," to which I afterwards walked with Bracefell at
the back of " Brown's Cape,'' had been a ring scooped out of the
soil in the fashion of a " circus " of an immense size. The earth
so collected formed a low mound, which enclosed it all round the
circumference, except at a point from which a path ran about a
hundred yards into the thick underbrush, at the end of which —
for it was a ciil de sac — had stood the round low-roofed habitation
of Mrs. Eraser.

Putting aside the torments of her bondage, Bracefell assured
us that she was compelled to drag in wood for fires, and fetch
water with as much cruelty as the "gins " themselves. He was

* Shown afterwards by the Penal " Records."

Hope New -horn. 257

(Bracefell said) never allowed to speak to nor approach her.
Her sufferings were terrible: he was always thinking of how she
could manage to get away.

Gathering from his yarn at odd times, that the first good
fellowship quickly wore away ; feuds sprung up : by waking up
to jealousy of intrusion frequent fights came on, and off, in which
some were killed and eaten. So tribe after tribe began to
disappear or return to their own " penates." Eumundy was
among the number who still lingered : he was so redoubtable a
warrior that I think his presence was tolerated with discreet
respect. Food had become scarce, and was becoming scarcer
every day, too, where so many had assembled themselves.
Under the pinch of empty stomachs the "baggages" too would
sneak away to forage for themselves : and so — it is quite
intelligible — " Wandi," the great talker, found at length oppor-
tunities for interviewing poor Mrs. Fraser. Her misery and
want would soon have killed her: but the new-born hope of
escape by this man's help brought back/some courage. The /[
occasion came. Food had come to famine prices, I concluded,
when one by one they were forced to roam about after honey, or
scratching into ant-hills for the sweet little eggs : or tearing up
grass-roots : or diving to the bottom of water-holes for the bulbs
of the water-lilies, for a meal. Game — marsupial, but as keen-
scented as our own Highland deer — had deserted the land : the
bunnia was not bearing.

Well, "where there's a will, there's always a way," the will
of the one helpless creature being nerved by her tremendous
desolation : of the other by prospect of large reward, and that
which under the despairing cry of the woman, had become
" father to his hope " — viz., the recovery of liberty by pardon, in
return for this risky service to an Englishwoman.

The way was found. She managed to escape the eye of the
famishing creatures around on every side : met Bracefell at an
appointed spot : with bent bodies waded they along a running
brook — here deep, here shallow : eyes and ears fright-quickened,
hope-sustained : grasping every dear chance, by stone or stream,
of passing over the treacherous ground without track of footfall,
or fraying of grass or shrub, they reached a rugged range and
hid themselves among the rocks.

Bracefell turned to good purpose the native gifts bestowed
by savagedom : fed his fellow fugitive on such bush diet as his

258 Genesis of Queensland.

wood-craft could compass, eluded the pursuit, and in a few days
both set foot on a pathway well known to the hopeless, desperate
runaway a few years ago.

It is hard to accept the belief that under the reaction of
supreme joy upon deliverance from such an agony of life as this
woman's must have been, it could have been possible that any
human soul should be possessed by any other power but that of
unspeakable priceless gratitude to the worker out of such a
restoration to kin and country.

Yet I must accept it ; nor I nor any of my friends did, or did
since question the truth of Bracefell's story. Whether, as step
by step she drew towards her asylum — with fears weakening,
hope strengthening, dependence vanishing, faculties freshening
— whether any doubt of her ability to honour her promises, fulfil
her engagements, deliver her own soul by successful prayer for
her outlawed benefactor's pardon and reward.

Again, whether on approach to the paralysing scene of his
unendurable helplessness, the entering within the brandish of
the shrieking scourge — within the clutch on arm and ankle of
the scalding iron — the riveting to the comrade chain — began
to " clam " the glimmer of his hope. The assurance sprung out
of his voluntary service ; partly, too, in compassion to a free,
respectable British female citizen — whether the magnitude of
such reward proportionally lessened his hope of getting it, or his
protegees ability — perhaps unwillingness — to make so grand an
effort for such an end, and such an outcast — who can tell ?

"What?" said he: "as soon as we got on that path: as
soon as she could see horse tracks, and trees cut down lying
about, she knew she was at ' Meginchen' (the natives' name for
Brisbane). I told her of all she said she would do when we got
in, and told her I should like to hear all of it over again (with
true cunning). She wouldn't speak ; when she did as we went
on, she said she would complain of me."

"I turned round and ran back for my life!" Well do I
even now recollect the look of vindictive savagedom which
accompanied this part of Bracefell's story. Speaking to him as
I did day by day, watching for contradictions — not on this matter
only — I became impressed with the persuasion that he had not
made up a story in this, nor any other instance where
I was seeking the truth. I believed him. In the episode
just told, his excitement, manner, words, were too natural to

Hopes Dead. — Fresh Departures. 259

be assumed for any concealment's sake — had there been any-
thing to conceal.

Under whatever impulse it was — he went back: seven years
afterwards, or thereabouts, we found him with this tribe again.

" By a feigned condition" — incredible as it may be to
common sense — I know that she imposed upon the credulity of
London, not far from a year afterwards.

" Were you not afraid to return after taking her away ?"
" I was at first," answered Bracefell, when he had told me the
sum of the above: "not so much though, as I was of the
settlement. After I got away there was a fight, too : but the
woman didn't belong to us, so they didn't care about her bolting,
and I've been with them ever since."

The fair weather followed us. A black crony of Bracefell's
accompanied us in the boat, when we left this to us (to me
especially) eventful shore. When we rose up in the morning, to
our surprise there was not a native to be seen — except Bracefell's
friend. They may be up to some mischief. " Planted in the
bush round us ! " " Where are my breeches ? " cried out one of
our five. They were gone. So were the blacks in possession.
What could the thief want with breeches in such warm weather ?
The bright buttons had caught their eye.

We ran up the coast that day; many miles it was steep
sand. Signal fires more numerous than ever. We reached the
headland, which we had already written down " Brown's Cape.''
Saw no natives ; and at a glance it appeared to me to be but
solitude and desolation.

From this took the bearings of Boppol and several other
points to the N.W. Bracefell pointed out the entrance into
Wide Bay from the south, between the mainland and the
southern point of Great Sandy "Island" (now named "Eraser's")
which bore N. by E., about fifteen miles distant.

Nothing whatever was at this time known of a southern
entrance into Hervey's Bay, nor of any channel on the west
side of what was called — but had never been proved to be —
"Great Sandy Island." An Admiralty chart of 1835 had
the northern entrance into " Hervey's Bay," but manifestly
it had not been known that what was laid down as its southern
shore was what we found it to be, — a mere islet's over-
lappings which hid the connexion between the bays — Wide
and Hervey.

26o Genesis of Queensland.

The following morning carried a fair wind towards a
southern inlet which Bracefell had spoken of. No blacks had
made their appearance until after we had got aw^ay ; thev
suddenly showed themselves, and then followed us by the beach,
a long way round-about. " What could they have been looking
out for?" I thought more than once. My silent inquiry was
soon answered.

Bracefell had more than once warned us of what he could
only express by a "big bubble." We could see no surf or
•'breaking water" appearance ahead: kept well outside the line
of ''curlers" which in beautiful rank and order cut us off from any
present landing, spinning their rainbow manes aloft like war-
horses. Breeze fresh from S.W. sent us along sweetly, while we
hugged the shore thus until we neared a sandy point on the
mainland. Here we came up to the wind to round it, and at
once found ourselves in Bracefell's " hot water."

A sandy spit was running out a mile or more, and we were
in the midst of heavy breakers in a moment. It looked un-
pleasant : to keep on was our only chance of getting through
the "bubble," and yet the consciousness that the blacks were only
waiting to make a meal of us, if capsized, did not add zest to the
appetites Avhich but a few minutes before we affirmed to be
ravenous, looking forward to our own dinner. We safely — we
had got our sweeps out — followed over two heavy seas, which
gave us a little breathing time, and pushed her with a few
vigourous strokes into a strong southerly current. In, over, and
out of this nasty place before we knew where we were, into
smooth water, and a long reach between the mainland and
opposite shore.

We found ourselves in a deep channel, which was easily
traced by the eye. It entered this bay by the outermost edge of
the sand-spit, and seemed to be water enough for any ship. We
could get no sounding Avith an eight-fathom line.

Upon a bright beach of white sand — above what is now
called Inskip Point — which shelved quickly into deep water,
we landed. We had shipped some salt, but wanted fresh water
and — something to eat. Jolliffe and Petrie walked by the sands
to have a look at the "Spit ;" \\Vottesley, Bracefell, and the men —
white and black — for a search, carrying the kegs; I was left to look

after the boat and blacks Behind me was an old camp; before

me the opposite shore — about a mile. A long wash up the deep

Imprudently Primed. — A Primitive Puff. 261

shelf kept me on the alert, to keep the boat off. I suddenly saw
a canoe shoot away from the point over the way full of men.
While intent upon their movements, a heave brought the boat
broadside on almost to my very feet, leaving her to turn herself
over upon her keel. I had the satisfaction of seeing all effects
not made fast — guns, my own carbine, and some bedding — quickly
subside. What could did float about in a most irritating manner.
The powder was in water-tight cases. The next wash helped her
off again, and, having kedged her out by the stern, I had the
pleasant work of picking up the bits. By this time the canoe,
paddled by two men standing, was half way across. Feeling
bound to salute, I seized the only unloaded weapon I could find,
an old Government flint musket, a veritable " Brown Bess."
Wishing to make a noise I dosed the old thing with an unreason-
able charge. (The other lire-arms were loaded, but had been
some while under water, and that was inconvenient.) Rammed
home an old fashioned ball, and, having filled a " pan " big
enough to hold a " peck" of priming, let fly in the direction of
the attacking force, while I, to my consternation, flew in the
other, and had to pick myself out of a comfortable sand yauteui/
into which Bess had blown me. The ball played ducks and drakes
over the water, and my friends sheered off to the left until I lost
sight of them behind a sandy point beyond which they were in-
tending to land. Unable to see any of my party returning, it
was, it seemed, time to take care of myself. Having given
" Bess " a second, but less unreasonable, charge, all that remained
was to sit quiet, watch, and wait. In about a quarter of an hour
the first of about a dozen blacks, walking in single file, appeared
round the point. They appeared to be unarmed, but on looking
through my glass I detected their spears, which they were
dragging on the sand by the end jammed in between two toes.
When I rose and took " Bess '" in my hand they suddenly — and
simultaneously — picked up the spears, and, having stuck them
upright into the sand, advanced, holding up the right hand. Of
course I had to follow suit, and went to meet them in the
same confidence. I didn't like it though. When within
a dozen yards I "squatted" again, and, having some
cigars, fortunately, lit one and smoked, made signs to the
leader to do the same, which he and the rest at once did;
and having stuck a weed into his mouth, told him by signs to
suck, which he did with such enera-y that, with one choking

262 Genesis of Queensland.

gasp, cigar, smoke, and — never mind — was propelled nearly into
my own face.

However, he seemed to like it, for he tried a second time,
and took to it like a baby. " No one coming back yet ? What
on earth shall I do to keep them distrait?" Happy thought !
When I was leaving England the streets of London resounded
with the popular song, fathered upon " Jack Sheppard," of
hio-hwav repute, by a newly-published novel which bore his name.
Dinned into one's ears at every corner and at every turning, it
was not surprising that the jerky air to which the words had been
set should have taken hold of one's retentive faculty. So, at the
top of my voice, which I hoped might reach the ears of some of
my returningcompanions,! gave them, in all solemnity — unfeigned
assuredly — the first part of " In a box of the stone jug I was
l^orn — fake away!'' and, on arriving at that impressive chorus,
'• Nix, my dolly, pals!" it struck me that it might be suitable to
imitate their corroboree-action, and set to work to slap my own
thighs with undesirable vigour. At once they did the same.
The "flat" sound almost made me deaf to further theatricals on
the part of some fifty more vagabonds who had been at hand all
the while in the scrub behind me. But for my "funk" I could
have roared at the sight of some sixty naked humanities so
gravely and earnestly occupied on their own — counters. We
kept it up, both sides, I have little doubt, thinking " What shall
be done next?" when to my gladdened sight hove the rest of
my associates, whom — it had suddenly struck me — these rascals
may have knocked on the head, and I only remained to be
disposed of ! v

Bracefell and my visitors evidently had been old cronies.
They seemed overjoyed at seeing him again, and all suspicion
on both sides disappeared. However, after the breeches and
buttons incident we did not allow them to assist in re-collecting
and stowhig the moist variety of our boat's contents : their
anxiety to do so betrayed their wish to exercise their fingers in
picking and stealing. Their cupidity was intensely roused, but
our vigilance was equal to the occasion. Their numbers soon
increased, and good fellowship was the order of the day. As a
token of brotherhood the greatest compliment we could pay
them, we were aware, was an exchange of names : such
ceremonial accordingly, we politely requested them to participate
in ; which they showed themselves so ready to do, that it became

Self -surrender. 263

difficult for us few to gratify so many claimants' desires, with the
inevitable result of scarifying our own noses in token of the
prominency of our esteem.

By our now cheery and loquacious go-between, Bracefell,
an understanding was arrived at, and after many loud addresses
and gesticulations, more intelligible to me than their words,
each of us was in course of time confronted by a vis-d-vis, who
looked as anxious as many a young debutant in his first ball-
room quadrille. The irrespressible amusement on the faces of
Wrottesley and Jolliffe, no doubt appeared upon mine also :
Petrie's features were immovable : I suppose he was used to it
and lost the fun of the thing. See what it was to be " three
new chums," able to enjoy novelty ! My vis-d-vis, who engaged
my attention more wholly than many a young lady partner had
on other occasions, was a slight, pleasant looking, well shaped
young man, who as soon as I confronted him closely, with
due decorum, put the forefinger of his right hand to his nose,
and in appreciation of the solemnity of the scene, rubbed it. I
had been '' coached " by Bracefell, and as religiously rubbed
mine, in deference to his example. He then transferred from
his own to my respected organ — the sense of which did not
quite acquiesce in the contract — a like digital honour, which I
vigorously reciprocated : suddenly he ceased burnishing and
cried, " Boralee :" gladly I held hard with " Russell."

I was delighted to see that he could make nothing of my
name. His nearest approach was a very corrupt reading. One
repetition of such frictional discipline, self-inflicted, one more
jubilant shout of the sign of adoption, and we severally had
(nominally) transmigrated. I then found that I was of the
exalted caste of "Terwine," next in grade being the " Barang "
and " Poonta ;" the ladies of such castes being " Terwine-gan,"
" Baranga," " Poonta-ran." When all was over, the whole mob
— as if by a signal — simultaneously burst out into fits of loud
laughter !

As an earnest of their friendship, I presume, they then
offered us a present of blackfellows' bones, from which they had
but recently scraped the last delectable morsel. They thought,
poor wretches, that it was the most delicate attention they could
pay to our new relations ; and their feelings were astonished and
hurt by our declining to accept the memorial, and more so when
we asked for the bones of the white men killed and eaten some

264 Genesis of Queensland.

years agone. Those they did not think worth preserving as
relics of their " Auld Lang Syne," but they declared they were
to be found on the beach on the other side of the land opposite.
We had no time for such a search.

My dear double — whose name I had usurped — plainly
expected some memorial of this auspicious meeting. I had to
make a heavy deduction from my daily allowance of smoking, in
order to supply his quickly acquired taste for the pipe : to run
the risk of being cold o' nights, by requesting him to accept one
of my two blankets : but his eye was too wistfully fixed upon
my inseparable companion, the knife which I had brought all the
way from England. I had to do violence to my affection by
sticking to it, though he stuck to me to the last moment of my
getting into the boat to make a fresh start up the bay.

Bracefell had asked one of them to come, under the
impression that he would know all about the nooks and corners
of these new shores, and eyots, which would probably be
numerous as they were in Moreton Bay. More wished to accom-
pany us, and would take no denial less than that expressed by a
sharp rap with the back of a tomahawk on the knuckles, which
clung to the gunwale even in deep water.

With a fair wind we slipped up the passage some miles, and
then landed on the eastern shore with western aspect. By this
time, finding myself near the scene upon which I hoped to
commence operations in the way of river and run-hunting, Petrie
was good enough to give me all the help in his power ; accom-
panied me to the high land, the backbone of the island, and on
reaching it, to the top of the tallest tree that we were able to
climb, to get, if possible, a coup d'oeil of land and water. On all
sides we had been told that there was "ban tabil " (saltwater)
and big river, pointed out towards the north. From the tree
was to be seen what we thought was the mouth of a river ;
intervening were no end of mangrove islets, among which
strangers might be a good deal bothered. So far buoyed up
returned to the boat by sunset ; rejoined our camp, turned in
with the sleep of the weary, but under some feeling of distrust,
kept watch in pairs throughout the night, on what was now
" Our Island."

As I go on gathering up the crumbs, with which a few
chance notes written at the time feed my recollections, I now
and then stop dead short to ask myself " is not this a silly task

A Glory of Gloom. 265

you are setting yourself?" Every inch of that island, bay,
channel, and river, which were forty-five years ago new and
strange, have been by this time examined, traversed, and
ransacked, and are but common-place, uninteresting matters
now-a-days. And yet there are many who take an interest, not
easily explained perhaps, in comparing the former with the
present condition of places and people, and things. I take up,
for instance, the Sydney Morning Herald, and in it I continualh'
meet letters, lectures, publications, and pamphlets which set
forth the early time of Sydney in a variety of shapes ; and 1
suppose many besides myself read them with pleasure, made up
of curiosity and pride of country. And so, self-taught, I pluck
up confidence to go on, having dared to begin.

Must I tell how, ere Aurora had left her saffron couch, wv
pulled out some few fathoms from the shore, which distance we
had barely reached before the dark veil of a mist, so dense that,
except the water immediately about the sides of the boat, nothing
out of it could be distinguished. Yes, I must do so, for such a
marvellous screen may be a novelty, even in Wide Bay. No
description by writing nor wordiness could have conveyed to my
senses what that imprisoning shroud itself did. There was an
unnatural loneliness only disturbed by the blob up of a turtle
head, and the quick splash of fright at its nearness to us, or the
flurry splash of the silvery king-fish in pursuit of small fry :
until the very isolation and helplessness of the position became
exaggerated by the sleepy fancy that we were cut off from the
rest of the world, and knew not where we were. A sudden
chorus of — (I suppose I must use the conventional term) —
" coo-ee's" was a positive relief: and the sound came on our
ears as if close by in the impenetrable cloud. First, shouts of
surprise, then of anger, then of general excitement.

I think it well here to say that every man and woman in
each tribe to the northward have their distinguishing call, or
" cooee." By this means the whereabouts of one another in the
bush, individually can be heralded from a distance hardly
credible to white men. I never heard a call of which the sound
approached or resembled the popular " cooee." Some, indeed,
were intonations of many syllables.

Of course we came to anchor. Invisible as we were to the
mischievous eyes around, there was little need of watchfulness ;
the lonesomeness induced silence ; the two combined, sleep ;

266 Genesis of Queensland.

and so we, pilgrims of the Pacific, in piebald pairs — black and
white — one by one parceled ourselves on our 'possum pallets.
In three hours I was the first to awake and find ourselves still
sealed up in the same envelope. Some enormous turtle amused
me by the sudden protrusion of their heads, now and then,
positively within reach, but to "bag" one was my repeated but
\ain attempt. Turtle steaks simmering in the calipee were
agreeable visions, but barmecidal feasts in this instance. I had
not then learnt, as I did afterwards, how the turtle was to be
taken captive in the water — and when I had learnt found one
must get up very early in the morning "to catch a turtle
napping."

Mid-day gave " Beegie " — the sun — power to force his way
in ghostly guise a wee bit into our aqueous armour. The surface
of the unwrinkled water now seemed to have become one with
the embracing cloud — absorbing and absorbed — inseparable.
The union had the semblance of substance and solidity. The
upper sucking of the intense breezeless heat, for a moment had
exposed a wonderful sight : a field, as it were, of frozen snow,
perfectly level, far away, and all round us, pressed down com-
pact, immovable upon its kindred wastes : — yet but for a few
moments. Before one's eye could realise one thousandth part of
the glory of such an illusion, it had vanished, resolved into the
elements.

Hardly had we looked upon the world of nature, to which
we felt like beings restored, ere a sharp whisper from the north-
west gave a hint that our canvas would no longer help us. The
smooth water, under the same influence, rippled away the -steam
with which it had sweated so many hours, and the breath which
had proclaimed the coming passed on to make way for the
presence of the wind in strength. "Out sweeps, my lads!"
'twas hard work for the rest of the day : wind and tide strong in
our teeth : but which way are we to go? We now found that the
black who had accompanied Bracefell from Brown's Cape knew
less about the mouth of the river than we did, after our perch in
the tree yesterday.

From our elevation we had then seen how numerous and
pell-mell were the low mangrove islands through which we had
to thread our way ere we could emerge upon the open water into
which our supposed stream flowed. On this level how much
greater the perplexity, may be taken for granted. Whatever our

Amazed. — Mud ! Ma ngroves ! Mosquitoes ! 267

black companions may have known of the country back from the
coast, they evidently knew nothing about the water which
skirted it. Taking out our Admiralty chart, already referred to,
it became no matter of surprise, while viewing the chain of islets
close a head overlapping each other in such puzzling persistency
that from a ship some miles away in the ofifing, they should have
had the appearance of an unbroken line of coast.

In and out, as rabbits in a warren — north, south, east, west —
not for twenty minutes together could we keep one course but
that of the ''burrows'-bent." Pulling, straining, panting, shouting,
the reliefs — for all hands took a turn at the oars except the lazy
natives — would take the places of the relieved, who, of course,
brought discomfort to an end by smoking. Now and then a
passage would trend more complacently in the way of our wish ;
wheedle us almost imperceptibly out of it ; encourage us with a
more compliant promise, and deliver us into the arms of so many
similar channels, that picking and choosing had no more guidance
than the story-jackass had between the two trusses of hay. If
ever my old shooting companion and friend (what a good shot he
was, too, specially snipe !) — if ever, I say, my old cheery friend
Sheridan, for so many later years resident in or near Mary-
borough — take up this, I can fancy his "wondering that we should
have been so bothered." Well, I suppose, if I were ever to see
the same place again I should wonder too. But then we didn't
know the way, and now we do ! A labyrinth of inlets, which just
created islets ; a maze of mud and mangroves ; horrid, through
the ebb, w-ith that misery of miniature marling-spikes — " cob-
bler's " pegs — which scalded our shoeless soles as the hot chest-
nuts did pussy's paws; myrialy fecund, feculent hotbeds of the
vicious, bloodthirsty, jeering mosquitoes, which in their countless
hosts "pinged out" their poeans over our prostrate, poorly apparel-
led persons : tack all this diablerie on to our doubt, disappoint-
ment, and day's doubling and ever-redoubled delusions, do I make
out no fair case in apology for my petulant recalling of the rebuffs,
which almost paralyse patience and perseverance? Sand and mud,
mud and sand, was the sole diversion, beyond a solitary attempt to
"bag"the most perfectlybeautiful specimen of the gigantic crane
that I should think had ever stalked on stilts. I was successful in
"bagging" neither the splendid bird nor my own ill-humour.

Camp we must somewhere ! and camp we did, on one of
these mud magazines of abominations. I must not, out of

Genesis of Queensland.

deference to eyes polite, emblematise the expressions which too
generally anathematised the " cobbler's pegs " which pitilessly
punctured our defenceless feet as we paddled to and fro, bearing
each our burden : I must not question the comfort of a roomy
seat and more elbow room by rehearsing the accompaniment to
each " squat " upon the slimy ooze, nor shall the harmony of our
party's " singing out " be now and again recited in appendix to
the insect chorus which assailed our ears all night long, forbidding
sleep by a perpetual encore.

Yet even in this forbidding grove there was a thing of
beauty, which albeit insect, took no part in the common discord,
nor the defiance of our distress. On every twig and leaf
breathed out in regular pulsations the tiny flames of myriads of
fire-flies. At times becoming languid, or lazy, I would shake a
branch, and the glory of each living gem would at once quicken
into activity and rivalry with its innumerable associates, to my
delight, and the dissipation of nocturnal ennui. Truly it was a
spectacle of loveliness, of which such a charnel seemed to me a
strangely unsuitable abode. The bright blue sparks which
respired at intervals of five or six seconds, whether flying or
settled, could throw a soft light around to the distance of a foot
certainly : perhaps their enjoyment as well as their function that
of brightening dark and dismal dens. Confident in the inattrac-
tiveness of our encampment, we kept no watch that night.
Attempting to walk a few yards in the dark to look for more
fire-flies, I tripped over what I thought was a stone. What ! a
stone in such a bed of mud and slime ! how strange ! When the
dawn revealed the full beastliness on which we had made our
bunks, I looked for my stumbling block, and found a large
piece of pumice, the fellows of which were lying about in
all directions. Whence had it come ? These islets had evidently
been shaped by deposits, rounded up by many small maelstroms,
the conflict of opposing currents. The mud must have come
from inland, but not so the pumice : ergo ! there must be some
largish river disgorging its soupy floods into this wide basin, in
which the adverse tides have churned the pats of the river's soil.
But where, oh ! where is this river ?

Again, having awaited the full rise of tide, we tried to fit a
key to the lock we had failed to pick yesterday. And this key,
it was suggested, might be found by the guidance of the
strongest current of the ebb. A queer slap in the face for this

Unraveling. 269

happy thought, soon came by the consciousness that we had o-ot
into ebb currents, which ran round and round with such speed
as to lunge us into greater perplexity than ever. As a colt for
the first time subjected to such breaking-in discipline — in like
manner were we bewildered. Thinking to let the boat take its
own way with the rapid stream, and patiently wait upon its will
and word, we went along merrily between mud pies, which rose
to greet us wnth their unsavoury sight, as if the bright tide had
sickened at them ; we heeded nothing in our listless bitterness,
until with one general outburst of indignation and disgust we
recognised the wayside station at w^hich we had got out and
rested the night before.

" By Penelope ! it's a fact !" ejaculated Wrottesley. " Why
Penelope ?" asked I testily. " Well, you know, Russell," replied
he, with his smile of unruffled composure, "didn't she spin a
web and undo it again?" My school-room grin at the reference
took the wrinkle out of my ill humour, and as it was catching,
we got into a laugh, dropped the kedge, ate, drank, and had a
smoke.

" But, I say, Wrottesley, she was waiting to find out some-
thing ; so are we ; where's our Ulysses, eh ?" keeping up the
badinage of school-days. " Ulysses ! why, haven't you heard,"
in triumph, at "capping" my question.

I had not heard. Bracefell had been some days in loud and
somewhat excited " talkee'' with his Brown's Cape friend : and
from him had assured Petrie that there must be another white
man with a tribe whose run was mostly on a large water —
pointing to the north-west. Anxious as I was to break through
this labyrinth, I had taken no part nor interest in aught else.
So I was little prepared to be pulled up by the probability that
there was a typical Ulysses whose rescue we might manage to
compass — dwelling upon the banks of the very river, perhaps,
the mouth of which we so much wished to find. What a help he
would be to me, I thought in silence, in exploring this river,
discovering such parts of it as may be fit for our sheep. Jolliffe,
who had at once caught hold of the tail of the same advantage,
joined with me, and our eagerness to get on was redoubled. " I
shall call this horrible, delusive island 'Humbug Isle,'" was
Wrottesley's last word and look as we pulled away for another
attempt. "I, 'Gammon Inch,'" said I, a suggestion which my
good Scotch friend jotted down with the ghost of a smile.

CHAPTER XVI

I must eat my dinner.
This island's mine by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st first
Thou strok'dst me and mad'st much of me.

— Shakespeare. (Tempest.)

I HAVE already referred to the idea which prevailed on Darling
Downs that the Dividing Range fell wholly away to the north-
ward, and that a system of waters would probably be found
which delivered itself into the Pacific, after rounding the point
of effacement : a fancy, perhaps, that to a water-shed to the far
north-east, corresponding to that into Lake Alexandria to the
south-west, would be found allotted the drainage of that portion
of Australia which lies east, say, of the hundred and fortieth
meridian. I have not, however, said how much of what I could
sight from our perch on Eraser's Island had shaken the con-
clusion I had come to after my trip down the Condamine in
November last year. From our nest we had been able to trace a
line of high rugged country, which I foolishly set down as the
course of the true Dividing Range. This line continued — to
my mistaken eyes — unbroken from the far distance in the
south to a point inland nearly abreast of — or more correctly,
to the north of our position, in the far-away west. From
this I could make out no rising ground farther north. Thence all
looked like a low flat stretch of land. Was it possible yet
that the Downs may contribute its waters, after all, to the
eastern system ? My conviction, since my trip last year,
was that they were all forming a western and south-western
drainage. And yet, here was the Dividing Range exhausted —
run to earth I

I need not detail the obstacles to our progress any farther.
How after another island visit, another look-out, and an alarming
introduction to a quick sand, we launched into water clear of
mud stretching away to the northward, while the margin of
Fraser's Island kept retreating to the eastward ; that of the
mainland more westerly, beyond an islet — the largest we had
yet seen, where the spreading waters formed, we supposed,
Hervey's Bay, to which we had completed the approach by a

The Range out of Range. 271

channel never before used — and as far as such charts as we had
told us — never before known.*

I have since learnt the cause of my error ; very much from
the teaching I acquired upon two overland jogs to this place,
and its neighbourhood by different routes from Darling Downs,
shortly after my return from this cruise, before our illustrious
schoolmaster, Leichhardt, had come upon the stage to train our
eyes to the true reading of this passage of our Queen's scroll.

Suffer me to explain it. From the point of its connexion
with the Bunnia-Bunnia ranges — (of which the function is to
separate the drainage to the southward into Moreton Bay, from
that to the northward into Wide and Hervey's Bay) — the
dividing barrier, which had hitherto from its extreme southern
growth followed a line parallel on the whole to that of the sea
coast, makes a pronounced deflection to the westward, to which
it adheres while still creeping towards the north for a great
distance. Then, recovering itself, it draws gradually round
towards the sea, with which it joins hands somewhere about
Cairns or Cape Grafton. From its eastern extremity — on which
stands that noteworthy finger-post, Mount Caroora (name got
from Bracefell) — to Craig's Range, so much remarked from
Jimbour Station, on Darling Downs, where it may be said thr
junction is accomplished a little to the south of due west from
Mount Caroora, this Bunnia-Bunnia offshoot forces the parent
stem out of position, and, consequently, it had betaken itself far
out of the range of any view inland that we had been able to
command from Fraser's Island. Indeed, the basin of countr\-
which the rim of the Bunnia-Bunnia heights, and their subse-
quent career in company with the dividing range encloses,
contains a system of drainage /^r se.

* Some years afterwards — in 1847 — mention was made of this passage from
Wide into Hervey's Bay by Captain Stanley, then in command of H.M.S. " Rattle-
snake." In Macgillivray's narrative of her cruise, between 1846 and 1850, appears
as follows, (vol. I., ch. 2.): — " A few days after our arrival at Port Curtis — 8th of
November, 1847 — the Asp, as our decked boat had been named, joined us, having
made an important addition to the surveys of this portion of the coast. On his
passage up from Brisbane, Lieutenant Dayman, under the unexpected circumstance
of finding that the " Rattlesnake" had sailed, instead of coasting along the eastern
side of Great Sandy Island — thus involving the necessity of rounding Breaksea
Spit — determined upon trying the passage between the island and the mainland
into Hervey's Bay ; this he fortunately succeeded in accomplishing, although
under difficulties which his sketch (since published by the Admiralty) will lessen to
those who may require to use the same previously little known channel.

272 Genesis of Queensland.

hs, the first fruit of our tree of examination — I wish I had
the bearings then taken, now, that I might fix the exact where-
abouts of that serviceable observatory — we had little difficulty in
heading direct for the supposed mouth of a river — the hoped for
river! By sunset we had crossed the debouchure of a stream,
which at first sight promised well. The northern point which
formed it was most convenient for our night, and there we
camped. It was a punishing locality ; the sharp stones sorelv
trying, particularly as a bed of rest. We could detect no signs
of blacks in the neighbourhood ; but found a species of pine
unknown to Petrie, who, in his vocations as foreman of works
for the Government had become intimate with its varieties.
Cut out a sample of the timber and our several names in the
trunk, and got eagerly to the boat, after breakfast, to visit yet
unvisited land and water.

Jolliffe's long black beard had been an object of mirth, and I
must add admiration, all the jaunt through, especially to the blacks.

This new river-head which we were leaving, and perhaps
should never see again, tufted with that thick glossy patch of
dark pine brushy by some process associated itself with it ; and
down on the rough outline, the base of a future report, went
under our official friend's hand ; " Jolliffe's Beard," for its
baptismal name. I wonder whether it is called so still ? May be
it bears some later comer's.

Taking advantage of the flood-tide we pulled with a will. I
find that I yet have notes of what the river seemed to me to be
in bank, breadth, depth, and so on ; but, well known as the
"Mary River'' — subsequently so named after Lady Mary Fitzroy
— is by this time, it would be ridiculous and impertinent to
reproduce them. Where a memorandum, now and then ferreted
out, gives me the cue to any coincident circumstances or
surroundings, I have just to shut my eyes and go back to the
place and time : quite surprised am I to find, under the experi-
ment, how phantasms of scenes and their accompaniments by
word, voice, or action can be resuscitated and re-installed in their
period and place. Assuredly the characters of a fresh career are
more indelibly cut into the excited and inquisitive senses of
the '! new chum " than the like ever afterwards — though more
significant — can be branded into the toughened hide of indiffer-
ence, in which, as an " old hand," he has learnt to enwrap
himself.

On Tenter Hooks. 273

So I pass over my river, on and up it ; now and then
appalling the numberless ducks — of many varieties — black
swans, gorgeous parrots, and cockatoos — by a shot too tempting
to deny myself: looking out in vain as yet for any promise by
forest land or grassy plain of the Goshen pasturage of which I
was in quest. No blacks either, and our "Ulysses" had been
almost forgotten. At some fresh bend we got a glimpse now and
then of Boppol, the mountain we had first seen from near Brace-
fell's Head. If I recollect aright, it had a form thickly brushed,
bald near the summit, which was flat topped, but of this I am not
sure. By Bracefell's friend it was signified that the river ran
round its northern foot. I believe that it does so. The possi-
bility that this might be the Condamine, and that the Darling
Downs doctrine might prove to be correct, kept us all wound
up to the last turn : the strain of expectation didn't agree with
other appetites. I think our consumption was almost wholly that
effected by smoke : in smoke, alas ! my lofty castles curled a\va\'
in the air not many months afterwards !

We lay all that night in our boat moored in the middle of
the stream. Young Walliipy, one of our Brisbane blacks, was
restless and ill at ease through fear all night. Our plan in
furtherance of the object in view, viz., finding out what this
w'atercourse really was, and getting from some high point a
satisfactory view of what the surrounding country held out to
the squatter, was discussed, and as far as possible resolved on.
The programme consisted of pulling on as far as the boat could
float, leaving a party with it, and walking westward a day or
two, until we had satisfied ourselves ; but first landing at, and
getting to the top of Boppol. We went to sleep upon this
decision : it awoke and rose with us in the morning. We went
ashore : withdrew out of ear-shot of our crew of five prisoners —
well known to Petrie in the past — at the latter's request. He
had been thinking about our proposal of last night, of leaving
these men with the boat, while we explored on foot, and said
there was one great obstacle to our doing so ; the men were not
to be trusted. Something that had dropped from Bracefell had
put him on his guard : Walliipy had consented to guide them
back to Brisbane by land, if they found a chance of getting away
unobserved: by him they had been assured that we should be all
killed if we went further, and his fright had communicated itself
to his white mates, with the exception of "old Bill," who refused

2 74 Genesis of Queensland.

to join them. It became apparent at once that if we were to
leave them with the boat, they would "up stick and away" as
soon as we were out of sight. In fact, all four were in fear of
their own lives, and but for " old Bill" would have decamped
with Walliipy before we had entered the river.

I had taken a penchant to this "old Bill," and had had
many a yarn with him on the way. He had but one eye, but the
loss of the other had not dimmed the brightness and light-
heartedness, which, as a rule, gild the features of an old sailor —
emphatically the "tar" of our navy. Strange ! I often thought,
that one of this stamp should ever have been sent a convict to
Aloreton Bay. I never found out what brought him there. The
most curious thing, to me, was that I found that " old Bill " had
been in H.M.S. " Canopus," 74, at the same time as Arthur
Hodgson, then a middle.

Had these men found the means of carrying out their
project, what account could they have given of us, so as to clear
themselves ? In dulled mood we broke our fast. What had
come to our ears had made us very watchful, and to some extent
uncomfortable. After consorting so many days, and in such
close quarters, for my own part, I felt loth to suspect such
apparently willing and ready men, cheerful as they were in
doing their duty, and accommodating themselves without a word
or wry face to every call upon their strength and vigilance, of
such villainous treachery. Yet, how could it be doubted ? I
looked upon " old Bill " with admiration, as we continued' up
the stream until late in the afternoon, having passed through a
shallow rapid over a rocky bed. We went ashore on a flat on
our left — i.e., the right bank of the river, and having taken
everything out of the boat, took the plug out so as to cleanse by
sinking her in the fresh water. We were wishing also to find
natives, who could give some information about the course of
the river ; hitherto we had seen none ; Boppol was about three
miles distant. Up Boppol, at any rate, we should go next day,
if all were well.

On either side of our camping place was thick scrub : a
little way back a high sandy bank. When the boat had been
thoroughly washed out, and got afloat again, Bracefell and his
Brown's Cape friend went away to look for traces of the blacks.
He returned once without success, and with his companion set
out a second time, but soon came back in haste in a state of no

Savages Surprised. 21 k

little excitement and alarm. He said he had discovered their
camp but had not expected to find so many tribes collected
together : the largest number he had seen at one time since the
*' wreck " : he had had a good look at them, without being
himself seen : but assured Petrie that if two white men would go
with him to within a short distance of the camp, he would enter
it and have a " palaver." Jolliffe and I offered ourselves, but he
preferred having two of the crew. This looked strange :
"'couldn't he depend on us, as much as two of the men, who he
knew were contemplating desertion ? " It turned out afterwards
that he had a fear of their being at once speared, and that he
valued our lives more than theirs.

Having stripped and "manned" his spear as he had been
wont to do, he declared himself ready. He had met, he said
some of these tribes years ago in the Bunnia, but could not
answer for their recollecting him.

They were about a mile away. Two of the men and
Wallupy — who didn't like it at all — started off with Bracefell.

Not having been an eye witness of what followed, I can
only now relate what I collected afterwards from Bracefell, his
three comrades, and another who now came in strange fashion
upon the scene.

When within a few hundred yards of the camp, astonished
to find that the people in it were wholly unconscious of the
arrival of a party of whites so near at hand, Bracefell told the
two men — who were armed — -to stop. He crossed a creek in
front, between themselves and the assemblage, with Wallupy ;
strode into the midst of them before they had become aware of
his presence, and hailed them with a loud shout of his own
name, "Wandi!" The whole mob rushed, as if stricken, to
their spears, which were stuck into the ground, and 'piled much
in t he soldierly fashion on a rest during march. So absolutely
surprised that the betrayal of the fact became evident under the
suddenness and simultaneousness of the commotion. Hundreds
rushed out of the scrub, yelling like fiends. We could hear the
yells, and were made anxious for the safety of our avant-couriers.
At the further end of the camp were two men skinning a
kangaroo, just killed. One of them, as soon as Wandi's voice
had reached his ears, rose — looked at him in a frantic manner,
and at once catching sight of the white men in the rear, rushed
past and at full speed towards them. For a while — a few

276 Gejiesis of Queensland.

minutes — he could utter no sound, but by gesticulation and
sign, inquired from the poor fellows, who were terribly alarmed,
how they had come there, by land or by water ? They pointed
to the river. Wandi, notwithstanding what had been imparted
to him by the Cape Brown friend — which, he admitted, he had
not believed — became as astonished and excited as any one ot
the yelling mountebanks, for in this man he recognised one
whom he had once known, and had thought dead for many a
year past. They then confronted each other ; Wandi in his rapid
utterances made known to him that their white brothers were
close by ; how they had found him, how he had found them ;
repeated all the assurances which we had made of good treatment
and kindly welcome at " Meginchen,'" which had put off her old
garment dyed in blood and girdled by the chain ; how the great
Sydney Commandant had opened the doors of the prison-house^
and the mouth of the river to the only food for men — liberty ;
had burnt the "cats," and buried the "darbies" — arms, legs,
body, eyes, and every muscle and hbre meaningly giving
emphasis to his earnestness and truthfulness ; and then as a
wind-up, in low whisper : " Come with me ; come back to us ; 1
have come that I may go back ; let us go together ; now's your
chance. Derhamboi, take it !"

Having afterwards seen "speechifying" in a 'fl'ibe, and
observed the influence with which the tone, manner, and
expressive acting rather than words of wonderful volubility,
compelled the wasted souls of such children of the woods into
the tide of the speaker's own intent — I can understand such a
scene, though no spectator. The idiom and metaphor, of which
I got a smattering afterwards, was, in my estimation at least, far
above the grade which one would have suspected that the fancy
<jr intelligence of such hideous scandals to humanity could aspire
to. Doubtless, some were more gifted, mentally endowed, than
many around ; and indixiduals of such calibre became in the tribe
" kings of men." Acted addresses to their fellows were rarely,
1 had reason to believe, undertaken bv more than one or two of
the village, just as in English rural hamlets, there is always a
keen-witted, smart-lipped, pot-house politician, or tub orator, to
lead his beery " quid-nuncs " by the nose. It was reasonable to
entertain the probability that this Wandi (who had won his
laurels as " the great talker "), and Derhamjjoi, also, adding the
suuerior instincts of the white to the cunninij and tactics learnt

Impeackinent. — Indignation. 277

from the black, were accustomed " to ride the high horse " in the
midst of their confreres, as soon as their sealed acceptance into
the family had cancelled the usual sentence : " Let them be
knocked on the head !"

"Derhamboi" (which being construed means a "kangaroo
rat" — emblem of activity and speed) had, we know from the
records, run away from the penal settlement fourteen years before
— in Logan's day. Its name, even now, had roused dread in his
suspicious mind : he made his reply : charged Wandi with
having guided the white constables to his place of refuge,
in which he had so long lived a life he loved : worked himself
into a frenzy of passion at his having done this traitor's trick :
that he himself (Wandi) might have his reward: that his back
might be spared the scourge for hunting him (Derhamboi) down ;
and giving him over to the tormentor and death ; for having
broken faith with his fellow-runaway and outlaw, and sneaked
into the good graces of his kind by pledging himself to hand him
over to the manacles, leg-irons and chain : and now with lying
lips snaring him with the "tow-row" (net for kangaroo) of his
tongue and steal him away from his father and his home.

Tantamount to this must have been — as described — this
encounter between the pair of white savages. In part it was
verified by my own eyes. Derhamboi — who had thought we
were in great force, sent out for the sole object of seizing and
carrying him off, dead or alive, had not dared refuse to follow the
slow retreat of Wandi and his companions towards our camp-
Consequently at the very acme of this unmerited invective and
reproach, of this screaming demonstration, and stinging slander,
they had both come well in sigh'c. What superlatively irritating
figure of speech had been used, I cannot tell, but in a moment
Wandi made a step back from his accuser, and quickly poised his
spear. Derhamboi, with the lightness of a leopard, did the same,
and then there rose to the skies a war challenge the resonant
syllables of which left us no need of interpretation in view of the
attitude of these antagonists, attitude and bearing which, at least
to my own stimulated curiosity and '' new chummy " interest,
suggested a term of nobler epithet than that of picturesque.

The sense of a shameful wrong — a foul blow — irremediable
death-dealing injury from the traitor hands of his fellow-in-bonds
of old seemed to have fuelled a thousandfold the glare of ferocity
on the one hand ; and there stood a demon in the heat of his

278 Genesis of Queensland.

hate ; vet magnificent in gestures to which the heat of that hate
restlessly bent the proportions of uncurbed nature. I could even
sympathise with such passion because I could trace its natural
origin and motive.

Indignation, fiery repudiation, sense of injustice and dis-
appointment at such thrusting away of good service : an
unextinguished and unquenchable spark of human sympathy
with one of kin-creation and suffering, — which a little of that
warmth of kindness which he had never slept near, and con-
siderateness which, but among his present well-wishers he had
never dreamed about, may have rekindled; just as the fanning
motion of the hand had quickened the fire-fly's latent glow,
and there stood a man also moulded and modelled by the plastic
force of the natural heart, which wrote itself in the erect crest,
the quiet, manly, yet watchful and ready " pose " of good
opposed to evil.

Derhamboi's chest was tattoed " moolgarrah '' fashion, i.e.,
horizontal scars parallel to each other : both showed scars of old
wounds in their backs and legs. The former had had a spear
through his thigh and the smash of a boomerang on the right
knee. In the tension of their muscular frames these brands
caught the eye, as we gathered nearer to put a stop to any active
hostility. Derhamboi was the tallest — though not a tall man —
and the best set-up. Wandi slim and as hard as his own spear
but much older than his opponent, who was about thirty years of
age.

All this occured on the top of the sand bank, at the back of
our camp, which I have mentioned. Seeing that we should
interfere with their arrangements, Derhamboi turned, lowered
his weapon, came to the edge of the bank and took a scowling
long look at us one by one. He almost seemed to have it in
mind to dispute our advance. Petrie, in a tone fitted to the
occasion, told him to come down : one searching stare at the
speaker, one moment's hesitation, and down he rushed with an
impetuosity which marked all his proceedings, " my name Jem
Davis, of Glasgow," were the only words he could utter intelligible
to us: went off at score into a rapid "black" speech, from which,
by means of Wandi, we could only make out that he had run
away from the settlement, because the men on his chain were
cutting each others' throats, or knocking a mate's head in with
the pick used on the roads, so that the)' might be sent to Sydne}

Poison Panic. 270

to be "what they called hung." Fearing for his own life at tlu-
hands of his comrades, he had managed to esca])c and take his
chance of mercy among the blacks. Derhamboi was wearino-
the necklaces and armlets usual among the natives, and as he
frantically went on in the scream of his excitement, seeino- that
we were unable to understand a word he said, and could express
himself in no other language : too impatient to submit to the
dilatory relief of interpretation : flew off again into a satanic
passion, wrenched off his bijouterie and set to tearing and
clawing up the ground with his fingers, sinking his voice from
the shrillest howl to a very Bedlamite whisper, accompanied b\'
a wicked leer well suited to the change. A long time afterwards
he told me that he had never been able to recollect what had
passed ! I think he was mad.

Bracefell, who was standing by, said something which at
once produced silence and a quieter condition for a few minutes.
He told us that Davis — I shall so call him now — had wished to
make us know that we should be in great danger if we attempted
(for Bracefell had told him our intention) to go up the mountain
before us, Boppol, from which I have said we were only three
miles, and thus separate from the rest of our party.

And now we heard a story quite new to us, and terrible ;
but which accounted for the great gathering of tribes and fighting
men, although the Bunnia season was not yet at hand.

Quite recently, it appeared, some new sheep stations had
been formed and occupied on some of the higher affluents of the
river Brisbane, and not far from the southern dip of the Bunnia
high lands. The news of these arrivals had been passed on
thence from village to village, and had rapidly flown to the
north. It had roused curiosity as well as cupidity far beyond
Wide Bay, and mob after mob had joined together contemplating
outrage and spoil. Some shepherds at one of these localities,
terrified at the appearance of so large a gathering, had
recourse to a horrible method of ridding themselves of such
dreaded visitors, who made demands for flour, tobacco, and
sugar (of which their southern countrymen had spoken with such
gusto), which they had not dared refuse. So when called upon
one day for such supplies they had mixed poison with the flour.
It must have been arsenic, which was kept on many stations for
dressing sheep for scab. Davis at this point took up the talking
and went through all the scene of the deaths of some fifty or

28o Genesis of Queensland.

sixty blacks : a strangely truthful delineation of the first pangs
experienced : the ferocious wrath upon the discovery of the trap
into which they had fallen : the increasing agOnies : the crawling
to water: the insatiable burning thirst: then — death. It was al!
acted over again with a reality which thrilled us.
Then came the cry for vengeance !

Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in Council. — Shakespeare.

That a general " tourr," or " corroboree " is the preliminary
need to all important ventures decided upon by the Australia:!
natives — in the north at least — is, I presume, well known. Also,
that on such occasions there is a grand pantomimic rehearsal by
the fighting men of such tribes as may be assembled for the set
purpose of the programme of what the contemplated deeds of
darkness and horror were about to accomplish triumphantly.
The love of theatrical display is evinced by the frequent repe-
tition of the scenes of a kangaroo or any other hunt — before they
throw off — for the amusement and unbounded admiration of
their women and the old stop-in-the-camp men. How supreme
the furore out of the lust of anticipation by which their ruthless
natures drink of the cup of bloodthirstiness, revenge, and greed,
until driven well nigh insensate by the recital of wrath, in the
mimicked deeds of violence, cruelty, outrage, and death, can
without much effort be imagined. I could not if I would, and I
would not if I could, make an attempt to depict the maniacal
frenzy with which savagedom prides itself in prefacing and
prefiguring scenes of each act of a tragedy delineated with such
premature minuteness.

Mrs. Campbell Praed, authoress of " Australian Life : Black
and White," describes very truthfully and imoressively a per-
formance such as this, and the effect upon Jier nervous system
was that of faintness and sickness, so that she " turned and fled
towards the river " from the terror-laden orgies.

She there also tells of the occasion as one that heralded
to th(! " myalls '' around one of the most horrible episodes
of the earlier northern bush life. I was in the district
in which that family met with their fearful fate at the time

Triumphs of Treachery. 2%\

of visitation. As the authoress speaks of the victims as
bearing the nom-de-plume of " Grant," I dare not desecrate
her motive by recalling the real name. The whole outline of the
narrative coincides with what I remember : the treacherv, the
surprise ; but the recording angel only can draw up the
indictment against that night which harboured in safety such
incarnate fiends, shrouding that dance of death. I had known
that family well at Gowrie — then Hughes and Isaac's station at
Darling Downs — and, from my knowledge of them, could in all
earnestness, sorrow and sympathise with the one member that
escaped the slaughter.

To Mrs. Campbell Praed's book I recommend any who wish
to read a sad story of fact, told with skill to which I do not
pretend.

I have wandered away from the spot on which I left Wandi
and Derhamboi. Before w-e had left Brisbane a report had
reached it that two white men — shepherds — had been murdered
by blacks on a station formed not far from the Bunnia Ranges.
These two men, it now was explained, had been the sacrifice to
the cry of vengeance. Strange, I thought, that we should be first
apprised of the white men's crime by a white man from the midst
of their murderers ! Davis then acted over the whole scene :
the " shaky " creeping through the grass ; the cat-like watching ;
the drawing nearer and nearer to the unconscious wretch ; the
spring ; the rush ; the fierce blow : the death, and the triumph.
Then, he told us, that as we had seen him do, in like manner
would these with whom he dwelt do unto us, if we did not keep
our eyes " in fear of their coming " all the night long. He said,
too, that his " father " Pamby-Pamby had a white man's watch
wrapped in grass, part of the spolia opima after the murder
mentioned : it had been passed on from tribe to tribe that " their
hearts might make a wonder at it," and had come back to his
father, who was the rightful owner. His respected father could
make nothing of it : " he took it for a stone ;" at first he thought
it was alive, but it had died very soon (inclining his head sideways
upon the palm of his hand). Davis himself knew it could be
opened, but had forgotten how to do it. We promised to give
his father a tomahawk if he would bring it to us : Davis promised
he should. Then asked to be allowed to return to the blacks'
camp for the night: explained— by a figure of speech which will
not excuse repetition — that he was afraid for our safety ; that he

j82 Genesis of Queensland.

would keep them in fear of our strength and our arms ; and watch
in our behalf against any attempt to attack. He went back.
Wc were guilty, I thought, of a very foolish thing that night.

The stream here was not forty yards wide, overhung by
steep, scrubby banks, from which a thousand blacks could have
speared us without our ever being able to fire a shot from a boat.
Yet into the wretched boat — rather. 1 thought, to allay our
crew's fears than any other prudential reason — it was thought
advisable that we should sleep in mid-channel, and there we lay
drowsily smoking, barely whispering, nodding, and watching in
a fashion, till gladdened by the peep o' day.

I have said that Davis appeared to be about thirty years of
age. This was substantially correct ; but how could it be shown?
If he had been out, as he proved to be, with this tribe sixteen
years, he could have been but in his fourteenth year when he was
on the chain from which he had escaped ! True enough, for it
turned out that he was then thirteen years of age ! Well :
Moreton Bay was a penal settlement to which secondary — i.e.,
colonial sentences — only had delivered felons already transported
for crimes. True again ! James Davis, of Glasgow, had been
handed over by a sentence passed upon him in Surrey, England,
to the reforming refuge of a convict ship, in the sweet and
edifying company of some hundreds of malefactors of all shades,
in the midst of whom, I hope, he was the youngest, having
reached the precocious manhood of eleven years from his birth !
Thus he had appeared in Sydney.

At sunrise two musket shots— a signal already explained to
Davis — -were fired. The poisoning of the blacks, the avowed
enmity and the natural wish for revenge on whites whoever the\'
were, the probable evasion of our crew in their alarm, the large
concourse of savages, had in the meantime made us change our
minds about our purpose. We dared not separate our party in
any case ; we could not leave the boat unprotected : ergo, we
must give up for the present any further exploring. The only
alternative left was to go back again. Poor Jolliffe ! hitherto so
sanguine of success in finding a run for John Eales' sheep,
looked disconcerted. I zvas so.

In a short while Dcrhamboi made his appearance. We
could fcfl that a large mob of his people were following him, and
too near us. We could see but one — a scowling, square-set
ruffian, whose very stare and lowering eyebrows told the tale of

A Second-hand Father.

283

what he would be and what he would do if \\v had the cliance.
And this hlthy brute was Derhamboi's revered parent, Pamb\ -
Pamby ! He lifted no hand in token of peace and good-fellowship
— not he ! His deep-set, restless eyes watched every motion,
took in every object before him in the boat. He seemed for a
moment to hesitate, upon which his affectionate son made a loud,
angry remark — not respectful, certainly — which had the efTect of
bringing him further forward. We held up a tomahawk, the
sight of which settled the question. He at once followed Davis
into the water, drew out of the grass-woven bag over his left
shoulder something carefully packed, handed it in silence to
Davis, while Davis received the tomahawk and gave it to Pamby-
Pamby, who, without a word, backed away to the bank, retreated
in the same fashion up it — 'too suspicious to turn — and then
suddenly disappeared. With eager hands the parcel was torn
open, and there, sure enough, was an old-fashioned silver
"turnip." On a paper fitted inside to the back was the name of
the murdered owner — Murray — Thomas Murray, I think. I am
not sure as to the Christian name. On our return it became the
key to the wretched affair.

Davies must have adorned himself afresh after leaving us
last night. He had on bracelets and armlets as before, but as
soon as Pamby-Pamby had retired, and he was admitted into our
midst, he tore them all off again and threw them into the water-
I caught and kept them as curiosities. He appeared to be still
in a state of doubt and perplexity, but the step he had taken
—from whatever real cause after his abuse of Bracefell — could
not now be retraced. The truth was, I think, from what passed
in the course of our return, that notwithstanding real regret at
leaving his wild life, notwithstanding his dread of what might
await him at the settlement, he had been so cowed by authority
that even after his long spell of freedom and unrestraint, thi-
habit of obedience to authority's tone and the fear of our arms had
overcome every other consideration. His subsequent admission
that he had taken us all for constables, was the key, I suspect-
to his surrender. And yet, if he spoke the truth at all, such an
explanation did not quite tally with what he soon conveyed to us.
He declared that he had been all the previous night engaged in
speechifying: seeing that they were bent on mischief, he had
described our numbers, strength and fire-arms in a manner so
exaggerated as to cool the ardour of the " hghting men ": but

2S4 Genesis of Queensland.

went on to assure us that had we stayed another day, it would
not have been possible for him to dissuade them from attacking
us. All this may have been got up in order to curry favour with
his new messmates, and I still believe that fear alone brought
him in.

The last farewell — the last parting with his friends of the
tribe of " Ginginbarah " had been an exhibition of untutored
translation of wild emotions — sentiment, affection (call it by
what name you may) to gesture, gesticulation, intonation,
cadences in the lingering cries that he should come to them
again, too sudden and expressive to need assurance that there
was nothing assumed or spurious in the overwhelming burst of
regret at losing Derhamboi. No sooner had our oars dropped
into the water on Pamby-Pamby's withdrawal, than every tree
by the water's side, in the bush beyond, below, this side and that
side : every hiding place unnoticed but for what it now revealed,
became alive with natives ; some peering round the stout trunks,
afraid to expose their bodies to a possible " tolloolpil " (shot) ;
others springing unexpectedly into view from some protecting
limb aloft, while the dark scrub shot out hundreds of heads,
young and old, piccaninnies and gins, whose habitual caution
and jealousy of being seen by strange people had been put aside
on an occasion of such grief and wonder, — thrust before our
astonished eyes an extemporised tableau vivant, of which white
man, methought, shall never see the like of again. The swarming
bees on such a business so startled myself— new chum as I was
— that the impulse of my hands was towards my rifle, the next
to taking notice of the position. The god of day, still in his
birth, which had warmed long years gone by, these wood-bound
children of the sun into welcome rather than war-whoop when
the wretched waif, the white wanderer wailing through the
wilderness and woe-worn, wending his reckless way towards
some chance refuge from his doom, delivered himself to their
mercies, now so lit up their bodies ''cooche greased" and lithe,
so glanced aslant upon their glistening limbs, never resting, ever
flittinor, that I doubted as to any certain service, had I been
called upon to canvas my eyesight for proof of the precision of my
weapon. Up rose a plaintive cry which repeating itself again
and again, fainted off into the distance in which the more fearful
were abiding. Then up rose upon the bank to the right the
burly brutish Pamby-Pamby ; up rose, too, from among us his

Savagedom's Psychics. 28 <>

adopted son and heir, with lineaments hard-set, purposely
unobservant, but Hstening. The deep voice of the savage
howled out his lament, in tones which spoke, to me, more than
words ; in the spreading embrace of his arms, which added more
significance to its yearnings and its claspings, than ever the like
emblem of recalling love between parent and progeny on the
stage of our civilised world had ever, in my eyes, done
before : the shrill reproach so fitted to the fable of enforced
flight : off again in other modulations to their hunts, their haunts,
the memory too, of many a brave fight in company together: the
wide range of Ginginbarah on the fish grounds of their
" Monoboola " — (Mary River) — and then last, but not least, the
love for his son once removed from Beegie's"^ bosom, now to be
double dead to him among the " makromme " (dead men).
Ouah ! Ouah ! Derhamboi. Come back!

Ere this appeal came to an end, the scattered choir took up
the refrain, and then, shaking in every limb, Davis began with a
low slow whine. What he said, I know not: what he conveyed,
all could read. " I came to you when young and driven like a
dog from the doors of the ' makromme :' I told you of all my
misery and my torture : I said, ' do to me as you think best, I
am yours,' and I dropped as one dead again, for I was hungry,
thirsty, weak and worn with looking behind for the hated ones
pursuing : you came together, but all was to me as a fog : vour
voices were crying kill ! kill ! but there was little life to stamp
out : you, Pamby-Pamby, knew me again : could I tell who I
had been ? You knew me, father : you took me, you fed me,
you gave me tabil (water) to drink, you gave me flesh to eat.
Was I not your son ? Beegie had washed me back to you, and
I was glad. But the great Commandant (pointing to the south)
has sent for me, I must go: I will come back; when the moon
has come back to you three times I shall be here."

Of this character was Davis' apologetic hymn. Of course,
we looked on in silence, and nev/ interest in so singularly
acted out a play of life in the bush wilds, of which the plot had
been written, and the parts borne by the dramatis persomc
themselves. The performance died away, bit by bit — through
exhaustion, in part, I thought — but as we paddled down stream
a large concourse at first for some miles, but " tailing off " by

* The sun.

286 Genesis of Queensland.

dozens, followed and wailed us on towards the water on our way
home.

When in camp that evening, about seventeen miles down
the river, Davis got the men to shave him. With what odd
garments we had he was then dressed, and, as the effect always
is upon blacks, so his appearance in stature was reduced to
somewhat below the average white man's. Take any aboriginal
of large proportions, more muscular build, and taller than his
fellows, in the midst of whom he looks a giant, dress him, and
lie at once dwindles into a very ordinary being.

His back had been cut up terribly, either by the stone knives
used in fighting, or as honourable tattoo scars. What we
had already heard from Bracefell as to the habits, manners, and
customs which prevail among these tribes was fully confirmed by
Davis' statements, as he recovered the power of speaking
English. His expressions were ingenious and noteworthy as he
progressed in the use of his proper language; for when in difficulty
he would literally render the blacks' metaphorical phrases —
repulsive and indecent often enough — into the required words
which li^e could understand. Perhaps I may say he thought in
the manner of the savage, and uttered his thoughts in our
familiar tongue through the channel of savage idiom. Looking
forward to more " run-hunting," I plucked up heart at finding
that he was well " up" about the country farther north, that he
knew of three large rivers which I must set down as running
into or not far from Hervey's Bay ; but what to me was the
greatest satisfaction was his mention of a very large river which
ran into the sea far beyond these waters, which the people on the
banks declared came from the back of the Bunnia Mountains !
Well, the land at the back of them is Darling Downs ! Here
was the pet idea gathering substance. Alas ! a few more
months I knocked it on the head myself, when I struck that of
ihe Boyne.

The habit of listening to our boat's now no longer listless
lingo quickly revived the torpid faculty of Davis's "Glasgow-
grained gab." His forcible periods were quite on a par with the
impetuosity of his actions, his rapid talk with the agility of his
limbs. It was certainly surprising that he should so absolutely
have lost, on our first acquaintance, the power of expressing
himself by one word of English, but not so much so as that he,
the first night of our camping together, would amuse himself by

Vigils in Variety. 287

singing Scotch songs without licsitation. When questioned ht-
did not appear to know their meaning ; it had been one cherished
habit o' nights of his " Auld lang syne !" Like a playful cat, he
would seize a brush vine which he carried with a twist which
formed a knot at one end and bent into a half-hitch at the other
round his right wrist, rush to the nearest tree, however big, throw
it round the trunk, catch the other with his left hand, and run u]>
the smooth bark, resting when he wished on the knot
shipped between his great and the next toe, sit upon its lowest limb,
have a good look round, and then — come down again, almost
by the run ! In ascending, his body at times stuck out from th>-
stem almost horizontally ; with a quick " yield " he would pitch
the vine a foot or so higher at a time, and so travel up witli
admirable speed. In the Bunnia-Bunnia season he must have
been an expert. By this means the blacks go up to the greatest
heights of that magnificent Araucaria to reach the triennial —
to them delicious — cone : so delicious that the fiercest fights
arise between the assembled tribes in the preliminary apportion-
ment to each before the season begins. Once that matter is
agreed upon no poaching ever occurs. This is a point ol
aboriginal honour.

Then would he, by the glimmering light of fire, enact, as
was much his wont, some episode within his ken, illustrating the
extreme cunning which, as a grade of merit, was the root of thi-
native warrior's pre-eminence among his compeers ; or tht-
laudable skill in treachery, proved by some out-Heroding act bv
which a powerful rival in " camp " affections, or a suspected
private enemy within the family who had made his mark too
decidedly to be openly defied, had been " put away " when
unconscious of ill-will by some death-dealing trick in the dark, or
when had at vantage : stories which, without doubt, had been
told over and over again, and held up as badges for which their
growing boys should compete ; but which the cunning prodigal
by my side would ever wind up with the ready and expedient
iudgment, " them's all b — — y rogues !" One of these mimicked
descriptions has not been effaced. One of the tribe was very
jealous of another (in his relations with one of the belles — who,
in one way or other always were at the root of the mischief-
making) for whose prowess with spear or nulla-nulla he had a
wholesome respect. Night by night, day by day, he watched for
the coward's chance, and after long waiting got it. His unwary

288 Genesis of Queensland.

victim was standing up to his waist in Monoboola observing
the fish ; he had thrust his spear into the bank by the waterside,
and in eagerness to sight the silver-sided game, waded out
of reach of it. The patient prowler, prone in the brush
ambush some fifty yards higher up, purred panther-like over
the promise of prey ; no eye to see, no arm to help, no ear
to hear. Bellying as the snake into the quick current, he hugged
its gritty bed till borne to the very foot-hold of the heedless
heels : seized the ankles and dragged them from under his
astonished kinsman until he fell headlong into the rushing
stream : lifted them high enough to keep his head low enough :
and as the twitchings weakened, and the Monoboola had
done one-half the work, dragged the helpless body to the edge
and completed the other by transfixing it with the owner's
dreaded weapon.

He would then launch out, perhaps with ill-disguised feeling
of a better sort, into telling how, before he had come back to this
boat that morning, so many had hung about his neck ; clung to
his limbs, his legs, his arms, to stay him, maybe, yet from going
farther away from them. How they kissed and moaned in low
tones, for fear we should hear : and he would tell it, too, in a
fashion which made him, in my eyes at least, a sharer in the grief
which had dogged his footsteps all the way back. Thinking this,
I did not think the less of him. And then the beating and the
cutting of their own heads — self-sacrificing testimony to the pain
of their own souls, when all allurements, all enticements, all
assurances, had proved unavailing to bend him from his own to
their purpose : every pledge for the future, repeated as earnest
of their love for him : every method of snapping his stubborn will
exhausted — seemed, beyond controversy, to test no spurious
metal when it rang out beneath the blow witli which his
rejection had stricken them. This propitiatory penance, too,
while we were onlookers, wondering how souls of such softness
had found a hiding place in human images hitherto daubed by
the slander of the white man's word, that these lived but by the
base appetite and gratification of every bestial sense ! I say
seemed, for I yet lived to learn that the irrepressible humours of
these children of the groves would swelter and seethe over the
furnace of impulse, caprice, and passion, and then steam away
traceless as the dew beneath their feet, with all else that is
\'A.\iO\xx and vanity under the sun.

Wind-bound.

289

When Davis pledged himself to be in their midst a'j-ain in
three moons, in so pathetic a pose, he knew that he should not
redeem the pledge. The tryst appointed he should never see.
Yet, at the moment, I believe still that he had meant it. I think,
indeed, they believed it themselves — until sundown ; when that
day and its doings would sleep into torpor, and so lie till some
fresh quake would set the pot boiling again.

Our run down the river was unmarked by any occurrence
at all noticeable. We visited our former camps, curious to see
whether they had been visited by the natives : carried a fine
breeze to " Russell's Cap," to which spot it complacently drove,
and delivered us to the ungracious dealing of a strong blow from
the south-east. Two days satiated our admiration of the
marvellous keen-sightedness and skill of some of Eumundy's
tribe in spearing and plucking the glittering king-fish out of the
water, which broke in heavy surf upon some rocks south of our
camping place. Bracefell had exhausted every method of
gratifying the curiosity and cupidity of his old friends, and the
hours began to drag heavily. So, to see what our boat could do,
the wind having somewhat gone down, we got away — only to
get back again. The crank craft was not able to put her nose
beyond the point ; indeed she narrowly escaped swamping by
the first sea that met her on a wind. Shooting, fishing, and
picking up shells for my sisters in England, helped me througli
the exercise of patience, better than I had expected, until 1
became aware that there was no help for it but patience.
Cockles, at low tide, groped out of the sand as each wave
receded, were capital eating when boiled : and cockle hunting
made merriment. The mutilated nautilus shell was lying about
on the sea-shore, but I sought in vain for a perfect one.
Bracefell had assured me that I never should find such a treasure •
the natives keep too keen a watch for it for any to escape ; the
white lips of the valve being so precious for the wearing string
round the neck, whether in the manner of ornament, or as a
charm, I could not discover. Disjointed vertebra; of whales'
back-bone was common. One served me for a good pillow one
night. So we got to the end of May reduced to a biscuit-
cockles, and such fish as the blacks would bring. Reminded
thus of fishing days on this coast, the scene on an occasion some
time afterwards, before my eyes at Amity Point, I never
again saw enacted but at that one place. It was so curious,

290 Genesis of Queensland.

that the evidence of my own senses alone permits me to
mention it. Cause and effect, however, were, in the matter,
quite intelligible.

We know that porpoises drive the smaller fry into shallows
in which they are able more easily to prey upon them. The
affrighted shoals leap when so pursued out of the water with loud
splashings ; these their hidden pursuers follow, as stock-keepers
round up and keep their cattle together.

At Amity Point, if the watchful natives can detect one of
the shoals so common in the offing there, a few of the men
would at once walk into the water and beat it with their
spears. The wary porpoises would be seen presently coming
in from sea-wards, fully alive and accustomed to the summons,
driving in the shoal towards the shelving beach. Scores
of the tribe would be ready with their scoop-nets to rush in
and capture all they could, but not before the men who
had summoned their ministering servants had speared some
good sized fish, which was held out and taken off the end
of the weapon by the porpoise nearest at hand. There was
one old fellow, said to be very old ; as tame — with those
blacks — as a pussy cat ! had a large patch of barnacles or
some fungus on his head, and a name which they believed he
knew and answered to.

In the narrative of the voyage of H.M.S. "Rattlesnake,"
Captain Owen Stanley, during the year 1846-50, compiled by
John Macgillivray, naturalist to the expedition, may be found
allusion to his hunting porpoise in 1847. He says, "among the
marine animals of Moreton Bay, are two cetacea of great
interest. The first of these is the Australian Dugong (Halicore
Australis) which is the object of a regular fishery (on a small
scale, however) on account of its valuable oil. It frequents the
Brisbane river, and the mud flats of the harbour, and is
harpooned by the natives, who know it under the name of Yungun.
The other is an undescribed porpoise, a specimen of which, how-
ever, I did not procure, as the natives believed the most direful
consequences would ensue from the destruction of one ; and I con-
sidered the advantages resulting to science from the addition of a
new species of Phocoena would not have justified me in outraging
their strongly expressed superstitious feelings on the subject.
We observed that whenever a drove of these porpoises came
close in shore, a party of natives followed them along the beach,

Back Again. 291

and when a shoal of fish, endeavouring to avoid their natural
enemies, approached within reach, the blacks rushed out into the
water with loud cries, and keeping their bag-nets close together,
so as to form a semi-circle, scooped out as many iish as came
within reach,"*

There was much jealousy between our two unexpected
guests on the way down to Brisbane. At night, they kept far
apart, and spoke in the day but in a quarrelsome fashion. Once,
indeed, they were on the point of having a set-to with their
spears ; our intervention hardly stayed their hands ; and, if
anything, made matters worse for the rest of the cruise. One
would sit in the bows, the other in the stern-sheets : both looked
moody, and were plainly considering matters in doubt and
disquietude as the distance day by day between Brisbane and
ourselves diminished.

Ere June had well got into running, we found ourselves back
at our starting point.

A faded memorandum on a leaf, now yellow, gives me the
cue to recollecting the sum of my conclusions for the evening of
my return to the settlement, where we landed in front of Petrie's
hospitable quarters : " Our intended tour in the Bunnia country
has not been carried out, but I have gained the satisfaction
of having been one of a party who have rescued two poor
white devils from oblitefation among their fellows : hav^e
seen what looks like a first-rate harbour, and a river in which
I yet hope, if I can but find fit country on or near it,
good-bye to drays, bullocks, Cunningham's Gaps, and Hell's
Holes — hurrah ! for immediate water-carriage for wool and
— 'wittals!' Jolliffe is off at once for his sixteen thousand
sheep, and makes a start for Boppol, as soon as I have got
that poacher, Dicky Jones, off our Condamine Station — (Oh !
where is that Commissioner Macdonald ?) — Away; I'll go
after him !" [Written in the old Brisbane Gaol, June 2nd,
1842.]

"Were there many men on the settlement records whose
names had been marked off as absconders?" I believe there
were : preferring to take their chances at the hands of the blacks,
many disappeared, and were thus effaced. There was no such
thought, as that under which a gang took to the bush from Sydney

* Volume I., chapter 2.

292 Genesis of Queensland.

in the early times, "that they might get overland to China!''
Oh, no ! living or dying by the hands of the natives was the onh
alternative.

Nominal enumeration of such cases would answer no end.
Suffice it to say that they did go. The reign of terror was that
of Logan, by common consent ; but let us see to the times after
his death. In Sydney, we find that on July I2th, 1831, is noted
the '■ execution of McManus, who was convicted the previous
Thursday (!) for attempting to murder a fellow-prisoner with a
hoe, at Moreton Bay, with the avowed object of being sent to
Sydney, there to forfeit his own life." The following is the one
exceptional instance of reaching their fellow-countrymen : —
'■^Arrived, i6th August, iSji, three desperate runaways from
Moreton Bay, who were received in gaol last week. They had
reached the vicinity of Port Macqiiariey subsisting upon any-
thing they could meet with, principally roots. Those terrors to
bushrangers, the native blacks, brought them into the settlement,
and delivered them over to Capt. Smith, who lodged them in
gaol. They again got away, and reached Port Stephens, and
were accordingly sent to head-quarters for disposal. Although
many of those who are escaping from the ' gaol to the gaol-yard'
(for to fly from Moreton Bay to Sydney is nothing better), are
continually falling victims to the spears of the savages around
them ; yet, no example will deter them from unavailing and
desperate efforts to obtain their liberty — a liberty which is only
temporary, and entails upon them accumulated misery."

Then comes the story of a solitary and strange success : —
"Thursday, i6th February, 1832. — We regret to announce the
total loss of the whaling schooner, ' Madeira Packet,' belonging
to Mr. Thomas Street, of Sydney, which took place on a shoal of
rocks, to the Northward of Moreton Bay. It appears that the
vessel having struck on the shoal and gone to pieces, the crew
took to their boats, with the mutual understanding to proceed to
Moreton Bay. Two out of three arrived safe, but the other
boat has not since been heard of. On th(; arrival of the two at
Moreton Bay, a party of prisoners seized one, and put off to the
' Caledonia ' (which was lying near at the time), boarded her,
and sent the crew ashore, compelling the Captain to put to sea
with them. She was commanded by Mr. Browning, a clev(^r
young seaman in the Newcastle trade ; well found ; and little
doubt is entertained of their successful escape."

Two Gentlemen — NOT of Verona. 293

Again, at about the same date, we lind the ri-turn of th--
" Governor Phillip," which had, on the 3rd of the preceding
January, "taken a cargo of fashionables, invalids, and madmen tf)
Port Macquarie to reflect on the past, and think of the future, as
well as forty prisoners, to that place of secondary punishment,
Moreton Bay, among whom is that most public of all characters,
James Hardy Vaux — and by which we (in Sydney) have received
sixty-one prisoners from Moreton Bay. It appears that the
severe example made of McManus had not deterred men from
committing acts of violence against their fellows. Two prisoners
are in gaol for trial, one for attempting the life of chief-constable
Mcintosh, and the other named McGuire, for the murder of his
comrade. McGuire, it appears, had absconded, and being soon
apprehended was placed in the gaol-gang, a life which became
irksome (!) to him, and in a ht of despair, he resolved to increase
those miseries by cleaving the head of another prisoner with a
pick-axe."

Really the following is a relief :

" 32nd December, 1833. — A man is under examination by the
police who stands charged with outwitting the Commandant at Moreton
Bay, under the following circumstances. . His name is Patrick Flanagan,
and he was sentenced to be transported to Moreton Bay for fourteen
3ears ; his brother, Owen Planagan, being sent there about the same
time, for three years. On arriving at the settlement, they exchanged
Christian names, each representing himself as the other. Accordingly,
at the termination of the three years, Patrick procured himself to be sent
up to Sydney in the name of his brother Owen. The stratagem was so
far successful, and as soon as Patrick was clear of the coast, Owen came
forward and demanded his own freedom, alleging that if the Comman-
dant had suffered himself to be imposed upon by his brother, that was
nothing to him. and therefore, as his sentence was really only for three
years, which had now expired, he was resolved to work no longer.
Captain Clunie, however, as, according to his own account, he had already
practised one deception, was not bound to believe his statement, and
accordingly detained him, sending a report to Sydney, that the proper
enquiries might be made."

We must try back on the 26th of April, 1834, from humbug
to horror :

" The 'Friendship" has been taken up \)\ the Government to convey
prisoners to the settlement at Moreton Bay. We have always slated that
dreadful convulsions must necessarily be expected at Norfolk Island from
the very constitution of the settlement. It differs from Moreton Bay, in

2Q4 Genesis of Queensland.

being the j)lace to which the most abandoned of the human race with us
are forwarded. Hence the extraordinary desperation so frequently
exhibited by individuals, and lately communicated to the prisoners almost
as a body. Hope is in a manner shut out from hundreds in this modern
pandemonium. They see before them a life of misery and degradation :
for we hear that certain humane and consistent instructions prepared and
transmitted to Colonel Morrisett during the temporary administration of
Lieutenant-Governor Lindesay, with the advice of the executive Council in
the beginning of 1832, have actually been thrown on one side, and the
emulation which even a distant promise of freedom might have produced,
is lost amidst the gloomy despondency and horrors of the penal system
in operation there. We happen to know something of the regulations
alluded to, and regret (if true) that, for the sake of humanity, they have
not been posted on the public edifices both at Moreton Bay and Norfolk
Island (as directed), in order to show the convict the fruits of good
behaviour. Should these orders be discovered on the shelves of the
officers in charge, and if, as a reasonable inference, the desperate conduct
of the prisoners be attributable to their negligence, such negligence
having a tendency to increase the remorseless ferocity of men who dis-
regard all human control, and will even commit murder in order to be
hanged, as a relief for their intolerable sufferings ; then, in the eyes of
God and man, must those officers be considered accountable for the Uves
lost, or the blood shed upon any occasion of tumult or rebellion. Eminent
for the consistent humanity as the Government of General Bourke is, we
are certain that this matter will not be allowed to drop without a rigid
enquir}'."

I venture to reproduce the following as a justification to
some extent of remarks which I have already had occasion to
make during the progress of this journal, by making which it is
just possible I may be held to trespass ungenerously upon the
withered sward of the past. I take it from the Sydney Gazette
of 1835:—

" 17th November. — By the Government schooner ' Isabella,' which
arrived from INIoreton Bay on Friday last. Captain Clunie, of H.M.
17th Regiment, has returned to head-quarters, after having discharged
the onerous duty of Commandant at that settlement for five years.
Captain Clunie unites in his own person those two rare qualities to be
met with conjointly, viz., that of a rigid disciplinarian and a mild-
mannered gentleman. The consequence has been that, since the time
he took command at Moreton Bay, we have heard of none of those
tumultuous risings and murderous doings among the prisoners there
which distinguished his predecessors reign of terror, and which have
since occasionallv marked the character of the sister settlement of

Cruelty's Harvest. 295

Norfolk Island. Colonel Morrisett obtained the permanent com-
mandancv of Norfolk Island from the British Government in
consequence of the stern manner in which he governed the penal
settlement of Newcastle ; but if the successful career in which a
secondary penal settlement is regulated, with a view to work reformation
as well as to enforce proper punishment for the offenders entrusted to
his charge, be any criterion for continuing an oflicer in his command,
Captain Clunie is beyond any comparison the most qualified person
of all others who has perhaps yet filled that important situation.
Captain Clunie has been relieved in his command because the
gallant regiment to which he belongs is about to proceed to the East
Indies."

Having cited sufficient authority, I think, to sustain the
charge of excess of discipline which drove wretched prisoners to
the dens of the savage, let me try to show how it happened that,
notwithstanding the general rule that such refugees were punched
on the head at once, some few had been spared, as in the case of
our two recovered fellow-men.

I must premise the explanation by repeating that all infor-
mation on the subject was given me by Bracefell and Davis. I-
must ask attention to the assurance that I have already given,
that in no material point did the narrative as to the cause of being
spared differ ; that Bracefell's statements had been made days
before Davis' appearance on the scene ; and that the latter's
excited holding-forth was made at a time when exceeding ill-will
and silence prevailed between tbe two, and of any communication
then there could not have been a suspicion. And if there had,
cut bono, any design to mis-inform?

For my own part, I unreservedly believed, and to this day
believe, that what they said on that, and all other matters con-
cerning life and habits among the natives whom they knew, and
whose tribes had dwelt not far away from each other, was fact
and truth to the letter.

" Why were they spared ? "

Cannibalism prevailed among these northern tribes. Petrie
told me that' an old black, at whom I was looking near his
house one day at Brisbane, had not long before appeared there
with a child's foot in his hand, and treated it as a delicacy ; and
even offered it to himself as a present ! Whether par preference,
or lack of other food I could not understand in this case, but the
former conclusion seemed to be not unreasonable.

296 Genesis of Queensland.

Now, in the Bunnia season, when tribes from long dis-
tances come in for their feast, par excellence^ and are so brought
together in large numbers, one can well understand the imme-
diate exodus of all game, large and small, with the exception of
feathered fowl, from the thickly brushed region in which the
Bunnia-Bunnia grows. This araiicaria is found only — as yet
at least — on the ranges which separate the Moreton from the
Wide Bay waters. It bears triennially ; but, of course, a proportion
gives forth its produce every year. The araucnria, which is
found in a small quantity on the coast of Brazil, is very similar,
but the difference is marked. The cone needs no description,
nor the tree, now that it is so well known. On the occasion of
our falling in with Davis, there were sixteen tribes collected
together, and more were expected from the north, en route to the
great annual event. I think I am not far out in supposing that
each tribe could contribute from seventy to eighty fighting men.
Well ! The marsupial family is keen-scented, and objects to the
neighbourhood of their natural and " potent " enemies. I have
myself watched in the moonlight by the edge of a pine-brush,
"dense enough to exclude light almost in some places, which I knew
held a large number of natives, and a stranger scene than the
issue thence of so grotesquely progressing a procession, con-
sisting of thousands of the same family, from the '' rat " to the
" old man," I have never witnessed. Thousands following
thousands in their jerky retreat to leeward — all in the same
direction — bearing away, doubtless, to some other well-known
asylum of equally terrible waste and brushy ranges, footed a
weird-like dance on the moonlit pastures of grass between each
patch of black cover ; in no hurried scamper, however, but
" taking it easy," judging from the pranks they played.

The aboriginals have an aversion to compulsory vege-
tarianism. The Bunnia-Bunnia becomes to them like sweets to
a jjastry cook's boy. They tire of, and almost nauseate at, their
daily bread. They must have "flesh": snakes, grubs, and
iguanas form no fighting fare ! And so they utilise their
pugnacious propensities ; but in the Bunnia season, as a rule
(though I am inclined to think they are not scrupulously religious
in the observance) they reserve their friends who may fall in the
diurnal fight for their own nocturnal delicate attentions, by
serving up the illustrious corpses in a manner of cookery peculiar
to their persuasions. For they protest against such an inheritance

Turn-spit Transmigi'ation. 297

as the scorned qualities ot a departed foe. Ah, no I thc^y love
their friends too well to part from them even after death ; and,
by absorbing the viand of their own brother's and warrior's arm
or leg, cooked en regie for an evening meal, so they assimilate
to their aspiring souls the virtues which that beloved one v. as
wont to display before his final roast ! Think you, then, that
these women of ours are worthy of such ambrosial fare ? Moro
toro ! (stupid stomach! — slow belly!); pitch the "innards" to
them as they sit behind waiting the scramble for the bits !

But, what about the cooking? Well, where's the famil)
recipe ? Ah, here it is ! Take the dead man's nearest male
relatives, and turn him over to them : let them lay him in deep
silence on his face ; let the women make a wide-spread bed of
tire : and now ye butcher boys ! cut our departed brother's back
open from the "nape" to the "small": follow suit down the
thighs and legs to the heel; same across the shoulders and down
the hinder muscles of back and arm. Be handy, lads ! if he get
ccld he won't strip so easily. Now then ! seize the edges and
heave away the hide. And so, limb by limb, divested of the
panoply of epidermis, rete inucosinn, and cutis, stands out in
bold relief the flayed frame of the veritable " makromme," the
" dead man " bound to Beegie's bright abodes ! Before that
pleasanter arrangement supervenes, however, another ! See to
it, ye cooks ! OiT with his head, butcher boys ! Now his arms I
Well done ! Bone them; thighs and legs too ! Turn him over!
Off with the hide, from chin to toe. So ! Fire ready ? So !
Bring hither two emu spears ; lay them on each side ; bind him
well to them ; plant two strong saplings in the ground at each
end of his baking bed ; cross the ends at the top ; bind them
together ! Now then ! One — two — three — up ! Ship the spear
ends on to each fork. Give him a turn now and then — and
there's a banquet a la mode !

But what has all this to do with Bracefell and Davis? The
flayed limbs exposed to the heat as they lie over the fire beneath,
having lost every drop of blood, become white. By some inex-
plicable method the dead friend, useful to the last in feeding his
friends' lives, becomes absorbed by " Beegie's " attracting and
resistless power, and takes to basking beneath his beams in
happy indolence for a season.^ That season — (happy thought of

* Savage instinct of a future.

298 Genesis of Queensland.

their cunning old men) was coming to an end when white men
were sent drifting over the " tabil bann " (salt water) out of the
mansions of " Beegie " (who came out from the east every day to
search for his own on this dry land) to their old native shores
and early haunts, wandering in search of their own kindred tribe.
Now and then a " makromme " would chance that way, but they
knew him not : so declined further acquaintance, because none
recognised in him the features of some long lost comrade, brother
or son. Having no business to claim admission by such creden-
tials to their household, they cut him in the approved fashion of
the day out of their beau vionde, by the help of spear or nulla-
nuUa.

But, lo ! one day, the mighty " Eumundy," struck by the
never-forgotten lineaments traced on a " mackromme's " face,
though denuded of their birth-right glory, acknowledged the glad
presence of a long-ago lost and devoured son-and-heir ! So, too,
had the exultant Pamby-Pamby found, and cherished his prodigal
in the person of the unconscious Derhamboi.

In a word, fancied resemblance of feature in both instances
had been the passport by which Bracefell and Davis had reached
each a safe refuge, freedom and — a father.

The gins were forbidden present participation in such
aldermanic luxury of diet ; but they were allowed to pick the less
honourable portions of the reliqiiix sacra.' of the dear departed.

Derhamboi decidedly became amusing when he set forth, by
the usual mimic language without words, an act of sacrilege, by
means of which, when left alone one day in camp by the hunting
men, who were off to a distant " meet," these gentle goiirma7ides
assisted an aged, weakly sister in making a " move out " of the
limited space and span of life left to her at a quicker pace than
the creature approved. A gentle tap from behind ; a half-and-
half preparation for the oven ; a hasty snack ; an ingenious
concealment of the remainder of the joint in the hollow limb of
a large tree, some height up it ; the hurried scramble through
the afternoon, each one by turns, to the hidden treasure for
another pick ; the fear of detection, and their lords' return ; and
the ultimate discovery of the forbidden fruit, betrayed by the
flies, which swarmed about it as the bees around their "sugar-
bag."

I confess that, in spite of the disgustful truthfulness of the
portraiture, I laughed aloud.

Not quite " Chic." 299

Bracefell and Davis were always loud and earnest in tht-ir
protestations of having kept their own hands clean of such
defilement : I put no strain upon my credulity by implicitly
believing their assurances.

The "hide" of the dead man was stretched on spears, and
dried in the smoke. After which process, it was usually cut into
strips, laid up in rolls, and given as a souvenir to the nearest
surviving relative, who always carried it in the grass-bag over
the shoulder. The bones were also preserved, but most
frequently " planted " in some hollow branch of a tree, with the
skull. Some time afterwards, I found one of these "planted"
skulls in the country, at the back of Wide Bay, and took it with
me, as well as a portion of " smoked hide," (yielded up to the
persuasive "plug" — tobacco) to England, in 1849, and so got
myself into disgrace, as the owner of such loathsome relics.
Nevertheless, they were accepted as curio s, when offered, and
prized when accepted. One young lady walked one morning
into my room, in London, took up the " roll " from my writing
table " Oh ! is this the tobacco I have heard of so often from
my brother out there?" On my explaining, she nearly took to
fainting : she never handled knick-knacks of mine afterwards.

CHAPTER XVII.

Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression stareth in thine eyes,
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law.

— Shakespeare. (Romeo and Juliet).

I CANNOT wave my hand to Wide Bay without further allusion
to the wreck of the " Stirling Castle."

Not long after our return, Bracefell and Davis — both having
received " manumission " upon Petrie's report to the Govern-
ment — were taken by Simpson — Lands Commissioner — to his
new residence of Woogooroo on the Brisbane. Bracefell was
killed by the falling of a tree. They had been identified with
the two lost men whom they represented themselves to be, and
their recovery was soon a forgotten coincidence.

But I searched a long while afterwards for some public
notice of the wreck of the " Stirling Castle," and found that it
had been dealt with in the Sydney Gazette. The accounts given
in it made no mention of the name of Bracefell. They had been
issued six years before his return with us. As every member of
our party believed, and as I this day implicitly believe the truth
of Bracefell's yarn, the discrepancies of these accounts — in view
of it, as it lies now, in old notes before me — were startling. The
error as to the spot on which the " brig " had been wrecked is of
little importance. Reports at Brisbane of the disaster through
the blacks, were not likely to fix it correctly. But how about the
escape of Mrs. Fraser ? I have gathered, the "Stirling Castle"
left Sydney on the 15th May, 1836. The news of her loss reached
Sydney on the loth September. The statement of one Robert
Hodge was published three days after: and the first detailed
account appeared on the i8th of October.

Sydney Gazette. 13th vSeptember, 1836. *' In our last number we
reported the less of the brig ' Stirling Castle," James Fraser, com-
mander, on the north-east coast of New Holland, since which, her agents,
IMessrs. S. A. Bryant and Co., have favoured us with still further
particulars, which lead us to hope that the master, his wife, and a great
portion of the crew may yet be saved. One of the seamen — Robert
Hodge— who made his way from the wreck to the Macleay river, has
arrived in Sydney, and been placed in the General Hospital. This man
states that after the ' Stirling Castle ' left Sydney, they had very fine

Word of the Wi'eck. 301

weather and fair winds ; that on the Saturday night after leaving Sydney,
or the Sunday, about half-past nine o'clociv, the brig struck upon a reef,
and stove in her bottom, and l)rol<.e her baclc in two j)laces. The next
morning, the water was up to her lower deck beams, and tiic mate slated
they were about nine hundred miles from Sydney, and one liundred from
the mainland. They remained willi tlie brig two days, and then took to
the long-boat and pinnace, and made the land, bul he does not know
whereabouts.

" They took very little provision with them, as the mate said they
could get plenty from the missionaries. [There could be none nearer
than Moreton Bay.] The boats kept company for some time. The
pinnace, being the fastest sailor, was frequently sent away to seek water,
and in this manner, after beating to windward all day, they missed the
long-boat at night, and ran many miles to leeward to where they had left
her. They then gave the long-boat up as lost, and prosecuted their
course to the southward, running before the wind night and day. The
crew of the pinnace at this time consisted of the carpenter, boatswain,
cook, a boy named Eraser (the captain's nephew), two seamen, and the
narrator. The boy was drowned soon after the boats parted company ;
he slipped from a rock while he was gathering shell-fish.

" Soon after this the boat was stove, and the men obliged to pursue
their way by land through the bush, subsisting upon grass and wild
herbs. One of the crew — a sailor — was burnt to death while sleeping in
a hut ; another was drowned in attempting to cross a river ; the
boatswain and carpenter were left on an island in the middle of the 'Big
river' (Clarence) to the northward of the Macleay, in consequence of
the blacks refusing to put them over, through a dispute about a waist-
coat. The cook sunk exhausted about fifteen miles from the Macleay
river ; and Hodge, when he arrived in Sydney, was in a most deplorable
condition.

" The revenue cutter ' Prince George ' — Captain Roach — returned
on Saturday last from a coasting trip to the northward in search of the
unfortunate crew of the 'Stirling Castle' bringing up Mrs. Fraser (wife
of the captain), John Baxter (second mate), Joseph Corallis (steward),
Robert Drag, Harry Goulden. Robert Dragman, and Robert Carey
(seamen).

" Captain Roach informs us that he vvas unsuccessful in discovering
the two men who were reported (by Hodge) to be upon the coast to the
northward of the river Macleay: that he traced their footsteps and
observed other traces of their residence for a long distance, from which
he supposes the men must be travelling in a southerly direction, and
should they survive, will reach Port IMacquarie on the Macleay.

" Captain Roach inquired at. the former place for the unfortunates,
but no tidings had been heard. Captain Roach found the huts of these

302 Genesis of Queensland.

men ; but they appeared to have been deserted some time since, from
the remains of some dried fish, &c. The party, which has come up in
the revenue cutter, was at Moreton Bay, and had been rescued from their
miserable state by the perseverance of Lieutenant Otter and his survey-
ing party, who went out and fell in with Mrs. Fraser (?) and the six
men, who had been treated in the most brutal manner by the natives for
some months. Captain Fraser was speared to death because he was
incapable of carrying wood for the savages when in a very sickly
condition ; and the chief mate (Brown) was burnt to death. Mrs. Fraser
and her companions, although allowed to exist, were subject to equal
tortures. The natives fed them on the entrails of snakes, fish-bones
and such-like, and when discovered by Lieutenant Otter were in the
midst of an immense number of blacks, who were celebrating a grand
corroboree, or dance, round the prisoners. Captain Roach found the
body of the man mentioned in our previous report, who was burnt to
death in a hut, and buried it on the island. The carpenter and boat-
swain are the only two persons now missing from the ' Stirling Castle '
and it is somewhat doubtful whether they will ever reach any of the
settlements."

So, from the crew of the pinnace, Hodge was the only sur-
vivor. The Gazette goes on : —

" Since writing the above, we have received the following memo-
randum from the second mate (Baxter), who has provided us with the full
particulars of the wreck and the miseries he endured with the rest while
in the hands of the savages.

" The brig ' Stirling Castle ' was wrecked on Saturday evening, the
2ist May, on Eliza Reef, in latitude 24 deg, and longitude E. 155 deg.
22 min., and steering at the time of the accident N.W. by N.|N., the
ship running 7I knots. Left the brig on Sunday, 22nd. Made the first
land on the 30th, on an island — unknown — about 1 1 a.m.

" The boats were here turned over and patched up as well as
possible, after which, on the third day, the remaining stores and baggage
were again put into the boats, and put to sea with the intention of making
Repulse Bay ' for assistance " (from whom ?) The pinnace afterwards
parted company with the launch (long boat), leaving with us a piece of
beef weighing four pounds, 13 gallons of beer and water mixed, one
gallon of brandy, and seven pounds of wet bread. In the pinnace were
Edward Stone, boatswain, James Major, Robert Hodge, John Copeland,
seamen, Jacob Allen, cook, a boy named John Fraser, and the carpenter.

"The boat's crew was taken by the natives on the 26th of June,
and on the 15th of August, released by a person named Graham,
accompanied by Lieutenant Otter and his party. Arrived at Brisbane
Town, Moreton Bay, on Monday, the 22nd of August."

Death by Torture. 303

Was Mrs. Frazer among the " crew " released on the i5i.h
August ? The Gazette adds :

" Was Mrs. Frascr among the ' crew ' released on the 1 5th August ?

" Mrs. Frazer called at our office on Saturday afternoon, and gave us
the following particulars : ' The long-boat's company consisted of
Captain Fraser, Brown, the chief officer, Baxter, the second mate, and
herself. She does not here speak of the ' rest of the crew ' as she did in
London. After they had been ashore some time a great numlier of
natives were observed, and her husband suggested giving themselves up
quietly as they were entirely defenceless. They had scarcely time to
make the suggestions, when several tribes came down upon them, one of
whom immediately captured her husband ; another tribe took Brown,
and a third Baxter. They would not allow Mrs. Fraser to go with either
of them, and left her alone upon a sandy bank the whole of that day :
and the day following, a number of old women came down to the beach
with some children. They gave Mrs. Fraser to understand that she
must go with them, and carry one of the children upon her shoulders,
which she of necessity complied with. Mrs. Fraser states that she
travelled many miles into the bush with these women and the child, and
was frequently exhausted.

" She remained about three weeks with these people when she fell
in with her husband, who was dragging a load of wood for the natives,
in which he had been principally engaged since the time he parted from
his wife.

" Captain Fraser was so dreadfully fatigued that he could not move
a load that had been consigned to him, and implored his wife to assist
him. Mrs. Frazer states, that she had neither strength nor liberty to do
so, she herself being employed in the same manner, and the nadves
keeping a sharp look out after her. She was under the necessity of
leaving him, and when she returned afterwards, found that he was speared
in the back of the shoulders, which had been inflicted upon him for not
making any progress with the wood. Mrs. Fraser remained with her
husband until sun-down, when he expired of his wounds. His last
words were ' Eliza, Fm gone.'

" The savages immediately dragged her away from the body, dug a
hole and buried it. In eight days from this brutal affair, the same
cannibals also killed Brown, by holding fire-brands to his legs and so
burning him upwards. The cause of their destroying Brown was in
consequence of his showing signs of dissatisfaction at the death ot
his chief.

" The party now consisted of only two persons — Mrs. Fraser and
Baxter — but they were parted from each other at many miles distance, a
large river running between them. These two unfortunate creatures

304 Genesis of Queensland.

remained with the natives about two months before they were rescued,
enduring the greatest miseries from hunger, Mrs. Fraser being employed
cutting down and carrying wood, fetching water, and fishing for the
natives ; and Baxter was engaged in the same manner on the other side
of the river.

" The steward of the brig — Joseph — had wall^ed overland to
IMoreton Bay, and gave information of the situation of Mrs. Fraser and
her unfortunate companions, when a man named Graham, who was well
acquainted with the bush, volunteered to head a party to the shipwrecked
people, and pledged himself to rescue them from the blacks. Lieutenant
Otter, and a party were immediately despatched, and with Graham went
in search of the unfortunate people.

" Mrs. Fraser slates that Graham went into the midst of the natives,
and, at the risk of his life, snatched her up, and ran away to his party
with her, and afterwards recovered the second ofticer in the same
courageous manner.*

" Mrs. Fraser requests us to make public her expressions of grati-
tude to those who have assisted her out of misery and relieved her
distresses, and begs us to thank them for their humane conduct towards
her : the Commandant of Moreton Bay, Lieutenant Otter, Mr. Commis-
sariat Owen. Captain Roach, and several other gentlemen of Moreton
l^ay."

More than a year later the Sydney Gazette, Thursday, ist
February, 1838, having fresh light thrown upon this horrid tale
of the sea, says : —

" The statements made by Mrs. Fraser and others, regarding the
loss of the • Stirling Castle ' on her voyage from Sydney to Singapore,
differ so materially in detail from the statements made by the same
parties here, that we have been induced, by the request of several of our
readers, to publish them."

The following account is taken from Alexander's East
India and Colonial Magazine for September, 1837, London.

" The attention of the chief magistrate in the city has been, during
the last month, occupied in examining the deplorable case of Mrs. Fraser
and others, who have miraculously survived an awful shipwreck, and the
cruelties practised upon them by the savages of New South Wales,
amongst whom they were thrown, and by whom the majority of the ship's
crew have been enslaved in lowest bondage, and, in short, tortured to

* " Snatched up and ran away with" (<■ more Sabino !) from the midst of such
a wild, excited, and "immense" assemblage {Consiialia Australiana !) and on
both occasions passively robbed of their prisoners.

Gatherifig Doom. oqc

death by means at which the old Inquisition of Spain mii^ht blush.
'Truth is stranger than fiction,' observes one of our poets, and there
are circumstances related in the following narrative which no human
imagination could depict; and yet Providence has willed that such
extraordinary and romantic events should actually take place, as it
were, to teach mortality that there are such things in heaven and
earth beyond the reach of human philosophy or anticipation. We
observe that through the instrumentality of the Lord Mayor and the
press, a general sympathy has been e.xcited by the surviving sufferers,
viz., Mrs. Fraser (the widow of the late captain of the ' Stirling Castle 'j
and the second mate, Baxter. We willingly lend our assistance to the
praiseworthy object in detailing the facts of the statements that have
appeared, describing in plain but faithful colours the shipwreck of
the ' Stirling Castle,' and the adventures which in consequence resulted
to the crew."

It appears, from the second mate Baxter's account, that
the vessel struck some few days after leaving port on a reef
of coral, and the consequence was that her masts were cut
away : soon becoming a total wreck, the crew took to the boats ;
parting, it is supposed that the missing boat's crew were
lost at sea, or possibly met with such a death as that of most of
their companions, whose story is related in Mrs. Fraser's narra-
tive, as follows : —

"On the 15th of May (Sunday), 1836, the 'Stirling Castle' left
Sydney for the purpose of going to Singapore. On the 23rd, (Monday),
when they were approaching Torres Straits, it blew very hard, and
there being a current near the 'Eliza' coral reef, which the vessel was
unable to resist, she struck on the reef at about nine o'clock at night,
when the captain was incapable, on account of hazy weather, of making
observations. There were about eighteen men on board, two boys, and
Mrs. Fraser, the captain's wife, who was far advanced in pregnancy.
Two of the men who were labouring at the wheel were killed when the
ship struck, and the cabins were dashed into the hold, together with all
the bread, beef, pork and other provisions. The crew, when the tempest
ceased, contrived to cut away the masts in the expectation that the
vessel would right herself, by turning up her beam ends, and she did in
some degree change position, but not to any serviceable extent. They,
therefore, determined to get away as well as they could in the long-boat
and the pinnace, which they had contrived to keep secure, the two other
boats which were attached to the ship having been swept away by the
fury of the elements. They knew that they were to the northward of
Moreton Bay, a portion of the settlements of the English crown, and

3o6 Genesis of Queensland.

they determined to make for that place with as much expedition as
possible.

" Accordingly, having worked with most desperate industry until
lour o'clock on Sunday, they disembarked from the vessel, and took to
the boats. The ship's carpenter, the cook, the cook's mate, John Fraser
(the captains nephew), the boatswain, Edward Stone and Bill Lorton, a
seaman, took to the pinnace, while the captain, his wife, the chief mate
(Brown), and second mate (Baxter), the two boys and the rest of the
crew, took to the long-boat. Four days after they had committed them-
selves to the care of Providence, Mrs. Fraser was delivered of a child,
while up to her waist in water in the long-boat. The infant was born
alive, but after a few gasps was drowned, and the first mate wrapped up
the body in a part of his shirt, which he tore from his back for the
purpose, and let it go with the tide. The poor mother could not'
account for the extraordinary vigour with whieh she was able to bear up
against this calamity, added to the other calamities to which she was
doomed to be exposed. Fortunately she was for some time in a state of
insensibility, and it was not until a considerable time after the child was
consigned to the deep, aware that it was brought into the world, from
which it was so rapidly hurried away. For a great many days they
endeavoured in vain to reach Moreton Bay, being all the time without
any food, except a small quantity of the lees of hops, which they found
in a cask. They suffered dreadfully from thirst, as well as hunger, while
in this awful situation. At last they reached a large rock, to which they
fastened their boats, and they went in quest of oysters and water ; but
their disappointments multiplied upon them, and they stretched them-
selves along in expectation of a speedy release from their sufferings by
the interposition of another tempest. In the morning those who belonged
to the long-boat were astonished to find that the pinnace and the men
who had accompanied her, had altogether disappeared.* These unfor-
tunate fellows were never heard of more, and their comrades in calamity
could not conjecture what their motive could be for making an experiment
l>y themselves without the aid of the experience of the captain and his
mates, whom they left behind.

" The captain's view was, all along, after they had been obliged to
cpiit the ship, to reach Aloreton Bay, but, finding that the ' wind and
current were dead against his object, and his companions being reduced
to the extremity of lying on their backs in the boat with their tongues
out to catch the damp of the dews that fell, he resolved to make for the
nearest land. It was a choice of most awful evils, for he knew that the
shore, which it was probable they would reach, was visited by tribes of
savages.'

* Compare Robert Hodge's statement.

Choice of Two Horrors. 307

"They bore away be/ore the ivind prepared lo meet death in wliat-
ever shape it might present itself, and so exhausted with suffering as to
be careless whether they were to die by the hands of the natives or to be
overwhelmed by the waves. At last they came within sight of land, and
soon afterwards their boat ran into and landed in a place called Wide
Bay. They were now within a hundred miles to the north of Moreton
Bay, which is the principal of the penal settlements to which the
incorrigible convicts are sent to pass the remainder of their days, in uninter-
mitted labour; and just as they reached the land they caught sight of a
vast crowd of naked savages, who soon approached the beach, evidently
delighted with tlie prize that })resented itself. The savages surrounded
the boat, and running it up carried it from the beach lo the bush with its
crew just as they were. The moment they laid the boat on the ground
they began to strip the men of their clothes, commencing with the
captain and the chief ofiScers. John Baxter, the second mate, endeavoured
to hide a shirt ornament in which his aunt's hair was contained,
having willingly yielded up everything else ; but the savages became
infuriated at the attempt at concealment, and beat him dreadfully. It is
unnecessary to say that they tore the trinket from him. They broke in
pieces the watches and chronometers, and each took a portion of the
machinery to stick in their noses and ears, and after having divided
amongst themselves the various portions of apparel of which they had
stripped their captives they threw them to appease their hunger the
the heads and guts of the fish upon which they had lately been making
their meal. The savages, after having detained them two days, took
them further up into the bush, and drove them onward, that they might,
as they soon ascertained, fall into the hands of othc7- tribes, by whom an
ingenious variety was to be given to their sufferings. The captain
endeavoured to prevail upon them to accept the services of the crew for
a longer time being apprehensive that any change amongst the natives
would be for the worse ; but they beat all the now naked whites on before
them, VivX\\ fresh tribes came up and took each of them a prisoner, and
set him to work carrying pieces of trees, and toiling in other exhausting
ways.

"Mrs. Fraser, being the only woman, was not selected by any of the
tribes, but was left by herself, while they went onward ; but her husband
got an opportunity to mention to her not to stir from the place at which
she was at the moment, and that he would contrive to see her in a few
hours. During that night she lay in a cleft of the rock, and in the
morning, after looking about without seeing a creature, she determined
to follow some footmarks, and after having proceeded some distance,
she saw a crowd of black women approach.

" These women belonged to the tribe of savages by whom her
husband had been taken up the bush on the preceding day, and they set

3o8 Genesis of Queensland.

her to work in trailing wood and lighting tires. Being quite naked, and
presenting a contrast in her skin which the natives did not like, she was
compelled by them to rub herself all over with gum and herbs, which
had the effect of making her nearly as dark as themselves. The\
likewise tattooed her all over, and, having pulled her hair out, covered
her head with a sort of gum and stuck the feathers of parrots and other
birds all over it. One of the women, having two children, obliged her to
nurse one of them, notwithstahding the severe labour she had to perform,
and if the child was out of temper the nurse was kicked and scratched
and thumped for its peevishness.

" At the expiration of four days Mrs. Fraser saw her husband for
the first time since their separation. He was dragging along a tree, and
was greatly fatigued. She had just begun to inquire how it happened
that he did not manage to let her know where he was, to which he was
replying that he dared not look for her, w^hen his tribe suddenly appeared.
One of them having seen them together, made a push at the captain
with a spear, and pierced him right through the body, and he was a
corpse in an instant. Mrs. Fraser ran to her husband, cried out 'Jesus
of Nazareth, I can endure this no longer,' and pulled the spear out of
the body, but the breath was gone for ever ! She then fell senseless and
remained so a considerable time ; and when she recovered her senses
she found herself along with the tribe which she was obliged to serve ;
but what became of the body of Captain Fraser she never could learn,
and, of course, the barbarous region in which she was enslaved was no
place for sympathy. Shortly after this catastrophe the first officer
(Brown), of the ship, having been informed that the captain had been
murdered by one of the tribes, formed, in a fit of desperation, a plan of
revenge, fettered and exhausted with labour as he was. His intention
was, however, discovered, and horrible was his punishment. Mrs. Fraser
had just lighted a fire by order of her tribe, and the unfortunate man's legs
were thrust into it and consumed, while he, by the violence of his con-
tortions actually worked for the rest of his body a grave in the sand, in
which it was embedded. Two days after this horrible event, a fine
looking young man. named James Major, was disposed of. Captain
Fraser, who knew a good deal of the character and habits- of the
savages on this coast, had mentioned to Major that the savages
would take off his head for a figure bust for one of their canoes.
It seemed, too, that it was usual for the savage who contemplated
that sort of execution to smile in the face of his victim immediatel)
before he struck him to the earth. While Major was at work the chief
of the tribe approached him smiling, and tapped him on the shoulder.
At that instant the poor fellow received a blow on the l)ack of the neck
from a waddie or crooked stick, which stunned him. He fell to the
ground, and a couple of savages set to work, and by means of sharpened

"Tale of Rescue." 300

shells severed the heatl from llic Ixxly willi frighlful lacerations. They then
ate parts of the body, and preserved the head willi certain gums of extra-
ordinary efficacy, and affixed it as a figure bust to one of llieir canoes.

" The rest of the crew expected nothing less, of course, than death.
Their apprehension appeared to relate rather to the mode of inflicting
the extreme penalty, than to the fact that they must prematurely die. Two
of the seamen, Doyle and Big Ben, contrived to steal a canoe, and
endeavoured to cross an inland lake, but were drowned in the attempt
to escape from, perhaps, a more painful death.

" There was a black man named Josejih, who had been steward on
board the 'Stirling Castle." When the savages seized the long-boat in
which the crew had entered Wide Bay. they stripped Joseph as well as the
rest, but as he was of their own colour they inflicted no punishment upon
him, and he had the privilege of going about, which was denied to any
other of the wretched strangers. This man, who was constantly watching
for an opportunity to escape, had assured Mrs. Fraser that if he could
get away the first life he should think of saving would be that of his
mistress. He succeeded in stealing a canoe, in which he rowed off, and
in six weeks he reached Moreton Bay, when he informed the commandant
of the penal settlement of the horrible circumstances which had taken
place at Wide Bay, and of the servitude in which the survivors of the
crew were detained.

" The Moreton Bay commandant, immediately upon hearing it,
inquired in the barracks whether any of the military would volunteer to
save a lady and several of the crew of a wrecked vessel from the savages
in the bush, and a number offered themselves at a moments notice."'
[But no mention of ' Graham !']

" (N.B.) By a system of manceuvring, entered into by a convict who
had been for some years in the bush among the savages, the object was
effected. All the survivors were, to the best of Mrs. Eraser's belief,
rescued from the savages. At the camp (!) the commandant, and the
commissary, and, in fact, all the individuals who were in the service of
the Government, treated Mrs. Fraser and her companions in misfortune
with a degree of kindness which, it was evident, the former has a very
warm recollection of. She was placed under medical care immediately,
and everything that was considered likely to abate the sense of what she
had undergone, in witnessing the murder of her husband and the other
persons by whom she had been surrounded, was done.

"The captain of the ' INIediterranean Packet," in which ^Irs. PVaser
arrived from Liverpool, stated that he was in Sydney at the time of the
arrival of that lady, and that the circumstances detailed caused the
greatest excitement there. The convict, to whose extraordinar}' exertions
Mrs. Fraser owed her escape, obtained a free pardon from the Govern-
ment there, and a reward of thirty guineas."

3IO Genesis of Queensland.

Where is;it shown that Mrs. Fraser was with or even near
any of the shipwrecked people when she was rescued ?
According to these public narrations they had been separated
and kept captive by different tribes. Captain Roach repeated
what he had heard from others, and in good faith, perhaps,
believed that finding Mrs. Fraser and the six men at Moreton
Bay together, whom he brought down in the revenue cutter,
made it reasonable for him to infer that they had been rescued
at the same time.

The Sydney Gazette, next after Hodge's account, given on
13th September, 1836, says: — " On Saturday last the pilot from
Moreton Bay arrived in the revenue cutter, who states that a
surveying party, under the command of Lieutenant Otter, at
Moreton Bay, fell in with some of the crew who had left in the
long-boat, about fifty miles to the northward of the settlement.
The seamen stated they had parted with the captain, his wife,
and the remainder of the crew of the long-boat" — [W^e see that
they had been driven into the bush after capture, that the captain
was murdered and Baxter separated from his widow, and that
Brown was roasted and eaten] — "about one hundred and forty
miles further north ;* that the blacks had stripped them, but in
other respects had been friendly. They also stated that they
had travelled overland to where they were met by the
surveying party, and that two had been drowned in endea-
vouring to cross a large river. Upon hearing this intelligence
the commandant at Moreton Bay despatched two whaleboats
with clothes and provisions and an experienced pilot along
shore, for the purpose of looking for the unfortunate people left
to the northward" (now reduced in number to Mrs. Fraser and
Baxter, who were kept jealously separated). "His Excellency the
Governor has been solicited by the agents, and, we believe, has
signified his intention of sending a vessel in search of the
carpenter and boatswain."

Accordingly, it appears Captain Roach and the " Prince
George " were despatched, to go to Moreton Bay, and bring
thence, Mrs. Fraser and the six survivors of the "long boat
crew," and the story had increased, "gathered," and in the
Gazette of the i8th of October, was given. At the latter end of
the London sensational account, ichose was the mancjeuvrinsf

*The earliest and probably least garbled account of the recovery •©£ the seamen.

A Yarn ''Yarded."

II I

spoken of as that " entered into by a convict, who had been fur
some years in the bush aniontr the savages ?" Mrs. Fraser's far-
apart descriptions of the circumstances attending her husband's
death are strangely at variance too.

Her escape by the help of a runaway convict, to Brisbane,
was spoken of in my day. I heard no more as to his disposal.
Who was this Graham? Such a name never reached our ears.

Who can find the record of a " free pardon and reward of
thirty guineas," granted to the " convict, to whose extraordinary
exertions" she "owed her escape?" Cannot this be linked on
to Bracefell's own declarations to us at Wide Ray from the first ?

One record alone perhaps could settle the question, viz.,
Lieutenant Otter's own report of the event, if there be any in
existence. If such is to be discovered, it must be in London.
And where's Lieutenant Otter ? Poor Bracefell told the truth.
Had he been caught when he brought in Mrs, Fraser, we should
not have found him, in 1842, where we did. It, doubtless, suited
Mrs. Fraser that she should be reported as one of the party
rescued by Lieutenant Otter, under the guidance of " Graham."

The presumption is justifiable that Baxter had — as his
shipmates dispersed among the tribes had done — escaped from
his captors, who had, under the aspect of Bracefell's story, grown
less watchful ; and that of the " crew " spoken of by Baxter as
having been " released by a person named Graham " (who well
might have been a reality — a prisoner of the better class usually
selected to attend upon and do work for the surveying parties),
according to the Sydney Gazette of the i8th of October, 1836.
Baxter himself was one. What more probable, too, that the
vigilance of the natives having subsided, Mrs. Fraser and
Bracefell made their escape about the same time in the manner
he spoke of to us at Wide Bay? Is it likely that if Baxter
had had any knowledge of the method, or been in any way
connected with Mrs. Fraser's method of evasion, and had they
been in company in effecting it, he would have omitted to make
mention of her in his own statements ?

The conclusion — to me at least — seems most reasonable,
that the " crew " met and brought in by the surveying party had
fallen in with each other in their one course of escape to the
southward (Brisbane), consisted of the survivors, including
Baxter ; and that about the same time Mrs. Fraser had been, as
said, guided, to " Meginchen " by Bracefell — the sole witness to

312 Genesis of Queensland.

her degradation, and the sole being to whom she had placed
herself under a heavy obligation which she dared not ignore
while he was by her side, and might never be able to fulfil.
Bracefell (when, in expressive slang, she " rounded upon him ")
left her in terror, and she was safe. Did she ever dream of his
reappearing upon the stage in a new character ? No ! So she
became identified with those rescued by Lieutenant Otter and
brought to Sydney by Captain Roach in the revenue-cutter
" Prince George." Her imposition upon the Londoners, which I
shrink from explaining, but recollect well, tallied well with my
to-day conjectures as to her character. The "issue" of the
general sympathy is "pillowed" on my recollection of laughable
frauds successfully practised at that time in London.

The Bunnia-Bunnia {araiicaria Bidwellii),\\\\\c\\ expresses so
much in aboriginal traditions, claims a few remarks before
passing on from Wide Bay.

Andrew Petrie, who held the post of "foreman of works,"
January, 1836, under the Government, at Brisbane, was the first
white, intelligent discoverer of this tree, sometime, I think, in
1838. Under the guidance of some blacks, he had visited a spot
on which it grew, took a drawing of it, and brought in a samph;
of the timber, the finding of which, and his opinion as to its
value he at once reported. It got the name of "pinus Petriana ;"
deservedly, I should have thought, but not, it seemed, in accord-
ance with the manorial rights of red-tape.

Shortly after my return to Cecil Plains, on the Condamine,
from this boating trip to Wide Bay, I started off for the purpose
of following up the track which Eales' sheep, led by Jolliffe, had
already, with the help of Davis through the range, left behind
him en route to the Monoboola, in search still of a run. At
Kilcoy, a station high up one of the Brisbane affluents, formed
by Evan and Colin Mackenzie, 1 found an attache to the Botanical
Society in London, of which Dr. Lindley was the presiding spirit.
His name was Bidwell. In search of fresh specimens of vege-
tation, he had got so far, intent upon finding Bunnia speci-
mens, and, if possible, obtaining some young plants, which he
could send home in a Wardian case. Little used to the bush, he
was glad of my offer to help him, the Bunnia district being on
my course Northwards.

In a very few miles, we found, under a magnificient scion of
this family, no less than ten healthy seedlings. Bidwell spudded

Red Tape and Rank Revels. 31 j

up but three, and sent them to London by the tirst ship. (Jne of
these I saw at Kew Gardens in 1856. Half-hardy, it was in a
glass-house, about twelve feet high, strong and promising.
Another at Chatsworth, equally flourishing. What became of
the third, I cannot tell.

Being reported in this fashion, it became known, de rigueur,
as the. " araucaria Bidwellii'^ for all time ; the true worker's —
Petrie's — solid claim was outbid by the less title to fame. I can
recollect cones of the Bunnia being sold at "Stevens'"* for ten
guineas each. There were but three ; one, of course, went to
Chatsworth.

The Bunnia bears but once in three years. Of the habits of
the blacks, when assembled at their annual feast, I need say no
more than I have. As to their cannibal doings, I can add
nothing, but that as the white man, " makromme," is looked upon
as a resuscitated meal of the past, they make no ado about eating
him as he is, believing, that they are unable a second time to
deprive him of what he has already parted with — his skin ! They
extract always the bones of arms, legs and thighs before cooking.
Such is men's food! Pluck and heart, women's. One horrible
and unnatural exemption in favor of this female indulgence in
such gastronomy, is, that the mother is permitted always to eat
her child, if a female, should it die ; but the father always pays
the same delicate attention to his male infant !

There is one grand occasion, a d'escriptive account of which
to any detailed extent, I never succeeded in obtaining from
Bracefell nor Davis. There was a shyness in answering any
question as to an important ceremonial called the Bundinavah,
which was unmistakeable. No women, under pain of death,
were suffered to witness, or be in the vicinity of its performance.
It was some kind of right in which the old men were high priests.
Whether from some repulsive obscenities enacted on the occasion,
or, at any rate, some dread of disclosing to civilised men these
Eleusinian mysteries, I know not, but the reluctance to approach
the question was evident. The tourr circus was always used on
the occasions of the Bundinavah:

After this formidable ceremonial — whatever it was — occurred
the occasions of marrying and giving in marriage. The young
aspirant to the hand — not the heart, which is beneath his notice

* Covent Garden, London.

314 Genesis of Queensland.

— of some bewitcher, he having already made it all right with the
old men, and his mates in the tribe, skips, on a moonlight night,
to the topmost branch of a tree, in the mode already shown me
by Davis. Bewitcher does the same up another at a little
distance. The youth begins to plead in plaintive phrases ;
bewitcher replies with a laugh, and chaff, and " I wish you may
get it !" Youth gets angry and retorts ; chaff on both sides
becomes more voluble ; the squatting audience at the camp fire
laugh when their fancies are tickled ; grunt approval at any
unusually smart rejoinder, or slapping their thighs, signifying
our clapping the hands. And when an old man rises, and makes
a speech to the couple perched above, no end of slapping denotes
their applause. Much more feelingly than "hear! hear !" Down
comes the wooing swain, and down comes she; and led by an
old man to a cleared pathway, which traversed the bush some
hundred yards, the happy pair find their " Gretna Green " at the
end of it ; on which is set up the humpy prepared for a honey-
moon establishment. Blessed in their ignorance of the lawful
privileges of a white sisterhood's British privileges, the sable
belle would dare upon no domestic bargaining for her lord's
birthright breeches! Woe, unto thee, bewitcher! if thou
offendest the loving bridegroom but the next day, by some pert
assumption of yesterday's past freedom ! Woe, unto thee ! if
thou steppest over his feet while lying lazy on the ground of his
new dwelling place ! Woe, unto thee ! if when called to the circle
of your lords round the council fire, you dare pass through the
royal ring! Woe, unto thee! if thou darest approach but as a
half-starved dog — from behind ! The spear or the waddie would
surely end thy woes !

1 have found that any account of native habits in the tribe
cannot, as a rule, be accepted as accurate with respect to the
practices even in a neighbouring district. Yet invariably, as
theif trees in Antipodean whim, would shed their bark, so would
the sable belles their hair; not, however, in puerile pride, after the
fashionof^z/r ladies' "Dianx" days nor(beingguilelessof Darwin-
ian dishonour) in desire of evidencing cercopithecan descent, by
wearing the burden of the nape's natural glory, in Simian
frontispieced emulation of the ape'smuzzle. As to tribal character-
istics no dependence can be placed upon the knowledge of those
found in one of these bush families as applicable to the race
aboriginal in the surrounding country. About Wide Bay, the

Pare7iial Pathways. 315

mother's affection for her infant appears to have; had no place
among their instincts : and at Darling Downs again I have
known a young mother — at Rosalie Plains — deliberatc-ly sling
her infant's head against a stump, because it cried and annoved
her; but tenderly suckled a young pup which had no nurse!
Again, in the tribes about Moreton Bay, — that at Amity Point —
the " Malurbine,'' and " Moppys," maternal and paternal affection
were indubitable and prevailed, I think ; but was not so easily
observable among the natives of the Duke of York's, the Ningy-
Ningy and the Pine river districts. Stealing gins was the usual
cause of quarrel in all their domestic life. They were very often
fatal : and in the heat of such embroilments, the wretched gin
rarely escaped death. If she lose her husband, she dare not
choose another: either the tribe or her relations choose for her:
any reluctance on her part, — especially if she be suspected of
a penchant elsewhere — is sure to be settled by the waddie.
Blows are their lot from birth to the burning ! for in those
days they were undoubtedly eaten. In one point their nature
never differs. They are marvellously observant of every object
in nature, more particularly those connected with their own
peculiar hunting-grounds ; upon which they rarely find others
encroaching except on some sensational occasion. I never
found them hesitate in attaching a distinguishing name to every
tree, shrub, grass, flower, bird, beast, or even insect : but yet
each tribe, as far as I know, has its own dialect, — if not language
— which stamps their locality much, I suppose, in the way that
the provincialisms of our own counties in England do.

Again, they know every acre of ground belonging to their
"house" by its own special name: every mile of a river or
water-course bears its own appellation, from the highest source to
the mouth, the mouth or junction itself always having a separate
name of its own. I found this universal — as far as I had been
amongst them — beginning at Cecil Plains, when I found that the
spot on which I had built my first hut was called " Boyeer:" and
pacing but a few hundred yards away up and down the Conda-
mine was treading ground under another designation ; and so,
mile by mile, I found that there was no word given for the
space we would walk over, approaching in similarity by sound
or length to what had been before pronounced. I know of no
method they had of signifying distances but by the sun — journey
by time.

31 6 Genesis of Queensland.

Such are the alignments of the streets and highways made
by the Australian aboriginal of the north. They can direct each
other almost to within a hundred yards of an intended rendezvous.
They have favourite haunts, whether through the fashion of the
day — cest a dire, our Rotten Row in London, or marine espla-
nades, when the " season " was over — or whether through the
craving for some particular food, par example, our best-liked
restaurants, chop houses, or lish dinners, I cannot tell ; but I do
know their dislike to camping near or frequenting places where a
man has died a natural death and been buried, sometimes under
ground, sometimes in a hollow tree.

CHAPTER XVIII

God made the country, and man made the town. — Cowper.

A FEW days' rest in Brisbane — for I had none in Sydney, had
looked at no newspaper, written no letters when last there,
and had felt at one time too ill to care for n(>ws — gav(! me a
chance of recouping the time of my inattention since my brother's
arrival. The Sydney Gazette was still the accredited purveyor
of information as to outside goings on, and this was attainable
even in 1842. (Many an excised relic is now before me, 1887.)
Almost the first thing that met my eye was of the date of June
19th, 1 84 1, two days after I had left Sydney with my brother, last
year ! The name at the foot of the following announcement
struck me, since it had become so familiar to these parts. I
copy it for the name's sake, and here it is :

" Penrith Races. — At a meeting held at the Rose Inn, Penrith, on
Tuesday, 15th instant, for the purpose of establishing annual races at
Penrith, it was unanimously resolved :

"That an association be formed, to be called 'The Penrith Racing
Club.

" That a general meeting of members and those favourable to the
Club be held at the Rose Inn, Penrith, on Tuesday, the 29th June, at
one o'clock.

" That Messrs. Hadley, Perr}% Dawes, Templar, and Leslie be
appointed to receive subscriptions. — Patrick Leslie, Acting Secretar)'."

Well, after finding Darling Downs two years ago, I could
not have settled down so restfully.

Then, I see, that the two blacks who had murdered poor
Stapylton, at Moreton Bay, were hung on the 2nd of July, 1841,
at Brisbane, near my old quarters, the gaol.

Let me try back. I was on the road at the end of the
previous year. What became of those bushrangers, the Jew-boy
and his gang? Day took them all, but what became of them?
That was a plucky thing to do; Denny Day was indeed a good
old soldier ; now Police Magistrate at Maitland I hear ! (Writing
in this year of 1887 I do wonder what became of that gallant old
fellow. I remember that time, and was not far from Scone when
Graham was murdered at Dangar's store ; also, that there was a
J. P. near at hand, who refused to grant a warrant for the appre-

3i8 Genesis of Queensland.

hension of the murderers. That J.P.'s name was Robertson ;
what Robertson could it have been ? Well, the country has paid
little attention to the claim of so trusty, brave, and resolute
a servant as Denny Day. I suppose he had no friend at Court ;
he was too true a man to be a " tuft-hunter " in his advancing
years. I passed through Doughboy Hollow but three days after
his engagement with the captain of the outlawed gang, and was
spared the quickened pulse and anxious vigilance which had
inflicted many a dig of the spur in past months upon the
wayfarer's jaded hack, as he passed the dreaded den of thieves.
For such personal relief I yet am glad, forty-six years afterwards
to offer my own tribute to his honest name, brave nature and
memory.)

Ah! me Herd e I here comes something to recall that pleasing
evening at Campbelltown last February. I must reproduce this
newspaper cutting : the gist thereof has a certain bearing upon
my present conclusions : —

" Arrival of Sir Thomas Mitchell."

"(The concluding paragraph of a leader in to-day's Sydney Gazette
of Saturday, February 6, 1841.)

" If any man deserve well of his country, it is he who explores and
discovers unknown tracts of country. To men such as these, statues
might be indeed erected during their life-time."

February 20th.

"Dinner to Sir Thomas Mitchell."

" On Saturday evening last a number of highly respectable gentle-
men met in Petty's Hotel at a dinner given to Sir Thomas, as a slight
mark of the high esteem he was held in by them.

" In a late number we suggested the propriety of giving Sir Thomas
Mitchell a public mark of that grateful feeling which all true Australians
must feel towards the man who first opened the way to an extensive and
important field of enterprise. We are still of that opinion, and we now
call upon our brethren of the press, who feel as we do, to use their
influence to accomplish this object ; it is a matter apart from politics,
for the benefits that have resulted from Sir Thomas's exertions in
exploring the hidden recesses of this vast territory have fallen alike to
all : the rich and the poor have all been partakers, and surely there is
not one amongst us that would not unite in offering their tribute of
respect to one so worthy and deserving. Some base minds may say,
' what Sir Thomas did he was bound to do, and he was paid for so
doing ;' with these we have nothing in common. Up then, men of

Pioneers' Pluck Prized. — The Priced 31c)

Australia, up and be stirring ! Among those present were the I lonourabK-
E. Deas Thomson, Mr. Attorney-General I'lunket, Captain Perry, Dcputv
Surveyor-General, W. Lithgow, Esq., Auditor (General, Alcxaudcr
]\IcLeay, Esq., late Colonial Secretary, Major Innes, Port Macquarie.
Mr. Manning, senr., and Mr. Williams, American Consul. The chair
was filled by James Bowen, Esq., and amongst the several speakers on
this occasion were Dr. Nicholson, Dr. Wallace, .Mr. Williams, Mr. Charles
Campbell, Captain Perry and Mr. McLeay. During a short speech
Sir Thomas made, in allusion to the toast of Dr. NichoLson in proposing
'the officers of the Survey Department,' he alluded feelingly to the
melancholy death of his former friend and associate, the late lamented
Mr. Stapylton, who was lately cruelly butchered by the northern blacks.'

I wish I could have seen Patrick Leslie's name amongst
those present at that dinner.

The murder of poor Stapylton, w^hose remains were buried
near at hand on the banks of this river Brisbane, still occupied
the thoughts of many in Sydney and this place. The report ol
the trial of two of his murderers, whose execution 1 have just
mentioned, which I met with and also copied may be yet
interesting. I give the summary.

Two aboriginals, Merridio and Neugavil, of Moreton Bav,
were indicted before Mr. Justice Burton and a common jury on
the 14th of May, 1841, for the wilful murder of William Tuck,
at Mount Lindesay, on the 31st of the j)receding May.
Merridio's name was properly Mullan. The jjrisoners were
charged with having murdered one Tuck, but in detailing the
circumstances connected therewith it was impossible to keep out
of sight the fact that another murder had been committed by the
blacks at the same time. Stapylton, assistant-surveyor, had also
been killed. On the morning of the day laid in the indictment
Stapylton sent a party to make a bridge over a creek about a
mile from the encampment, himself. Tuck, and Dunlop remaining
at the camp. On the return of the working party they found
Stapylton dead as w^ell as Tuck, and supposed Dunlop was dving
from wounds inflicted by the blacks, who had all flt.'d, carrying
off every article they could lay their hands on. The party
hastened to Brisbane and reported to the commandant, who at
once proceeded to the scene, and rescued Dunlop, who, having
crawled away, was discovered by a constable. Me recovered.
Stapylton's body was too much mutilated for recognition. His
head had been cut off, and the fiesh eaten. Identification being

320 Genesis of Queensland.

so difficult, these prisoners were charged with the murder of
Tuck. The evidence was complete, and the verdict " guilty."
His Honor then passed sentence of death on the prisoners in the
usual form, which, when Baker (" Gorman's Baker, in search of
Etonvale!") an interpreter, communicated to them, they broke
out by telling him in a most indifferent way, " What of that — let
them hang us !"

The " Piscator '' schooner brought them back to Brisbane,
and they were extinguished, as I have said.

And here I find a memorandum : " Leslie's discovery of
Darling Downs was noticed in the Sydney Herald oi ist May,
1840, under heading, ' Important Discovery !' " After it, he did
not reach Sydney until the 28th of July, however. Another
memorandum that transportation had ceased to New South
Wales on the ist of August, 1840 ! And here is Letsome and
Boyd's case, at length brought to a conclusion in the Supreme
Court on the i6th of February, 1841. Nominal sentence on
Archibald Boyd. I was present at the outbreak, at the beginning
of 1840, at Maitland : cannot wonder that Boyd lost his temper.
The Major grossly insulting.

Ah ! here is another river, discovered last December — the
'' Albert," into the Gulf of Carpentaria. Stanley, I suppose, in
the " Britomart."

How amusing to read a letter like the following, written
when Moreton Bay was still a close settlement, and before there
was any assurance of approach thereunto from the west. It
appeared on z^pril 9, 1840: — "We have been kindly favoured
with the perusal of a letter from Moreton Bay by the last mail
from that settlement. It states that the grass is so abundant
on the fine plains (!) that it would be no difficult thing for the
settlers (! !) there to supply the whole of Sydney with good hay
at reasonable terms, that is to say, if persons could be found to
cut it down. . , . The hay is equal to the meadow hay
in England. . . They have no hot winds this summer.

During the season they have had, instead of hot
winds, cool, refreshing breezes, much more exhilarating than
those experienced to the southward. New settlements springing
up in all directions (!!!) . The surveyors congratulate

themselves on having opened out a portion of the finest country
yet known in New Holland, and it is acknowledged by one of
them to be superior in every respect to Port Phillip and

Wastes' Worth? 32,

Australia Felix. The opening in the Dividing Range calN-d
Cunningham's gap has been surveyed and found of easy ascent
with the pack bullocks, and a gang of twelve men could in a
fortnight make it passable for drays. This is the opening to the
extensive unknown country to the north-west, and likewise to
the settled country round New England, and an easy communi-
cation from thence to Maitland." Couleur de rose indeed !

Here comes an official report of the progress the " north
countrie" from Governor Gipps himself. What says he to Home
Secretary. I think he advised Lord John Russell to increase the
''squatters'" license from ;^io to £^0 per annum. "Among
the papers which have been laid down upon the tabU- of the
House of Commons was a despatch from Sir George Gipps."
" The Governor in his despatch," so said the Gazette, "mentions
a long-established regulation that no land could be sold bevond
the limits of certain tracts of country indicated by their division
into counties. The boundaries of county lands have come,
therefore, to be called the boundaries of location. Within these
limits land is either sold or let on lease; beyond them proprietors
of stock are to be found in the occupation of stations depasturing
their stock, the license to occupy which, though the stations vary
in extent from 5,000 to 30,000 acres, costs but ;^io annually,
the stock being assessed under a local ordinance at a small
amount per head. One of the best paying districts at present
open in the colony is to be found on the tableland called New
England, on the summit of a ridge of mountains extending
parallel to the sea coast between the latitudes of 26 deg. and
32 deg. Here are to be foumi sixty-six stations. Towards the
north, stations already extend to the country behind Moreton
Bay, three hundred miles beyond the limits of location.
From the pastoral districts to the north of Sydney, and behind
Port Macquarie, the Clarence river, and Moreton Bay, or
between the 32nd and 25th degrees of south latitude, routes are
being opened to the sea."

Moreton Bay did noi lack " puffing," in expectancy of
land sales to be ere long. Here was one which the Gazette
gave out at this time (December, 1841) in the interests
of the Government : — " A settlement on the cast coast of
Australia, situated in latitude south 27 deg. 30 min., and longitude
153 deg. 10 min., has been a penal settlement for about twenty
years. All the penal prisoners have lately been sent away, and

322 Genesis of Queensland.

Mr. Dixon and party have been upwards of two years carrying
on a survey, preparatory to its being thrown open for location.
The climate is fine and healthy, the soil of the richest description,
clothed with abundance of grass, and well watered, having the
fine rivers Brisbane and Logan, navigable for steamers a
considerable distance from the coast, on the banks of which coal,
lime, and iron can be obtained. The facilities offered by this
beautiful part of the colony have induced an immense number
of large stockholders to take up squatting licences both on the
east and west sides of the great Dividing Range, and it is
supposed that upwards of i,ooo bales of avooI will be shipped at
Brisbane Town after the present shearing is over. Brisbane
Town, the present settlement, is situated about sixteen miles up
the river Brisbane, pleasantly on rising ground, and consisting
of several good and substantial buildings. The present popu-
lation, consisting of the civil officers, troops, and convicts,
amounts to about two hundred and eighty souls ; the Govern-
ment stock consisting of about 1,000 head of cattle and 12,000
sheep. Little doubt remains but that this will soon, when
open, become a fine flourishing settlement. A map of this part
of the colony, by Mr. Dixon, is now in the publisher's hands."

Coming to the end of my batch of Gazette memoranda, I
find that last February, on the 12th, were issued three notices,
two of which much affect us here at Brisbane. They are
authorised by despatches recently received from England : one
is a proclamation notifying that the penal days of Moreton Bay
are at an end ; it is now thrown open as Port Macquarie was not
so long since : the other is to inform the people that Moreton
Bay is to be opened for settlement, and that the first sale will be
that of allotments of land in Brisbane, at the Colonial Treasury,
by auction in Sydney, next July. And the third declares that
" sale by auction " is to be reverted to in all parts of the colony,
at a minimum price which can never be less than twelve shillings
an acre. And so we are going ahead indeed in 1842. This
month an agitation seems to be getting up for representative
government. Hitherto we've done fairly well, I think. And
over that wretched road from New England to Port Macquarie,
at length, they have got their first wool. On the i6th March, my
own birthday — good omen 1 hope ! — here's a " leader " about
Sir George Gipps' proposed trip to Moreton Bay ; here, our
departure in March; arrival; Mis Excellency's doings; Watson

Piece-mealed Proirress. ^2\

Parker's collar-bone ; and theii return to Sydney at the
beginning of April.

We have plenty of "trumpeters" it seems! Who i uuUl
have been our mutual friend that writes thus from Moreton Bay?
"I do not know how to describe the beauty of this place. The
settlement is situated about twenty-five miles from the extremity
of the Bay, and fifty from the sea, occupying a delightful
position on the north side of a beautiful river, much larger than
the Hunter at its junction with the Williams. It is my opinion,
as well as the opinion of many others, that here will be the most
flourishing town in New South Wales. Small shipping can
come a distance of a hundred miles ; you would be surprised to
see the traffic here already" (Dec. 1841), "bound up as the place
is from its being a penal settlement. In coming over from the
Downs we met and passed seventeen drays, about twenty-two
thousand sheep, one hundred men, and one hundred and thirty
bullocks. In fact, all the flock-masters seem flocking here as
fast as they can, people are just behind us w'ith sixteen thousand
sheep and other stock, and when there are so many coming,
there must be some traffic at the Bay. The country is the finest
I have ever seen, either for grass or cultivation. Some
shepherds have been murdered in the employment of Mr.
Mackenzie, of Kilcoy, by the blacks," who have become very
troublesome, being led on and instigated by runaway convicts,"
is an extract dated March 19th, 1842. This, then, was the cause
of our disquietude when we fell in with Derhamboi.

The tone of the "press'" is marvellously changed since 1842
concerning the labour question ! I must re-copy one of my
memoranda, so long lost, until now. From a leading article 1
read " to make Moreton Bay one of the most valuable adjuncts
of this colony, nothing is wanting but a large and regular supply of
Indian and Chinese labourers! Men who thoroughly understand
the culture of tropical plants and fruit trees, and to whose consti-
tution the climate is well suited. Should this supply be afforded
us, v/e should not find men of capital and experience diffident
in availing themselves of the advantages offered by this district."

I have exhausted my batch of records, which deal with
matters outside my immediate camp, and betake myself to my
own track again, in search of a run.

I had by this time heard that Glover and the sheep had
arrived on the Downs on the 31st of last month — May, 1S42. I

324 Genesis of Queensland.

must be off to him. Among my adieux to my late associates
was a pair of boots to Bracefell and Davis, who, I thought, would
be proud to complete the new dress to which they had been so
long unaccustomed. After much ado they got them on at the
little store near the water-side at the ferry steps — Moutry's, I
think. " Good-bye to you now." said I. They both made a step
forward at the words, and both fell flat on their noses ! I was
told afterwards that they, for a long while, carried their boots
about in their hands. They couldn't walk in them !

The interval between my departure from Brisbane in this
June, after my return from Wide Bay, and my start again into
the bush after a sheep-run, was not altogether one of my happy
recollections. Glover and the sheep had made an admirable
journey across country from Bathurst, some six hundred miles,
had suffered no losses, and were, for the time at least, on Cecil
Plains awaiting my future hoped-for success. Somerville,
superintendent for Richard Jones, of Sydney, had followed my
brother's tracks on the 7th November, 1841, and had marked off
for himself the lower part of our run of "Cecil Plains" ("jumped"
is the phrase used now by gold-gourmands), which extended
down the Condamine, from Gore's marked tree to the junction
of the Jondaryan, " Oaky creek," and had sent up stock to take
possession. Consequently, until the matter was settled by
Commissioner Macdonald's intervention, we were, with sheep
and cattle, sorely cramped for room. In a short while, having to
take delivery of the sheep some time since bought from Hodgson
in Sydney, he with great kindness allowed Glover and ni)'
brother room on the lower part of Etonvale creek for the sheep
until our run was found. They moved, in consequence, to the
lower part of Hodgson and Elliot's station, about three miles
below the Drummer's. We all had been hitherto in ignorance
that a neighbour some miles to the southward, a sheep-owner,
had scab amongst his flocks. Some of this same neighbour's
careless shepherds lost some hundreds one night, and they
strayed to and mixed with ours, which had come so long a
distance scathless ! I need not dwell on the miserable discovery
and its results. A line old fellow — a German of the name of
Fred Bracker, in charge of stock belonging to the Australian
Company on a run near Toolburra, called " Rosenthal," sent us
a man who calh <1 hiniself " Jemmy Carter," whom we, new
chums as we were, received w ilh jjfladness as an eminent member

No Quack Honour ! .^25

of the scab-curing faculty. Between the mercurial abominations
with which the place soon stank, the sickness of men who rubbi-d
the " fell " ointment in, the putrid carcases of the wretched
animals, which died by scores from the effect of this " smearing"
(common process, however, in the eastern counties of England),
and from extreme thirst, for they were allowed no water for
some days : the extortionate wages, and terrifying expense, oui
"squatting" hopes began to sink so low that the Downs lost
most of its former beauty in our eyes. Hodgson himself was
naturally alarmed, and hoped we should soon remove our
hospital. And so, as soon as what was absolutely required at
Cecil Plains had been completed, I started off to find a permanent
resting place and home for what remained to us of the unhappv
sheep. However, that remainder was cured at length.

Thus, in the interval of waiting for a fixed abiding place for
our sheep — search and success — it happened that Hodgson and
Elliot had in sympathetic kindness helped us. The spot at which
Glover and my brother pitched their tent was at a stony point.

At the tent door one hot day we sat sorrowful — but smoking.
From this tent we used to practise with rifle and pistol at a
mark. The lovely plain up the creek, down the creek, and rising
gently towards a belt of timber some two miles distant in front
of us, set us conjecturing as to the possibility of finding such
another paradise for ourselves, ere long ; as to the probability of
getting shepherds and bullock-drivers willing to go with us, so
dire was the dearth of working hands. Some of ours had quite
lately left. They had been with us more than two years, and
wished to see Limestone and Brisbane — the ready recipients of
accumulated w'ages. " Who comes here, Dick ? " (Glover's
name was William Henry : I can't explain '' Dick " : he was
always familiarly so called). "Who comes here, down the
creek; on foot too! From Hodgson no doubt!" Walking
through tall grass under a burning sun, over fourteen miles ol
" melon-hole " plain, was no pleasurable exercise. " Who can it
be ? " repeated Dick Glover.

On nearer approach we recognised " Peter Quack," a man
who had been with us from the beginning. He had been a
sailor, had never told us his real name, had changed it to Quack,
was truly Peter.

" Why, Peter ! " cried Dick, " what brings you back ? " He
had left us but two days before, intent upon indulging his bent

326 Genesis of Queensland.

in revisiting a township once more, and most regretfully — he was
such a'handv, grumpy, but at bottom ready and willing an old
fellow — he had been "settled with."

Peter looked puzzled : took off his old cabbage tree ;
swabbed his bald head, and gave a kind of snort, at the question :
he was very taciturn at all times. "Well ! Peter, have a pot of
tea, there's salt mutton and damper : haven't a glass of grog for
you, wish we had after such a hot tramp ; but what has brought
you back ? Any bad news ? "

" Well, sir," — ^after a long pull at a water can, and as long a
silence until he had filled his pipe and taken his first pull at that
— "well, sir I no bad news for you, may be for me: that's as may
be, too, with them as takes it in a different light from what I
do ! " and Quack again scratched his smooth pate. " Out with
it, Peter, " cried Glover — and we were equally puzzled. " Out
with it, man! what's wrong? We'll try to set it right": we
liked Peter Quack.

"Thank'ee, gen'lmen,'' croaked he; "the long and short of
it is this. As I was a lying on my back near the head station —
Mr. Huggerson had just gone : come to see what I was about,
camping thereabouts — lying on my back smoking my pipe, I
thought I would take a squint at my account which you gave me
when you settled my wages."

Under a natural misapprehension we looked at each other
dolefully, and meaningly. Quack's keen eye detected our
glance.

" No, gen'lemen, I knowed it wur all right, but the fire by
my side was blazing up you see, and put it into my head : so I
got it out and looked it up and down, and didn't think ther'd
a-been so much a-coming to me as you made out : I began to
think over all I had from the store since we got here to Darling
Downs. I used to say it all over by nights, you see, 'cause I
can't write, and only read a bit : and so I used to make it ship-
shape that way here," touching his forehead ; "and so I just put
the bit paper down and ran it over and up as I used when
a-shepherding of the sheep. Well I what d'ye think ? 1 found
you had never entered my last pair of boots in your log-book —
fourteen shillings — which I had three months agone. I'm right,
gen'lemen ; more by token, these 'ere dratted stones soon made
' boots ' of them ! There's fourteen shillings more to come out
o' this 'ere money which you guv me. Thinking on't made me

First Spear, 027

yaw about so much after the start I'd luadr, Ix-tvvccn mv want to
go over the range and wanting to make it all scjuarc with you,
that I said this morning when the sun got up : ' Peter Quack,'
says I, ' 'twon't make much of a difference : only two days to
make all right and above board with them gen'lemen. 'So,
Peter Quack,' says I, ' trip it back again in your own wake, and
when you get ashore you'll not be heavy in the heels from this
being on your mind.' So, you see, here I am ! here's your
money ! I'm not a hungry loafer, nor a 'long-shore sneak !"

How true, O ! Shakespeare, is thy word to the world : " An
honest man is able to speak for himself when a knave is not."

And this man had not " come out" of his own accord to
New South Wales. Our grave and wondering silence was the
only tribute we were able at first to pay to the essential [)riiuipl< ,
the one (who can say but one ?) illumining, unquenched and
unquenchable spark in the man's nature, of that light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

On the day following he would not go away again : re-en-
gaged himself : and when Burrandowan passed out of the hands
of my brother and Glover, Peter came to Cecil Plains, and stayed
with me until I left the bush.

The first white man killed on Darling Downs was the very
"John " who rode up with Pemberton Hodgson and myself at
the end of 1840. Shortly after the head-station had been
removed to the present site of Etonvale, poor John, who had
ridden out to see to the cattle, came back at a mad gallop with a
spear sticking out of his back. He never rallied : was buried
close by the creek's bank.

I cannot deny myself the pleasure of here inserting an
extract from a letter which bears me back to the days when I
frequently met and can well recall its writer — Christopher Gorry —
at this time of 1887 residing in Ipswich:

"I suppose you rememberthe three" — (an errorforlwo) — '' fine youn.u;
men who were killed by the blacks on their way to your station in the
middle of Coxen's Big Plain. I suppose you have some recollection of
the grand shot that ' Cocky Rogers ' made from a point of the main
range to the top of the one-tree hill on the old road, (from which tlic
distance was more than a mile and a-half). The blacks were dancing ami
bellowing their war-song at the time, and this big blackfellow was more
prominent than the rest. ' Cocky ' took true aim at his head with his
rifle, and struck the black somewhere in the body, which made him

328 Genesis of Queensland.

rebound six feet high, and all the tribe then commenced to roll the
stones of the hill down the incline, fancying they could kill all the whites
on the flat. I cannot tell the date, but it was a month or so after the
killing of those men going to your station, poor John Hill and myself
were attacked near Mount Rascal. John started early one morning for
the camp, in order to lake home some bullocks. He told me to come
after him in about half-an-hour, and to my surprise I met poor John
Hill with a spear right between his shoulders, with his horse galloping
home, and John sticking to the saddle with the spear dangling against the
horse's rump, till he arrived at the slip-panel near the house (Etonvale :
Hodgson and Elliot's), with myself close after him. Mr. Elliot came to
his relief with myself and others, and lifted poor John off the horse,
and had to cut vest and shirt on each side of the spear wound, ere
we could take it from the wound in his body fully four and a-half inches.
He lived in great pain. I was sent for Dr. Rolland at his Broadwater
station, who attended on him for a week, but held out no hope of his
recovery. He lingered on for eighteen days and died.

" ^Myself and another station hand attended to his requirements up
to his death. In those days there was no coffin to hand, so we made a
shroud of his blanket, and buried his body in a sheet of bark in a little
flat near the garden on the bank of the creek. Mr. Elliot read the usual
burial service, and thus finished the life of John Hill, of Rickmansworth,
Hertfordshire, England."'

The blacks had been more aggressive of late than ever.
They were harrying and killing cattle wherever cattle were.
The shepherds were in a terrible state of "funk," and no wonder.
My brother had caught them, when crossing the plain between
Yandilla and Tummavil in company with Ralph Gore and
Taylor, coolly rounding a mob up in the open, and preparing to
kill. A " set-to " was the consequence. The blacks numbered
about three hundred, and kept admirable order and showed
unusual courage. Upon the firing of a shot, the " ducking " of
heads and rush on their assailants were instantaneous, well
arranged, and executed. Syd.'s horse was fidgetty;_ so he
jumped off and let him loose. The " brummagem " double-
barrelled gun which he had — mine, however — burst in his hands
without doing damage ; and it must have been quite half-an-hour
before the mob, which showed a steady line throughout, had
retreated, step by step, to the timber which skirted the western
edge of the plain, and only then turned tail. A large flock of
our sheep had been allowed, by our sociable neighbour, Charles
Coxen, to remain on his run within a couple of miles of his head

Blacks' Shepherding. 22g

station, Jondaryan, for awhile. One night liis nephew, llcnrv
Coxen, rode to Cecil Plains, and entered our hut with grave face.
" Your sheep are all gone ; both men an- killed by the
blacks !" was the cheerful message he brought. Coxen believed
in conciliating the blacks by admitting them at all times to iiis
head quarters, and supplying them with all in his power to give-
We did not agree on this point. " Keep them at a distance,''
said we, "and they will not harm you." " No ! 1 let them in,
and give them blankets, &c. Depend on it, they under-
stand kind treatment." " As soon as they feel at home
they will take an opportunity, when off your guard, to kill,
steal, &c."

And here was the test of this experiment. Two harmless
men (the name of one was Cooper), late arrivals from England,
were murdered in an atrocious manner. The bodies, which wc
found next day, were horribly mutilated ; and yet for weeks they
had all been on most friendly terms : the men had evidently
gone to the creek unarmed : the blacks, seeing their chance, had
intercepted their return, and murdered them with the reaping
hooks found in the hut.

In two days we had tracked down and recovered the flock,
minus those killed and eaten. In fact the natives had deter-
mined to rise against us on all sides. The roads were dangerous.
A new one had been made and cleared through dense scrub by a
combination of drays — Hodgson and Elliot's and Gore's, I can
remember — over the range, which left Hell's Hole in obscurity.
It ran by the heads of Westbrook water-course, by the Springs
(Drayton), through the *' Swamps " (Toowoomba) to the front,
and from that by a less irritating " spur " than usual to the
bottom of the range, where the scrub-cutting commenced and the
blacks beset the wayfarers in safety. In this scrub were to be
seen, at night, myriads of fire-flies, and the nerves of the men,
camped the first night with these drays, were much shaken.
"The blacks are on us !" was a sudden shout in the van. "Look
at their fire-sticks!" Poor insects! Many must have been
annihilated by the fusillade so provoked by their beauteous
coruscations.

The times on and around Moreton Bay and Darling Downs
were troublous, and claimed attention at our pnscnt home —
Cecil Plains — nevertheless, I must get abroad, I decided, and at
least try for a sheep-run.

330 Genesis of Queensland.

Before making the trial a saddening rumour had floated to
the Downs. Francis Bigge had been murdered I Avery precise
account of the manner appeared in the newspapers of the pre-
ceding August. It was now November, 1842: "We learn that
between two places, named Muswellbrook and Aberdeen, a highly
.esteemed and much to be regretted gentleman, Mr. Bigge, on his
return to the new country, Moreton Bay, was attacked while
superintending the removal of his horses and cattle to that
district by four desperadoes, known as bushrangers here, who,
sans ccremonie, commanded him to dismount the horse he rode.
Indisposed to comply, he instantly used his firearms and winged
one of the miscreants, when he was instantly fired at by two of
the lot, and fell almost momentarily dead!" Again: "We cannot
but condole the fate of poor Mr. Bigge, and hope it is the last
calamity of the kind we may hear of occurring in seeking out
this newly-opened country and land of promise, Moreton Bay.
Added to this, the unfortunate Mr. Bigge had one of his men shot
also the week before. The magistrates, with ten mounted police-
men, proceeded instantly, in hope of capturing the vagabonds;
the result is, however, not yet known."

With one man, whose name I shall not tell in this year, 1887,
my much esteemed friend Francis Bigge was driving up horses
to Mount Brisbane. A few miles before reaching the Peel he
was waylaid by the "Jew-boy " and his gang. Ordered to dis-
mount, he did so ; ordered to strip, he would not do so. He
made a dash with a small pocket pistol at the nearest man who
was covering him from behind a tree, raised it, and was at once
shot through the shoulder. He still advanced upon them (his
companion had put spurs into his horse and galloped off to the
Peel, where he reported Bigge dead !) and the whole gang ran
from him, at times turning to fire. Faint, he returned to his
horse and rode on, with the others before him, to the Peel, where
he was supposed to be past help ; got his wound dressed ; with
the police followed the scoundrels, and took them. Having to
give evidence in Sydney, he saw them hung afterwards. The
leader of the gang, after sentence, swearing that " Mr. Bigge was
the pluckiest man in the universe, and he didn't care to swing for
such a one as he !"

If I am wrong, Francis Bigge can set me right. I saw him
well, h(-arty, and strong in 1877. He is still living, I believe and
hope, in Warwickshire, England.

Bullock out-of-bounds. 331

On the 24th of the November of 1842, having with inc thr
WiUiam Orton whom I had met on the Severn in 1840, and who
was now my stockman — the very prince of stockmen, too — and
the black boy Jemmy, whom he had brought from the Severn, I
started from Cecil Plains. Our great care in prejiaration, under
existing circumstances, was the quality of our arms : and I think
with these by our sides we were quite comfortable. Jemmy liad
a carbine of mine, which he could use well. My purpose was to
follow the track which Jolliffe and Last had left by their drays
and sheep to the Wide Bay country. Davis had piloted them
through the Bunnia, since we parted at Brisbane, and they had
established themselves, I believed, on the Monoboola.

We crossed the range by the Springs road, on by Grantham,
turned to the left from the Brisbane road at Bigge's Camp, and
in course of time reached Kilcoy, Evan and Colin Mackenzie's
station. Here I met Bidwell, and Dorsey, of Limestone, a
medical practitioner. Having smashed my own, Dorsey gave
me a compass, which proved to us a very opportune gift soon
after, during the rainy weather we met wuth. Bidwell, I have
said, accompanied us to the first Bunnia tree, stopped under it
an hour, and then returned. We continued through broken
densely brushed, dismal and uninviting country, all the way to
where we found Eales' sheep. Jolliffe had been back to
Brisbane, returned thence to their whereabouts in a boat, and
had gone back again by the same way. [He was driven out to
sea, out of sight of land; had to eat a dog which was with him
for food, and reached Brisbane in a pitiable state.]

Kales' sheep were in a terrible mess ; the country was most
unsuitable ; the out-stations far away ; the blacks inveterate ;
two shepherds had already lost their lives, and but for their
isolation, I don't think a man would have remained with the
stock, or stood by the station. A rough wool-shed had been
erected. In it during the shearing — just over — a strange visitor
in the shape of a wild bullock created great disturbance and
dismay. Whilst busily engaged, the brute rushed into the midst,
horning the sheep. The men climbed to the tie-beams, and the
infuriated animal was determined to take possession. One of
the men managed to reach a musket, and he was shot from the
roof. Sleek, glossy, coal-black and unbranded, yet a bullock, he
may have been wrecked as a calf on the coast and roamed alone
over his realm of Wide Bay. Davis and Bracefell had both

332 Genesis of Queensland.

spoken in the boat about two beasts — bullocks, or bulls,
doubtless — in this district, which had been a terror to the
natives, who would shake with fright at the sound of their
bellow^ and climb to the highest trees to get a sight of the
'■ big dogs with trees in their heads." This was, I suppose, one
of them. Last described the animal as being sleek as a grey-
hound. When cut up, found to be immensely fat through his
whole carcase, and yet had not the appearance of the well-fed
" pride of the market." By his horn he must have been over
six years old. On our wanderings, on this trip, we fell in wnth
the fresh tracks of a large beast on a stream to the westward
(the Boyne) and followed it some days, but never overtook the
beef we longed for.

Leaving Last, who was sorry to be alone again, one of his
overseers and another man accompanied us, by his own wish, to
have a look at the country, as to its suitability along the route
we were going to take, for a station for himself. Our course
was to the north of west — say W.N.W. The prospect we had
from the first became more and more formidable ; so much so,
that our two companions returned the next day. The gloom of
the country we passed, or rather in part climbed over, exceeded
all expectation. Pine brush from above, below, and all around in
that dark horror which it always seemed to assume in wholly
unknown spots, frowned at us and stood in the way of our
advance. The night of that day was the most unpleasant I ever
remember having passed in the bush. A fearful storm threatened
towards sunset ; the heat had been distressing ; the shrill
challenge of the myriad locusts which had shrieked all day
through our bewildered brains had suddenly become hushed. A
moan as of distant wand or thunder portended something at hand,
the approach of which, basinned as we were among high broken
ridges, patchy-scrubbed heights, and penned in by a maze of
steep-sided gullies or gorges — we had no chance of observing,
until it came down in hurricane strength. 'Twas of no use to
seek a place in any way clear, that we might escape the danger
from the torn and strained trees around. There was no level
spot on which a horse might rest and feed ; and, but the
thunderous rain over and on us, there was no water for our
thirst's relieving. Thunder, lightning, wind and rain such as
never yet conspired to appal and unnerve us in our work. And
this was Christmas Eve !

Christmas Eve. 333

The howling and the roaring were too continuous for speech
or hearing, and so we sat and, I suppose, made up by thinking ;
a season well worth thinking about ; but in the maelstrom of
such a night where was peace ? No fire, no bed : not even a
pipe : so terrible that downpour and blast. To keeij our powder
dry we wrapped it in our one blanket each : to keep our
horses we had to hold them all night : not a word, barely a move,
as we sat side by side on a fallen tree until the dawn, which
brought in sudden quiet, and the sun of Christmas Day, 1S42,
set fire to the tops of the pine-brushed heights around and above
us, of which the very sight made us the more chill.

It had been a terribly dismal epitome of existence ! for mr
at least —

" Remembrance waked with all her busy train
Swelled at my breast, and turned the past to pain. "

(I could not tell my neighbour's thoughts) that of dwelling
through the darkness on the home-lit days of past Christmas
pleasantness, while we three were so compressed in silent help-
lessness by the forces in strife, from which destruction seemed
inevitable. Strange, that phantasmagoria of good dinners ; wine-
cheered fire-sides and Yule logs; gay ball-rooms ; and even the
earlier joys of Harrow cricket-ground pavilion feasts which
would insist upon keeping company with the realities of our
surrounding desagremens ! And then the "new chum's"
imaginings of what might have been, if he had not turned his
back on the old country. If — bah ! it seemed so childish : and
yet the burning fancies of those dreary hours did not evaporate
with the heated vapours of the morning. I bear the brand yet
very distinctly. I doubt if imagination be a blessing, at times.
The heavy and monotonous discipline of many a recurring year
has evoked out of the soil of the bushman's heart's-acre not once
or twice only, I know, the Dead-sea apple of vain and profitless
reflections. Imagination, after all, is but the fruit born of the
blossoms of memory, and dropped away from its premature
ripening into rottenness, from the branch stricken by self-will
or disappointment : the fancy of possibilities within reach no
longer : the promised but unredeemed issue of irrecoverable facts.
Yet, ah! me, it is a blessing : it does shape itself into a Nemesis,
whose heavy stock-whip brings a beast to its "bearings," and
teaches the truth, whether from the pages of pain, or the

334 Genesis of Queensland.

poetry of life : but leaves the future to its own shadowy trespass,
and stumbling anticipations.

Yet, Memory, thou fnust be Imagination's mother ! —

" Thou, like the world, th" opprest oppressing,
Thy smiles increase the wretch's woe !
And he who wants each other blessing,
In thee must ever find a foe."

Slowly but surely did the light and the heat descend upon and
find us out in our uncomfortable crib. Our soaked wardrobe
required but a scant clothes-line ; but the free and easy enjoy-
ment of the savage costume was not a little counterbalanced by
the savage attacks by fly and mosquito. This morning drill was
at an end when we resumed our dried clothes : a pot of tea,
some sodden damper, and a large iguana, shot by our taciturn
Jemmy, broke our Christmas morn's fast; and then that inestim-
able black pipe set us on our way no worse for thunder, lightning,
hail nor rain — nor the night's blue-devils.

Day by day we steadily stuck to our W.N.W. course. The
closeness and gloom of the scenes we passed through were not
relieved. Under recollection I retain the impression, but can
give no adequate idea of it. An old bushman will best under-
stand what it was, when I say that our silence one to the other
was almost unbroken through the day's ride, barrin' a few
remarks when we stopped for a " pipe." If I were taken over
the same ground such a feeling, doubtless, would be impossible,
unchanged though it may be in all its ruggedness and difficulty.
It was the sense of being in an unknown region, that every step
towards the north coast of Australia was under a veil, which we
were trying to lift, hoping for — perhaps dreading at times — what
we should find behind it, and yet, drawn by the intensity of
awakened inquisitiveness to go on, and on, and on, without one
wish to return ; nor the fear of aught, but the lack of " Nigger-
head " and ammunition ! How Orton and I used to talk over a
plan o' nights for reaching Port Essington, of which I had heard
so much from Captain Stanley, in Sydney. I had no chart, but I
knew its whereabouts ; and he, as well as I, often declared our
determination to try it together, for we had learnt to know each
other by now, and lean on each other's help and readiness.
Jemmy, too — I rarely heard his voice, poor boy ! [long since killed
by his own horse] — had lost the first fears of the blacks in a

Bushmen and Bee-hunters Indeed! 335

country which he knew not, and his bush-craft, bee-hunting,
" sugar-bag" purveyance were invaluable : to say nothing of his
ever-watchful eye for the vicinity of the " Murrie " wild blacks
and the tracks of kangaroo, on which we mostly fed, or a snake,
iguana, or wallaby, invisible to our tame eyesight. Marvellous
to me, was it, that Jemmy would so often give his wary whistle,
and point out such desirable objects, especially discoveries of the
"plants'' which the bees had made, and were yet making, in
some hollow limb high up a tree some fifty yards away from our
track. As to Orton, I can say nothing more, or more meaning,
than that he was a man whose match I do not think 1 could have
found in the breadth of the land for manly, considerate, and
intelligent bearing, thoughtful unselfishness, steadiness of purpose
in trying to gratify my wish to explore — especially having in view
the necessity of a suitable sheep-run, coolness and courage under
very discouraging aspects and trying conditions, and an unerring
eye and nerve, of which the rifle, which my brother had lent him,
on more than one occasion sustained the unquestionable gift and
reputation.

After many days and nights — for at times we were keeping
more to the northward than we had intended — we began to break
out into a clear country from a most worthless extent of moun-
tain, brush, stone, and sand. Not many miles after this pleasant
view found ourselves on the brink of a precipice, or a bank
which might have been at first sight, called one : we could not
descend : it was quite clear to the bottom, through which was
flowing a beautiful stream of water. The bank opposite was
higher, and equally precipitous. "There's a great gulf between
us and that, Orton.." " Yes ; shall we go up or down, d'ye think,
sir?" "I don't care which, but we'll log it down the ' Gulf
Stream.' "

I forget its course ; it was about north, 1 think. .So we
followed it down to where the bank declined, crossed, and rode
up the opposite side. Here was promise : from the lay of the
country there was evidently a larger stream which it probably
joined further to the west. And so, travelling in more cheerful
hope, which opened our dumb lips, even our horses jogged on
more willingly, pricking their ears at so unwonted a clearing.
With some perverseness we still kept " northing " much more
than we needed; and did not emerge absolutely from the region
which had so bewildered us for some days ; but then our pace

236 Genesis of Queensland.

was slow, and our animals leg-weary. " What do you say, sir ?"
at leno-th said Orton, " as soon as we reach that lay of water we
saw from the ' Gulf Stream,' if we take a day's spell ; 'twill do us
all o-ood, if we can. I'm sure the horses want it." So it was
settled, and we went away due west : soon came to our '' heart's
desire," dropped down on the banks of what we thought must be
the Boyne : the channel very broad-: the water-reaches unde-
niable : the black swans innumerable : the scrub-wallaby tracks
equally so : the grass enticing : the gloaming smokeless, ergo,
blackless. "Hist! Orton." Jemmy's low whistle had reached
my ears. We looked round ; he was lying on his animal's neck,
and pointing earnestly. Following the direction, we both
" spotted " a head, the " old man '' belonging to which had not
" spotted " us ; he was barely a hundred yards off. Short of
food rather of late, we had taken one or two holes up in our
belts, and I had the great satisfaction of providing the means,
now, of shaking out the reefs again. I shot him : to our
astonishment, he fell, recovered himself, seized a sapling with
his fore-paws, tore it almost up by the roots, and dropped dead.
The largest " old man." a real " old soldier," I had yet seen. I
measured him, but don't recollect the height, which was a good
deal more than my own.

We feasted that night. It was marked by a startling
occurrence.

Our teeth had hardly become unglued from the mastication
of the old man's nutritive tail, of which the gelatinous fibre would
— I thought when I first tasted it — make admirable soup for an
alderman if treated by the skill of a chef de cuisine ; — our lips
had scarcelv closed upon the stem of each chprished pipe, when
darkness settled in for the night. Very comfortable were we under
the prospect of a whole day's rest to-morrow, and so we both
rolled ourselvesup \\\\\\ ourrifles aftersmothering the brightness of
the fire, lest the darkies might "chance" that way. Jemmy,
who had remained squatting by the fire, seemed satisfied with
our security, and laid himself down likewise. In a moment he
started up again with his customary whistle : and crawled to
Orton's side, who had dozed off : quickly springing up, seizing
my rifle, and whispering to the black boy, " what name ?" he with
a terrified gesture of the hand, turning his face to the ground,
pointed upwards, whining in a low^ tone, " debil-debil!" Orton
had o-ot up and we then saw a faint luminous ray which reached

Heavenwards ! ^37

from the zenith, until lost in the tops of the trees which were our
horizon. I was sorely puzzled. So was my comrade. "Strange
part of the world, we've got to, sir!" "Strange indeed,
Orton ; but have you ever seen a comet?" "Never, but I've
seen pictures of them: some with straight tails, some curly; but
nothing that I thought more than a yard or so long ! See there !
sir; it begins right overhead, and we can't see where it ends
over those ridges ! "

True enough ! I had seen a comet : but such an appear-
ance as this was far beyond any preconceived notion of mine
as to what a comet could be. We lay looking, and
smoking, for at least an hour ; lying on our backs we stared
until — under the consciousness that it was not a " fire-
stick " — our eyes closed, and did not unclose again, till the
sun was above the silver-leaved ironbark trees and scorched
us into activity.

So enamoured had we become of this camp ere the evenino-
of that new day, that we determined to rest yet another. There
was a large fig-tree close by the banks, from which we got a
large tasteless fruit. Our practice upon the black swans gratified
our pretensions to the proper use of the rifle — (muzzle — no
breech-loaders in those days !) and the wallaby and paddy-melon
in the brush at hand made us well content — being no longer
hungry — with the world around us. There were no readable
signs of the neighbourhood of any ruthless men and brethren ;
but that they could not be far away was, though reasonable, not
a disquieting conjecture. That night the faintly-rayed streak in
the heavens presented a more startling but sublime attraction to
the gaze. It glowed with a roseate glory, the hue of which
resembled that of an Aurora Australis. Was this the angels'
pathway ? This the patriarch's vision of ascent and descent to
his pillow-stone at Luz ? I felt that it was a comet : but for
such a portentous revelation out of the depths of space what
could reassure the persuasion of my eyes ? Broader and
brighter, night by night, on our journey — now homewards — laid
itself out this celestial sign athwart one-half the dome which
vaulted the vision ; and narrower and fainter, night by night,
— long after my return to Cecil Plains — did the gentle with-
drawal of the "roseate trajectory" reconcile us to the loss of that
which had been summoned, perhaps, to lend its glories to the
senses-worship of other unseen worlds.

338 Genesis of Queensland.

The " Boyne " settled the vexed question of the Condamine.
There was no presumption after such investigation — however
incomplete — in confidently asserting that the system of waters
on which we had fallen, after crossing the heads of the more
eastern shed into Wide Bay, must be that which disgorges itself
into the Pacific north of Hervey's Bay. We had gone far enough
to see that there was a yet larger stream, with which it must have
become joined, coming far away from the westward now called,
I think, the Burnett.

We left our Comet Camp with reluctance : followed it down
until we had assured ourselves of the general "lay " of the land,
and turned up the stream in search of the best country — sure to
lie about the sources — and the nearest to our southern neighbours
on Darling Downs, which I might mark " Russell and Glover's
sheep-station."

Along the banks of this stream we had seen and followed
the fresh tracks of the fellow bush-waif, I suspect, of the beast
killed in Eales' woolshed, but did not succeed in getting a
glimpse of the animal.

On the flats of Burrandowan, ere long I shouted "Eureka,"
and, so far, my labour was over.

So far ! I say so advisedly ; for, having fixed upon the
spot, I turned my attention to the Condamine, which we knew to
be away to the westward still, and so went away towards the
setting sun : crossed a wretched, sterile, scrubby, stony ridge of
no height, which separated the heads of the Burrandowan from
those of the Condamine contributors, and at once found ourselves
perplexed by the baramba or briklow (bastard rosewood) scrubs,
which spread themselves out over the wide, flat country,
stagnating in the soakage, which cannot correctly be said to
"run" to the banks of the latter river, as far as we knew in
those days, at any rate.

Only one watercourse in any way promising did we
see, and to this I afterwards directed my friend Ewen
Cameron (of Cameron and Bell), afterwards in the office of
Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, of Sydney, in memory of whose
good deeds a statue stands now (1887) in front of the
Department of Lands. Bell and Cameron's sheep were at the
time resting on a part of the north branch of Cecil Plains, but
they soon occupied the country which I had seen, under the
name of " Cooranga."

A Morning Call. ^^q

For fifteen days did we elbow our way through this inhos-
pitable tract. Leading our horses, and plunging through one
interminable scrub into open " melon-hole " spaces encircled
thereby, into its opposite edge, almost every sunset after a hot
and breathless day would bring upon us an accompanying
thunderstorm, which in their succession seemed to vie with our
Wide Bay visitation. Our only clothes had been rent and had
rotted, and reduced to our threadbare blankets, which we con-
verted into ponchos. We then struck the Condamine, not more
than two days' ride below the Jimbour woolshed.

Early one morning, after leaving the eastern watershed, we
had suddenly come upon a tribe of blacks encamped in a small
open space in the heart of the scrub. We had not been seen,
and, out of curiosity, we approached, still unobserved, near enough
to watch their domestic arrangements. Here and there were
groups lying about warming themselves after the night's deluge ;
here gins were drawing in wood, there others blowing up fires :
spears were piled together like muskets on a march ; laughing,
jabbering, they seemed contented enough ; but what specially
attracted our surprised attention was a group of piccanninies
using miniature bows and arrows. Jemmy was as much astonished
as we ; we had never had reason to suppose that natives had
in anywise become acquainted with the use of such an imple-
ment, even as a child's toy ; and often had we spoken thankfully
of their ignorance of it as a weapon, in the use of which they
would assuredly have become exceptionally expert. On this
occasion only did I ever see, for I had never heard of, an
instance of its adoption in any shape. Before leaving this camp
I secured a specimen, which I took to Cecil Plains. It was but a
little harmless affair, made of a myall branch, and equally childish
arrows. I took a note a few days afterwards of this occurrence.

The men who were not basking were arranging their
kangaroo nets ; others were practising with the spear and
boomerang at the trees. " Dreaming of no intrusion," I have
written down " their wonder was great at seeing us. When I
shouted many rushed at once to their spear-stands, others stood
their ground, while some were hiding their weapons for use. 1
suppose, if they found occasion. These neither approached
nor retreated ; but one man, evidently not belonging to the tribe,
came forward, and to our astonishment, called out : ' Who are
you, white-fellow?' He proved to be a runaway black from a

340 Genesis of Queensland.

Macintyre mob, who, having committed many depredations far
away to the southward, had fled for safety to the north ; the
others had not seen whites before, though they had heard of
them. The Macintyre native came close to us, quite fearlessly,
and desired the others to keep back — a skilful manoeuvre, which
o-ave them a chance of stealing round us in the scrub, which was
defeated by Jemmy's watchfulness. They then tried to be
friendly, but we declined further intercourse."

Upon our arrival at Jimbour we found Henry Denis, as
fine a fellow as ever breathed — at home. We were now well
into 1843.

That night, there being no sheet of bark untenanted by a
sleeper, I laid myself down on the earth floor of the hut ; another
man, whom I had observed smoking outside, came in and
stretched himself in a blanket by my side ; I had been told he
was a stranger. By the fat-lamp light I was struck by his
appearance, which worried me by the fixed stare of his eye at
me. The repulsiveness of his features was intensified by the
loss of the other ; and his unquiet vigilance disturbed the sleep I
wanted ; so I took up my bed and walked outside for the night.
Next morning he had disappeared, and I thought no more about
him. On returning to Cecil Plains the following day, I first
heard of a dastardly murder which had been committed on -the
Downs last year, 1842. The victim was a hawker, named Kelly,
travelling with his father's dray.

The perpetrators — for it seemed that two had been engaged
in it — had, up to the time, escaped ; but one was supposed to
have been lost or killed on the Big river after separating from
his mate in the business. In this "mate's" description, which
had been proclaimed in all these parts, was one unmistakeable
guide to recognition — the loss of an eye ! On immediate enquiry
further, I now was convinced that my bed-fellow at Jimbour was
the scoundrel " wanted," for the police were out after him, two
of Commissioner Macdonald's having been stationed at Etonvale
at this time. I sent word to Jimbour to call attention to the
occurrence, and it at once struck Denis that there was much
probability that I was right ; for he founrl that my one-eyed
friend had been at his wool-shed, some fifteen miles distant, and,
finding that he was looked upon as a suspicious character, had
decamped thence ; come to the head-station the day of my own
arrival, and had again as strangely disappeared. Denis at once

Caught at Last. 3^1

followed his track, in company with my old acquaintance at the
Peel, Irving, of the 28th, picked up the scent at Wostbrook,
followed in 'pursuit over the Main Range, and wholly lost it at
Gatton, or Grantham, close by, which the villain had left but a
few hours before, and all traces were, for a time, lost. Barker,
who had been a sojourner with me at Etonvale, had returned
thither from Sydney about this time, and had resolved to settle
on the Logan. On his way to the station which he had acquired
— I think by purchase from "Tinker" Campbell, of Westbrook
— he stopped at a shepherd's out-of-the-way hut, and to this
shepherd happened to mention that a large reward had been
offered for the apprehension of Kelly's murderer, of whom
Barker gave the full description issued. Within a few days the
one-eyed desperado walked into this very shepherd's hut. His
appearance betrayed him. Assistance was quietly obtained ;
the man seized, tried, convicted, and hung at Newcastle at the
very time that Barker was in waiting there, some months after-
wards, with the steamer which was taking in coals — as usual in
those days — for the purpose of proceeding to Brisbane, he being
one of the passengers.

CHAPTER XIX

^day and night, labour and rest, hurry and retirement endear each other : such

are the changes that keep the mind in action : we desire, we pursue, we obtain, we
are satiated ; we desire something else, and begin a new pursuit.

— Johnson.

In 1844 a narrative was arranged by the late Rear- Admiral Sir
Charles Malcolm from some rough notes — never intended for
publication — which I had sent home about my flittings in Aus-
tralia, the country to which on my starting in 1839, he had, in all
good meaning, wished me "God's-speed."

Sir Charles was at that time President of the Royal Geo-
graphical Society to which he communicated the paper.

In the desire to furnish evidence of the current ideas of
the topography of our new district in the north I shall not hazard
any from recollections of my own ; for I was unable to keep any
log upon my trips, beyond a special date now and then, — when I
am enabled to stand upon the surer ground of contemporary
observation and suggestion set forth in a letter written in
England in reply to Sir Charles' application to Mr. Glover, of
Norfolk, which I find in these late years among others recently
recovered. It is bracketed with a note : — " On Stuart Russell's
return from this expedition " (spoken of in the preceding chapter)
"he immediately made arrangements to set out again with his
brother Sydenham, Glover, Orton and the black boy to revisit the
river" (on which I had taken up the run of Burrandowan) "but
of this journey there is no account from him." The following is
given by his friend and companion. Glover, to Sir C. Malcolm : —

" I shall have great pleasure in complying with your request by
giving you such information as I possess with regard to the Condamine
and Boyne, and shall feel most happy if I can aid in throwing light upon
my friend Russell's notes, kept, I believe, merely to give an outline of
his rapid journeys in search of a good station, certainly with no view to
publication.

" You are aware that I accompanied him on his first, down the
Condamine : and on his last, down the Boyne — two rivers, as we have
proved, in no way connected ; to them, therefore, I will principally
confine myself.

" At the close of the year 1841, Russell and his brother Sydenham,
Frederic Isaac, and my.self started from Hodgson's station on Darling

Condamine Contention. ->*.

j4.

Downs in search of pasturage for our flocks. Before descending from
the Downs, we proceeded to Jimbour, which lies as near as I can calculate
sixty miles due north from our starting point, and is the last station in
that direction on the Downs. At this time little or nothing was known
of the Condamine below a large lagoon which lies twenty-five miles west
of Hodgson's. Some supposed it was lost in a swamp, others that it
was one of the tributaries to the Darling ; for various reasons we were of
opinion that it took a turn northerly somewhere below the lagoon. We
went on this supposition from Jimbour, which we left at daylight, took a
north-west course and travelled all day. Seeing no signs of water, we
were considering what to do, when curious as it may appear, we were
guided by our horses, who seemed from instinct to know where water
was, for when we gave them their heads they pushed rapidly forward ;
just before dark we came on to a beautiful reach of a large river, whiclb
we concluded from after observation, must be the Condamine." (G. is
in error : we dropped upon, and into, a large lagoon formed by the
river's back-water in times of flood. A bell-bird, I recollect, fir.st intimated
our approach to the water, which, in truth, our horses found — not we.)

" There are convincing reasons, I think, that the Condamine is an
inland river ; whether it is eventually lost in the scrub, or takes a turn to
the southward, remains to be proved : it cannot turn east as the Main
Range lies between it and the sea.

" I have already stated that we came on the river in rather more
than a day's journey from Jimbour, say thirty miles ; this station being
about ten miles below the plateau of the Main Range gives a distance
of forty miles from the summit. We found, on our journey along the
river, streams or creeks flowing into it on both sides, the eastern ones
from the range : one from the southward joined the Condamine a few
miles above where we turned back ; it is nearly as large as the main
river, and I am inclined to think, is a stream I came upon far inland
from Hodgson's, whilst on an expedition with Pemberton Hodgson.

" Finding no country that would answer our purposes, we returned
in three days in a straight direction to Jimbour. When we left the
Condamine it was running W.N.W. The Condamine before this was
almost unknown below the lagoon, though Scougal had some sheep on
the Myall creek extending down to the river below. The distance we
went down the river might be eighty miles as the crow flies ; we returned
convinced that the Condamine was a western river."

Upon our return to Etonvale from our trip beyond Jimbour,
in search of a sheep-run — 23rd October, 1841 — I was too ill to
renew it in some other direction. My brother Sydenham and
Fred Isaac went off in good heart without me, as the need of a
station had become pressing. I was indeed grateful.

344 Genesis of Queensland.

We had rejoined, presumably, a continuation of the
Condamine, beyond and below the junction herewith of the
Jimbour creek — then the northernmost station on Darling
Downs, — so they now proposed examining the land lying
between the point at which the river had not been traced out of
the Broadwater, upon which Rolland and Taylor had formed and
occupied their cattle station of Tummavil — next below Leslie's
crossing place — to the spot at which we had lately intercepted
the stream followed down by us on our last ride. I have before
me a letter of my brother's to his mother at the beginning of the
year 1842, which gives the result :

" Having accompanied my brother Henr}' in his late unsuccessful
expedition in which we struck upon what we conclude to be a portion of
the lower course of the Condamine, I set out, soon after our return, to
explore the country in another direction, Henry being unable, from
illness, to join me. I left Hodgson's station on the 7th of November,
1 84 1, accompanied by Isaac, a capital man for the bush. My object
was in the first place to discover, if possible, the re-appearance of the
Condamine after losing itself in the lagoon, being persuaded that as the
latter had no visible outlet for the waters it received, they must escape
by some subterraneous channel, and might somewhere be found to
re-appear on the surface. On the second day we reached Taylor's
station on the lagoon, which is seven miles in length," (here they learnt
that the Gore Brothers — St. George and Ralph — had taken up country
from Taylor's boundary : had struck upon a deep bed some miles below
a small creek on which they had decided to build their head station —
Yandilla — and marked a tree some twenty miles or more below it for
their sheep-run), " and having followed it to its furthest extremity, we
shaped our course from thence in a direction, as nearly as we could
judge, the same as the river had held before it fell into the lagoon.

" At the end of one day's journey we came upon a small gully,
across which we could jump. This gradually widened till it broke into
a deep, rocky river-bed, on both banks of which was a fine open grazing
country ; and here we took up thirty miles on either side, marking two
trees with our initials as having taken possession by right of discovery,
which would [but did not] prevent anyone else from settling upon it
witliin three months from the date of the license given for it by the
Commissioner of the district. It requires one to be well acquainted with
the peculiar nature of the rivers in Australia to trace out their true course,
for some of them, particularly in a dry season, present only long reaches
or mere pools, and are here and there entirely lost ; though there are
others which have a full stream throughout the year — such as those on
the eastern side of the Great Range, which run into the sea. This river

Cecil Plains. o^e

is a very fine one, for this country ; its direction is lirst N.W. and then
more northerly — of course, not running except in Hoods ; but liavin"
beautiful long reaches, with deep water, and fine lagoons branching out
of it. The country on the west side, though not hilly, is undulating ; on
the east flat and rich, the best for pasturage. There is plenty of the best
kind of timber — iron-bark, blood-wood, pine, swamp-oak, and the best,
I think, of all building woods, stringy-bark. In fact we have found a
most beautiful spot for our head-quarters, with this great advantage :
that we shall not be troubled by the natives" [vain hope !] "as they never
harbour where the country is open, and we have no scrub on our station.
By-the-bye, when we were following down the river we came suddenly on
a native encampment. Strange to say, we were within twenty yards of
them before either party saw the other. I galloped up to them, when
one and all bolted into the river, leaving their opossum cloaks, spears,
boomerangs, tomahawks, and all kinds of things, at our mercy. After a
short time they came over to us, but we could not make them understand,
although we had a native boy with us,"' [Isaac's Charcoal] ''but he was (jf
another tribe ; the languages of the tribes are so different. Their spears
are about fifteen feet long, some slender, some very heavy. They can
throw them forty yards and can hit anything. The nulla-nuUa is the
worst weapon ; it is a short club about two feet long, which they throw
with awful force. On our return the report we made of the country was
hailed with joy.

" We have called our new station after you, ' Cecil Plains.' "

Recurring now to Glover's letter —

" The Boyne was discovered by Henry Stuart Russell, having with
him his servant Orton, and a native, in the following way : — Russell had
heard from Davis, a runaway convict, whom he found with the natives
up the Monoboola, on his boat-trip to Wide Bay, that there was a very
fine country immediately in the neighbourhood of Eales' station, which
report he found wrong, so far as to its being near that station."

" He determined on a journey to Wide Bay, and from thence to
prosecute his research. Having reached Eales', he only remained long
enough to recruit, and started in company with an overseer and a man
of Eales' in a W.N.W. direction, and had one of the most formidable
journeys that can possibly be imagined. The overseer and his man very
soon returned, disliking the dreary waste and rugged country they
encountered. It was, indeed, a very hazardous undertaking, as they had
to travel through the Bunnia Bunnia country, which at this time was
swarming with natives, who assemble for the purpose of feeding upon
the fruit. After travelling over a broken and rugged country, they came
upon a large flowing stream, which he supposed to be the Boyne. He
found a lovely country upon the river, and left with the determination of

346 Genesis of Queensland.

revisiting it. Deliglited with the report he brought in, we (the party
before mentioned)* started off with a month's provisions in a due N.
direction from Jimbour, with the full intention of tracing the river down to
its very mouth, which the nature of the country and want of ammunition
afterwards prevented us from entirely accomplishing.

"On leaving Jimbour the whole character of the country alters.
Instead of the wide-spreading plains upon the Darling Downs, the
traveller comes upon a fine undulating country, thickly timbered, and
covered with the most luxuriant grass ; the ridges are chiefly granite.
There is little, indeed, no standing water for the first twelve miles ; four
miles further on is ' Hungry Flat,' so called from our sufferings from
hunger whilst there."

On our return the same way we halted at this spot : man
and horse hungry and weak. Horse had the best of it. We had
been almost without any food for days past. It had become
unpleasantly less before that. Denis looked worst. His white
features and jet black beard and eyes were too trying a contrast.
Our horses grazed awhile and with the exception of my brother,
Orton and myself, the others rode off as quickly as they could
manage knowing how near we were to Jimbour station. It was
a painful effort we made to catch our unsaddled horses, and we
jogged on as painfully and in silence. On reaching the hut,
Denis was lying near the creek very sick : Glover squeamish.
They had " bolted '' all the eatables. Having to wait, we escaped
much of such an unpleasant result from sudden repletion. Poor
Denis ! He afterwards told me that the feeling of starvation
had so clung to him that he never could lie down to sleep o'
nights without a " whack " of damper under his pillow ! — until, I
suppose, he left for Sydney and went down in the " Sovereign "
at Amity Point.

" Here we found a chain of ponds, running west, which supplied us
with water. At the end of this valley we with difficulty fought our way
through a scrubby pass, on clearing which we burst upon a fine open
forest glade with a rich dark soil. A stream from the Great Range runs
through it into the interior. Being now some twenty-four miles north of
Jimbour we determined to change our course and cross to the eastern slope
of the range ; this we did, and having descended about four miles from
the summit, say two hundred feet, came upon a creek which we followed :
it zig-zagged a good deal but its lay was decidedly northerly becoming

* Wrong. It consisted of Glover, Henry Denis (of Jimbour), my brother,
myself, with Orton and " jemmy."

Burrandowan. 347

larger every mile. We thought we had got on one of the main branches
of our wished-for river, the Boyne, and so it proved to he. The bed
of this river, near its source, lies in a valley elevated above the sea, I
dare say fifteen hundred feet ; receiving small tributaries from the higher
country both east and west.

"Its bed is sandy, with much tea-tree growing in and about it; a
great quantity of high reeds grow also along the edge of the reaches.
On our first day's journey down the river we passed over some lovely
country; nothing can be more luxuriant and lovely than the valleys.
On our second day's journey down we found the reaches increasing
greatly in length, a sure mark of a large river ; many streams, both from
E. and W. emptying themselves into the mainstream, the land becoming
more mountainous, the valleys richer and more fertile. The third, we
passed Burrandowan, a beautiful spot, which we afterwards made our
station. It is fifty miles in a direct line from Jimbour. On the fourth
day we came upon a river flowing in from the eastward in a full stream ;
it is about twenty-five miles below Burrandowan. This we called the
' Stuart,' after the discoverer Stuart Russell. Not far below this we came
on his tracks, when he had discovered the Boyne. by which he returned,
crossing the Main Range, going down upon the Condamine. and return-
ing up the river, and so to Jimbour, his old place of departure.

" We continued our journey down, keeping along or near the banks
of the river for about three hundred miles, though I do not think the
distance from Jimbour was above one hundred and eighty miles direct,
lying N. by W. and S. by E. (this would place us about latitude 24 deg.
15 min. S.), when we turned back, having then been sixteen days from
that station. Our return to the station on the Downs, taking a straight
course, occupied ten days. When we turned back the river was llowing
considerably to the eastward of north, and to judge from appearances,
we were not far from the sea. From its size, I am of opinion that at this
part the river is navigable. I have now given you a hurried sketch of
our two expeditions, and shall feel pleased and gratified if any information
I have been able to contribute may be found of service to my sincere
friend, Henrv' Stuart Russell. Nothing would have delighted me more
than to have accompanied him on an expedition to the Gulf of Carpen-
taria, which would, I doubt not, have laid open a valuable country, into
which Asiatic emigration might be introduced to any extent required.

" I shall conclude this letter with a short account of the natives who
inhabit the countries which the Boyne and Stuart, with their tributaries,
water. I found them in considerable numbers, and have seen even four
hundred men at a time, with not an old man amongst them : they are
generally a fine-formed race, both men and women, many of the former
six feet ; and many of both sexes far from ugly : they are treacherous,
cruel, and great thieves.

348 Genesis of Queensland.

" When I first went to Burrandowan I tried kindness. I showed
them how they might have flocks of their own to feed upon, and gave
them presents, but all in vain. They are a restless race, never remaining
above a day or two in one place, except when planning some expedition
against a hostile tribe or to rob the white man. When they are bent on
an act of murder and robbery, they assume towards the intended victim
a manner of great kindness. Two of my poor herdsmen were murdered
by the very men who had been associating with them and helping them
only the very day before in fishing, in all apparent simplicity and
kindness. In fact, I have now ascertained that when the natives are
seemingly most friendly they are meditating an act of treachery.

" To conclude: As far as experience yet goes, I should say that the
native Australian is, like the brute, incapable of forethought ; and in no
instance that I have heard have they attempted to add to the comfort of
existence by building huts, or by rearing herds of cattle or sheep, &c.
They kill all within their reach, and thence move to another ground.
Whether they will ever be brought into a state of civilisation I have
doubt. In my opinion the only hope there is must arise from some bold
missionary, who dares venture to live amongst them as Bracefell and
Davis did. Such a sacrifice on the part of an educated man is almost
beyond hope."

Our sheep at length, then to be permanently folded on
Burrandowan, were, indeed scattered. Some at Etonvale, some
at Jondaryan, and one flock at Cecil Plains.

This last-named flock was on the west, immediately opposite
to the spot on which I had " sat down " under three sheets of
bark on the east bank of the Condamine : kept close under my
eye, in fact, for safety's sake. Every man carried a double-
barrelled gun in those days. On my return from the Burrandowan
trip with Glover 1 had decided to move to a spot lower down, and
there form the head station. The dray had just gone on with all
our " swag." Orton and I remained, waiting to assist the shep-
herd, who w'as alone, in driving the sheep the same way, before
their starting in a few days to a rendezvous appointed for all the
separate flocks, e?t route for the new station on the supposed
Boyne waters.

On the point of crossing the river with this intention, I
suddenly heard the loud report of a gun, followed by a shriek of
agony. We ran to the bank, and found the unfortunate shepherd
holding in his left hand the wrist of his right arm, which was
blown clean away from the shoulder, out of which spouted forth a
strong jot of blood.

A Day of Dying. 349

Having a stock-whip with a long green-hide fall, I made
a rude tourniquet with that and the handle round what remained
at the shoulder. The compression was effected by no skilled
hands, but was sufficient for the purpose. We carried him to
our bark hut with little hope, poor fellow ; the look of despair in
his face — he was a young man — haunts me to this day. Rolland.
a medical man by profession, had just become the partner of
Domville Taylor, at the Tummavil lagoon, thirty-three miles
higher up, and had arrived at that station. Away went Orton
within ten minutes for his help, and I was left alone with the
terrible companionship. He had but lately come out as an
emigrant ; a native — as some others of our shepherds were — of
Shelford, near Cambridge. ''Water! Water! Water!" was his
moan. "I'll go back again when I'm well where I needn't carry
a gun," was his burden at other times, " How cold my fingers
are !" feeling with his left for his shattered right hand : '' I'm
getting better," towards evening. " I don't feel pain now, sir."
Mortification had set in round the wretched thong. " Thank
you, sir ; I shall never forget your trouble !" The sweeping over
his poor face and limbs with a sapling branch, in almost hopeless
endeavours to keep off and guard him from the attacks of flies,
which in countless myriads, seemed ever recruited again and
again from other myriads, for fresh assault upon his dying blood-
stained limbs, had brought me on that day of cruel heat, almost
to a helpless state, through exhaustion.

Five, six, seven hours ; and yet no sign of help ! (Rolland
had not been at home when Orton, with his horse dead-beat,
reached the place, and he did not return for two hours afterwards.)
I dared not leave the quiet, patient sufferer for cooler water from
the river, and this in the bucket was tepid ! And yet " water,
water " was the cry ! What if he drink it all ! The sun was
getting low, and its westering beams were already searching out
the open end of our rough hut. In heart-breaking bewilderment
— I knew not what to do. " Neither the sun nor death can be
looked at steadily," said one once, who had perhaps never tried
it in this fashion, with sun and death on either side. And in this
dilemma, snatching a fresh, more leafy branch for my steadier
service, his thin voice reached me and told me that he had taken
his gun up from the trunk of a tree on which he had laid it that
he might smoke a pipe, that drawing it towards him the dogs'
heads had caught against it, and (Well, I could understand

350 Genesis of Queensland.

all this.) " Listen ! I know now that I'm not to live more.

Listen while I can " He had little time to speak, and the

sun was going to rest. Silent the hostile swarms ! My own
heated pulses more cool ! As music evoked from a single string
by a great master's hand in scorn of collateral aid, so does the
master hand of Death summon out of the silver cord " or ever it
be loosed" the low strains of conscious truth from the whispering
lips, which quicken — how profoundly! — the listener's soul-stirring
symphony of human sympathy.

" The tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony ;
Where words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth."
(How Shakespeare fills every cranny of this mortal coil !) 'Tis
not for me to speak again of that short life's sad reflection of its
past upon the passing soul, and not for me to speculate. What
he said, he said to me^ and in all solemnity of hope, 'twas buried
with him in the shallow grave, which I dug with dry sticks on
the banks of the river Condamine.

I then found that I was alone ! I was not so much longer.
The sound of voices and the rustle through the saplings in
another hour or so woke up the stupor which I had seemed to
share with the dead brother by my side, and I came back from
past to present. " Well, sir !" almost whispered the eager tone
of Orton's voice — for he was ahead of Rolland : " Where is he ?"
followed at once the kind voice of his follower. "Well done!
Well done! but it's too late!" Dead silence. "Let me see
him, Russell !" I struck a light: I had preferred the darkness
beneath the stars till then : Rolland went stooping under the
sheets of bark : the fatty flame fed but a flicker.

In a few minutes Rolland came out again : " If I had been
on the spot when this happened, Russell, I could not have saved
life ! " My last seemly office over the rude mound under which
we laid him, I would have rendered for the sake of his old folks
at Shelford, which I knew so well ; had I been able. But I had to
leave him to the gum-trees sighing their dirge over the dead.
Their /Eolian service might be breathed to the day of his
resurrection.

And so our sheep in course of time reached a place of
rest : but from the outset to the end of the venture, ne
patience, ne perseverance, ne pluck, ne purse were able to

A Month of Dying. 351

balance again the scales in which the " scab " had deposited the
maximum measure of mercury and maladroitness. Glover and
my brother, within the space of two years, had become dis-
heartened, and disgusted : Went to Sydney, on their return to
England, and during their absence I took their place.

It was a dismal task !

I think that every man would have bolted from the station
in dread of an assaut cVarnies, which the natives had already
once provoked by their murderous attempt and savage bearing :
but the road through that scrubby pass to Jimbour cowed them
into righteous observance of their agreements. I must relate
one instance of the effect of fear, the relief of which added
much to the burden of my custodial cares.

The principal sufferer in this case, as in the former, was
again one from Shelford, near Cambridge. His name was
Matthews : he had a son with him also shepherding at Burran-
dowan.

Before my taking charge, a large mob of blacks had " baled
up " seven men, all well armed, at a station not two miles below
the head-station. Glover had, with much resolution and daring,
relieved them, when aware one early dawn of the outbreak, the
noise of which had reached his ears. He had found the shep-
herd's hut barricaded , which many hundreds of lighting men had
encompassed. Their yells had thoroughly daunted the terror-
stricken inmates, who for the most part had not been a year in
the colony : they dared not even open when Glover called
upon them to do so. Having made his way through the mob
which he had routed bravely, it was not until he had driven them
out of sight, that he obtained admittance. Matthews />^r^ — who,
in his own village at home, was considered the " cock of the
walk " — declared that he was too ill to go out with his sheep.
On my arrival, I found him so still : I had him removed to the
head-station, and there attended him as well as I could, in the
absence of medical help which was out of reach. He suffered
no pain : he could not stand : was helpless. What he said was,
that on that day (of the attack) he felt very cold : could not
recover warmth afterwards : that it clung like ice to his feet :
and had been creeping higher up his limbs day by day : all appe-
tite had disappeared : his features a pallid mask. He knew
that he should not recover: yet he had been notably a hale man,
who used to brag that he had " never had a doctor." About forty

352 Genesis of Queenslayid.

years old, he had always looked what he said he was — strong,
hale and hearty. ^Still, day by day, he told me the cold got up
higher and higher : then spoke of his old home and wished he
had never left -it: and so death bore him away from under my
eves so quietly that I did not at once see that he had fallen into
a sleep which was no -counterfeit. Dr. Cannan told me after-
wards, at Brisbane, that it was an evident case of death from
fright.

The. year 1843 had been marked by little beyond the routine
of station, save the one — to us, out of the way as we were — most
welcome tidings of the coming of Macdonald, Commissioner of
Crown Lands hitherto for New England, including this district,
in company with the Commissioner elect for Darling Downs,
Christopher Rolleston. One of the first cases requiring adjudi-
cation was our dispute — for I was now in partnership with Gerald
Brooks — with Somerville, who, on the part of his principal,
" Dicky" Jones, had occupied part of our run, on which he had
ever since been poaching.

About May, the two Commissioners came to my cottage at
Cecil Plains, and, after hearing the requisite statements, rode
over the ground, and the result was a kind of compromise, which
I cannot explain, for I never clearly understood on what grounds
we were deprived of the part usurped, which has ever since been
held under the name of St. Ruth. The decision lay with the
senior officer ; his junior, whom we rejoiced to see — and much
more so, when we had come to know him better — being now only
installed into the appointment on the settlement of these cases.

Cambooya — Commissioner Rolleston's pleasant, open-
door'd and ever hospitable dwelling soon became the centre of a
social gathering, which it would have been difficult to match for
good-fellowship ^nd warm attachments in any other spot of
Australia at that time. The beauty of scenery and the delicious
atmosphere of Darling Downs imparted, I think, that health to
our cheerfulness, and brightness in our relations one to the
other, which no disappointment, loss, failure, nor bad markets
and impecuniosity could long extinguish. Then there were so
many pleasant environs of that central spot. Etonvale, Felton,
Gowrie, Jondaryan, Jimbour, Yandilla, Tummavil, Clifton, Glen-
gallan, Canning Downs, Toolburrah, Ellangowan. Would that
that little world could have stood still ! There were henceforward
six years of a period — the happiest, at least to me {en gar^on)

Pot Luck. ^c-y

j5j

that I have known. Perhaps some may have thought so since,
but not said so, since we have been moved on by the policeman
— Time.

The round of visits: the hearty welcome: the unreserved
faith in a neighbour's willing service, if practicable : the scorn of
thinking it a trouble : the laughing spirit of'hope acclimatised to
the habit of sanguine prospects nursed in spite of panics and
poverty ! The past year had been one of trial and distress :
bullock drivers lighting their pipes with "the cove's soujee "
orders ; for many Sydney houses, firms, and banks had passed on
their way in no wise rejoicing. Wool — sheep — cattle — the\
could no longer keep the pot boiling. So into the pots the poor
valueless brutes were to be themselves pitched. " Tallar " and
"tallar casks," "Tinker" Campbell, and Kangaroo Point came to
be the sole set-of^ against low wool, no advances, and ready ruin.

So it continued a long, dreary, penniless period, but
there was no abatement of Darling Downs hilarity — the jollity of
inter-station visits, practical jokes and pleasurable passages of
days, which culminated not unfrequently in the contentment and
comfort at our Commissioner's Cambooya. A day at RoUestonV
was always red lettered ! —

" Where cheerful looks made every dish a feast,
And 'twas that crowned a welcome."

[Cheeriness was then the squatter's viaticum vitcei]

Barrin' himself — hard up all round.

" Did you see Hodgson hawking legs of mutton in a
butcher's tray on his shoulder at Brisbane ?" " Yes, that I did.
ha ! ha ! There was a fellow down there who had a terrible
' down ' on Hodgson. He met a man at Kangaroo Point — no.
South Brisbane — ' Buy a leg of mutton ? only one shilling '
Come, take a lot of them while you're about it V So he did."

" Do you see that fellow out there?" said he to me again.
" He hates the very sight of me, I'll bet you a pound though,
I'll go and sell him a leg; done, cried I, not knowing his gift of
the gab : By George ! I lost it : he sold the enemy two ! and got
my pound into the bargain. Oh ! that villian Huggerson, ha I ha I
in these bad times to lose a pound on a leg of mutton ! ha I ha '
I'll be quits with him some day."

Ups and downs ! bullock-punching or butchering, baking or
on the bench, boiling down, bargaining, betting, branding,
z

354 Genesis of Queensland.

begrimed, we played with the hourly, daily, weekly, monthly,
yearly game of living much as children with the see-saw. Either
end had its laugh : more than that, the panacea pipe.

Pinched, yet pining not; dunned, yet despairing not; in
debt deep, yet not in the dismals ; we, some at least, were buoyed
up through trials and troubles into that enviable state of " all
serene " by the positive element which the sympathy of our
common lot created.

A distraction at times now eased us of personal annoyance,
present broodings, and conjectures for the future. An apparently
organised rising of the blacks had created a sensation all around.
" Tinker" Campbell, and Hicks had been waylaid in the scrub at
the foot of the range, and had a very shave of escape : Pearce's
shepherds at Helidon killed, and their sheep cooked, though
saved from the eating by prompt pursuit. The Clifton (Forbes')
drays stopped by barricades, and the loads destroyed, after
ransacking and carrying away all things portable. McConnell's
men killed, and sheep taken. Outrage enough to electrify the
promptitude of both commissioners — Simpson and Rolleston —
who having at once sallied forth with mounted police and
squatter's /"OJ-j-^, were supplemented by Lieutenant Johnson and
ten rank and file of Her Majesty's ggth regiment, and having
scoured the scrubs with as much hope as one that '' looketh for a
needle in a pottle of hay," nevertheless, took special note — in the
end — of those scoundrels concerned in the murder of Moore's
child at Limestone, a little while before : " Jacky-Jacky" and
" Peter" of black descent.

Our authorities also stationed — after all was over — half-a-
dozen " diamonds " of the 99th at the Rocky water-hole, who
had orders to escort all drays through that shadowy pass for the
future, to the first spur of the Main Range.

This combative era gave an opportunity to the waggish pro-
pensities of one who was afterwards the clever editor of our
earliest Brisbane newspaper — the Courier (he must have had a
spice of his namesake progenitor's nature), for an amusing
" poem after the style of Virgil and Homer," upon the derrin-do
of the " Quatre-Bras " of commissioners, police, commissioned
officer, and privates concerned in this re-establishment of order
and confidence ir; the district. It bears — to my recollections, at
least — the names of the dear "old fellows " of the time, a distinct
"harking-back" to the squatting circle in which I was wont to

Anachronisms of Appetites.

355

sit. The " Raid of the Aborigines," by Wilks, was, for a time,
the wealth of wit in our wilderness.

Wide Bay, too ! the place on which I had set my early hopes.
I find in one memorandum of October of this iS43rd year of our
Christian era that " no other lives have been taken by the blacks
on Eales' run since those of the four shepherds in May last."
Yet I know that the men are afraid to take their sheep out from
the huts. Eales has the only station yet on the waters of Wide Bay,
and his venture must be a fearful loss, — beyond the human.

Backwards and forwards from the Downs to Brisbane.

It was very hot and still on that evening, when, with some
half dozen others of Darling Downs, I rode on from Limestone
to Brisbane.

The only hotel in Brisbane ! always full of squatters, a class
whom citizens therein would live upon and by, but employ little
else in exchange for such profitable acquaintances than secret
abuse and utter heedlessness of the "convenances" which could
make, during the brief sojourn therein, the difference between
disgust and content. Enjoyment was but 2. fa^on de parler\

The inevitable beef, damper and tea was scornfully dropped
behind by the squatter faring his way eastward. " We'll go to

. What do you say ?" So Smith. " Can't help it ; it seems

there's no other place!" So Jones. "Yes, we can camp at

South Brisbane," sneered Robinson. " Oh, that be /'would

objurgate, perhaps — Crusoe. And so to the, — was it not Bow's ?
— would they go in full-blown hopes of a change. The change
from salt beef to well-broiled mutton chops : from damper to
delicate toast and hot rolls : from tea to coffee of appetising
odour — hot and delicious as of old in the Places de Paris,
when lounging over cafe noir, or an lait: full-blown hopes which
would all burst in their bubbles on reaching the threshold of
mine host of the — what was it ? — Queen-street.

The tired hacks left in a paddock on the other side of the
ferry would acknowledge graciously the attention paid them
when turned into a grassless paddock, by taking a good roil in
the dust or the mud, as times might decree, but their masters'
meekness would be sorely muddled by the reception in the
licensed house which spread a roof over no conceivable accom-
modation acceptable to a squatter better than a brandy bottle.

" Waiter ! can we get beds here to-night ?'' I well recollect
on this occasion, in company with some weary ones, after a hot

356 Genesis of Queensland.

ride from the west. " Can't tell." was the boozy snarl from the
throat of a slipper-shod biped, who from the colour of his skin
perhaps had never known — decidedly never could have honoured
— father nor mother ; "can't tell, there's some coves in them
there bunks : they can make room for you, rouse 'em out."
" Well, let us have some dinner, something to eat." "You'll
have to take what ye can get then, so I tell-ee," growled the
baboon, "but what will ye have to drink?'' "Tea, of course,"
in simplicity anticipating black, modestly engreened bohea, lump

sugar, and cream." "Tea! ye ," roared the sneering

scoundrel, at whose head an empty decanter snatched from the
common table was impulsively levelled — and he bolted.

Oh, that dinner ! Before we turned in we found comers
earlier than ourselves wailing in very bitterness of good appetite,
and the knowledge of good feeding, over their brief experience
of the " good accommodation for man and horse," which made
the in Queen-street disagreeably notable.

The Coffee — or common — room ran east and west, parallel
with the street; on the south side was a row of doors, similar
somewhat to those which backed up the fore-and-aft saloons of
ships in those sailing days. In front of the doors, a long table,
on which chops of mutton, or steaks of beef, just killed, shot out
of a frying-pan in company with potent onions and floods of
boiling grease, followed each other, morning, noon, and night,
on which wayfarers were expected to tertiate each day the tough
teeth-task, accomplished only through the soft insipidity of
squashed pumpkins and sweet potatoes. All the stuff issued out
of a filthy kitchen at the back. In front was a verandah, through
the french windows of which, now and then, an untainted swirl
of air would vainly attempt to qualify the meaty, fatty steam
within. Repulsive enough ; yet hunger must grab and grub ;
what wonder that such solids sorely tried the complacencies of
degustation, deglutition, and digestion, and too often drove the
Queen-street diners from disgusting diet to disgust-drowning
decoctions.

On one such morn of craving dissatisfaction, I rose from my
flea-branded blanket on a stretcher opposite another, upon which
a very inert specimen of bush humanity was stretched ; one who
had not been capable of stomaching the tahle-d'-lwte, and had
found his solace in blanket and bottle. Soon after the first
facultv of sleep in the morning had begun to soothe — kept at

The Egg Trick. 357

bay, as it had been, all night by mosquitoes — I was startled by
the sound of a bell, the bell for breakfast. The elick of spoons
and cups, and of such things as people do not eat, opened ears
and eyes. Cautiously opening the cabin door, I saw the long
table and a long table-cloth of sundry dyeings : covers, as usual,
over preparations presumably ante-prandial, prandial, and post-
prandial ; all en rcgle\ Yet there was something more: the
baboon had done his devoir : he had gone. Poring over a large
dish — into which a bundle of boiled eggs {?nirabile dictu!) had
been launched, I was suddenly aware of a presence of which an
old-fashioned, grand-fatherly, cotton-tasselled night-cap was thi-
capital feature. By every yahoo of Etonvale, 'twas Arthur
Hodgson ! He, unconscious of my own mosquito-vexed intrusion,
was busy — with his mischievous eye and smile — in using a pencil
upon each t^^ as he fingered it out of the dish. I coughed : he
turned, putting his finger on his lips, " hush!" Pari passu we
strode towards each other. "What are you about?" "Look
here, old fellow, we can't get a decent blow-out : these eggs, at
least, can't be dirty in their ' innards,' whatever they have been
boiled in. We'll keep them to ourselves, old boy, sit near me :
don't you hate fried mutton-chops and what they call steaks, and
all their onion abominations? " " Of course : but what are you
at? " " Don't you see ? I've marked them all with a date two,
three and four months ago : Wlio'll eat them ?" I stuffed the
cuff of my red flannel shirt-sleeve into my mouth, and we crept
back to our bunks.

In a few^ minutes came our mongrel waiter: "Breakfast!
d'ye hear?" Some grunted in reply: some jumped up; some
cursed the " baboon " for not calling them sooner : and out of
one door, into which the wretch had thrust his head, issued, very
venomously, the head with an iron-heeled boot in company.

The issue of Hodgson's "dodge" was worthy of his old
cockpit mess. We two, at least, monopolised (is this a bull ?)
the gratification of rejected eggs — to which no one, on inspection,
addressed himself. Individually, I felt grateful that day to
Hodgson's '^ ex tempore adaptation of the incubator to our fresh
appetites."

I " chanced " also, after this ride, upon a bridal party, a
very novel sight at Brisbane. 'Twas the first notable wedding
performed there, I think : even that of my worthy friend of
"Rosenthal," on Darling Downs, Fred. Bracher, who had, with

358 Genesis of Queensland.

Miss Grace Ross, of that ilk, entered upon the irretrievable
condition together for " better and worse ! "

That rattling good fellow, Fyfe, of the Logan, had, I now
also heard, brought the fine-looking horse, Mentor, into the
district. The Pine river, too, had found some attractions in the
squatting way, for my old acquaintance. Griffin, of the steamer
" James Watt." had come to an anchor there in the new character
of landsman ; and I grieved to hear that the station not far from
Limestone, of my yet older acquaintance, John Macdougal, had
been positively ransacked by the blacks.

Through such a stream of sensations, sorrow, and strife did
we pull the seasons of 1843. The promise of its end, and hopes
of new-born habitude beckoned us on to beacons beyond, not
brightened yet. We could feed their glimmering but hy our
" taller and hides."

There was no flickering in the glimmer ; it was steady. The
drama of 1S44 was yet untyped ; one of \ts persona:' had in itself
a lustre, which Queensland cannot escape from reflecting,
smudged by her thankless hand though the retrospect be.

CHAPTER XX.

How sour sweet music is
When time is broke, and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.

— Shakespeare. (" Rich. II.' )

Is it not Seneca who says : "Some men, like pictures, are litter
for a corner than a full lii^^ht " ?

Pictures nor men dare often challenge a full glare. Immi-
nent men occupy but their special niche in the gallery of fame.
I run the risk of provoking the Apellean censure : ne sutor
supra crepidam, when I tread upon the toes of popular and un-
qualified approbation by venturingto question Ludwig Leichhardt's
fitness for the leadership of men (in the bush sense, with no
doubting as to his scientific qualification) in the undertaking to
which he bound himself in 1844, and persisted in until he passed
out of sight.

It is not an easy, and to others it may seem an uncalled for
expression of private opinion to discuss the means applied to
working out the end of a grand desire ; while falling short of the
admission that the method of obtaining that end was as worthy
of admiration as the conception itself. The first act in the
drama, in which Leichhardt was the chief actor, long since met
with general and loud applause, and challenged unmodified public
praise. " It is success that colours all in life." Fain am I from
private reverence to join hands with public acceptance : yet,
when I approach in thought the day when I first fell in with the
learned traveller, I find my esteem for himself as a doer (I speak
as a squatter) at variance with that unreserved public approval
which has been accorded him in the past. The idea of making
an overland trip to Port Essington had been considered very
soon after the occupation of Darling Downs by the first
squatters. From private discussion it had reached public com-
ment. In the Sydney Herald of September 12, 1843, a long
article on the advantages of opening a communication overland
to Port Essington appeared. Towards the conclusion it says:
" it is certainly not a time now to look for any aid from
the Colonial Government, even for such purposes, but there arc,
nevertheless, some men of high emprise in the colony who

360 Genesis of Queensland.

being heartsick of the impious plaints of others for money,
desire nothing so much as some field worthy of " human efforts
uncontrolled." We know that there are such men in this
country. Cattle and provisions are cheap, and tropical Australia
has never been explored. We want a high road through it to
India, to China. A stream of population is required from Asia.
If for such a purpose a few hundred pounds cannot be raised
in the colony, even in these times, beef and flour, at least, may
be spared, and a party of, say, twenty-five selected convicts,
encouraged by a promise of liberty on good behaviour, would be
enough, under a leader fit for the undertaking. He should be
w^ell acquainted with the habits and general character of the
aborigines, and well used to the bush. The party should set
out from the head of the river Condamine, to the westward of
Moreton Bay. . . It should be borne in mind that the
establishment at Port Essington would preclude any necessity
for returning by land."

Again urging the same, appeared a letter in the same paper^
dated Friday, September 15, 1843, signed " Mercator," which
shows how much the proposal had taken hold of the popular
fancy. The outcome of this general conversation found in the
report published in the Herald of the 23rd of November
follows that of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council
appointed to ascertain the practicability of an overland route
from the settled districts of this colony to Port Essington.

On my return to Cecil Plains alone, one afternoon in the
middle of 1844, when within half a mile of the cottage on the
west branch of the river Condamine, I saw a surprising object —
surprising, at any rate, in that part of the world — an old-
fashioned tall black hat, a veritable chimney-pot. It was
shuffling along in company with a " cabbage-tree." Of the
wearers I could see nothing, because of the low acacia scrub
thick on the ridge about my stockyard. Cantering on I recog-
nised my Toolburrah friend, G. K. Fairholme, and the sight of
his pleasant, chaffing face gladdened my eyes. But whose was
the black hat? 'Twas Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt's I Introduced, we
simultaneously lifted our head gear. I took off my own, wholly
in astonishment at sec-ing the fine face opposite suddenly
bespattered with half a bushel of flowers, leaves, and many
vegetable specimens ; the hat, too, was girt around by sundry
creepers and climbers, and here and there a beetle speared to

Leichhardt' s Locker. ^o.

the rim. It was no guesswork to " twig " the botanist-
perhaps an earnest and, to all appearances, amiable inquirer int..
the general arcana of Nature — a man of science. The firM
glance could read the German type ; his first utterance signified
it. He disentangled his head, hair, and beard vcrv cjuictly, and
after our first greetings — so rare the opportunity ! — 1 found thai
my short-sighted friend and the Doctor's eyes had not descried
my dwelling, at the back of which they had passed hv w ithin a
hundred yards, and were now leaving behind.

I had not at that time heard Leichhardt's nam. .
Fairholme before long had given me an (jutiinc of hi>
companion's pursuits and ruling passion ; spoke of his having
lived with the natives far away south and among those in the
neighbourhood around Brisbane out of sheer curiosity, as well a>
for the purpose of adding to his collections. The Doctor himself
could not believe in the evil report which he met everywhere
about the aboriginals with whom and among whom he had dwelt
unscathed, and concluded that they were all alike, " and would
do injury only to the man who distrusted them and showed hi-
distrust."

The very first evening of this pleasant meeting I learnt from
Leichhardt that he had wished much to see me because he had
heard that I was contemplating an attempt to reach Port Essing-
ton. " True, Doctor Leichhardt : but it requires a good deal of
consideration, beyond the fun of the thing: I don't know what
to do with the station: I might be away six months! I'm sure
that a couple of good bushmen, with good horses, and plenty ut
'bacca, powder and shot might do it easily enough. I'd tak«-
Jemmy, and Orton, my stockman, says he will come with me :
but I can't say when ! " " Take a couple of my dogs, Russell,"
chimed in Fairholme, " and if you get short of grub you can
always eat them, unless the blacks eat you first." " I'll take
your dogs old fellow ; but why not come yourself : you've- nothing
to do in particular." " Thank'ee, I'd rather stop at home : why
I'm blind as an owl in the daylight : I couldn't see your caboose
en passant to-day." " But how did yon manage to miss it,
Doctor?" "Well! I was looking all over the ground, and up
the trees, and through the air for what I could see, my friend :
but I did not see your cottage." " That wouldn't do for Port
Essington, Doctor : you'd have to keep your eyes open for some-
thing else than butterflies, beetles, berries and Botany bundles :

362 Genesis of Queensland.

day and night, too : you see those pretty bagatelles are not fit
for eating : if you don't eat, you'd starve : you'd have to keep
your powder dry : and not be above a pot-shot at times." " But
I do not use the gun : I do not care to carry the gun : I do not
shoot." "Well, but Doctor, what if the blacks were saucy:
you wouldn't stand quiet while they drove a spear through you,
would you ?" "Ah ! then : I have seen and been with them in
the bush day and night : lived weeks in their midst : they would
bring me what to eat : they did not hurt me : I do not think any
blacks would hurt me." " But you were among the tame blacks
to the south and up the Brisbane, you don't yet know what the
' Murrie ' are." " Ah ! then : I do think they are all the same:
if you have faith, you will be kept." Ah ! then : thought 1,

should not like to try it in your company. " Very fortunate.
P^airholme, that I dropped across you to-day ! I've three men here
and one with a wife and two children ; and not one of the
poor things could have seen you pass. I can't leave this ; and
it is misery to be here — specially at night — and listen to their
groaning with pain from ' sandy blight.' If it had attacked me
too, we shouldn't have had a pair of eyes amongst us. So I have
to do everything for all!" "What is that?" broke in Leich-
hardt, " the sandy blight ? eh ? It is Egyptian opthalmia : I
will cure it : a little water, please : I will look to them." He
opened a little case : took from it some nitrate of silver : made a
solution : a few drops under the lids upon each blood-blotch of
an eye, and a most marvellous immediate relief and — within
twenty-four hours — a complete cure was the effect. Thankful-
ness for our rencontre, with this present consequence, kept pace
with my admiring surprise ; for my tribulation and helplessness
had been for many days.

In a week or so we became more intimate and confidential.
At his wish I gave him a short account of my own trips into the
bush, but more particularly dwelt on what I thought I had learnt
during my last. In my view of the " Cross Range," — as I had got
into the habit of calling the Bunnia heights — I took a start for
conjecture from it as a base for the guess-work, by means of
which only could I pursue my fancies northwards.

I had, with my brother, pencilled out our assumptions as to
the probable trend of waters beyond our farthest search, and,
judging from a copy of this sketch, which was embodied with
Sir Charles Malcolm's narrative, which I have now before me.

Essiii(rtoii oil flic B nil II. 36'

and, recollecting our conclusions at that time, we evidentlv

pictured our persuasion that northward of the Pninuia the llou
would be dos-a-dos, in a manner, to that thrown to the southward
of the same hog's-back. The last trip with Orton. for sonic
distance at any rate, had given us a fair idea of the svstein then
■positively unknown, as well as of the more westerly course which
the Dividing Range followed. Indeed Channels must be
formed for streams to the Gulf of Carpentaria and to ih.- north
coast ; so we thought that this wonderful barrier would |)robai)l\
take a round turn with the coast all the way, at a rough guess.
One point we had agreed on, viz., that the Bunnia range must be
the apex of the eastern coast-board — the highest land to be met
with for a long way north, — pitching, as it did, streams from botii
hands in opposite directions : southerly courses, as it were, to
Sydney ; northerly to Cape York.

In the old verandah thus we discussed and smoked it {not
Leichhardt ; he wanted no such cloudy philosophy), sending at
times for Orton to join our conclave, and help us in airing our
bush castle-building. Jemmy's instincts also were chartered for
such occasions. To the reply to " Which way, ' perroo ' (brother),
that fellow big water you and me been make a light?" there was
never hesitation with " Me tink that fellow-way," with a linger-
post poke of the chin.

So engrossed did Leichhardt become by the subject that that
dear old fellow Fairholme (still living, I believe and hope, near
Munich) surrendered himself to the general bent, as well as his
amusing anecdotes and naive jokes, to the grave interest with
which his learned friend was now continually overhauling the
slack of his secret desires and aspirations, until in the course of
a few days more he was brought up all standing by the strain of
his own resolve.

The time was at hand for his leaving me. He had walked
about the plains, pulled up much grass and many weeds which —
ignoramus that I was — I trampled down unconscious every
morning ; and, so far, Leichhardt was satisfied. At length his
thoughts, taken captive by this newly conceived project ot
lighting up a path through the dark fastnesses to the Gulf of
Carpentaria, broke away from the reserve, with the burdi-n ol
which his mind had for some days been travailing. " Russell,
I am going to Sydney : I will go to the Gulf : 1 will go to Port
Essington : I will find help there and come back soon, very soon.

364 Genesis of Queensland.

But, my dear friend, will you and your brother come with me ?
Will Orton, too, come with me ?"

The sudden assault upon compliance took me all aback.
Having seen the strength of his inclinations, and foreseen the
probable result, I had more than once spoken about it to my
bush mentor, William Orton. We had too much misgiving of
the Doctor's '' craft" in accomplishing the undertaking; too
much reluctance to pledge ourselves to a position which might
entail bounden acquiesence in all his instructions, a position to
wdiich we were strangers ; an instinctive distrust, likewise, of his
savoir faire and his savoir vire in a common bushman's way of
getting on ; a shrinking, too, from such loyal co-operation with
one whom we could admire for his '' pluck" and feature-read
resolution, but with whose confidence in his estimate of the wild
native character we could in no way sympathise to the extent to
which he had tried to persuade us, through occasions within his own
experience while in the indulgence of his ruling passion's pursuit,
and the display of his high and admirable qualities and attainments.

" I tell you what, sir "^ — Orton's homely words will best
explain the dilemma, — the pleasure of compliance with the
flattering request of a man who had taught me to honor him, and
the severity of discretion and common sense, — "I tell you what,
sir. you wouldn't get on with Dr. Leichhardt a week. As for me
where you go, I go, if you wish : but you'll soon fall out, and
then w^e should have to come back with our tails between our
legs. He crawls along with his compass and thingummies :
why, we two, sir, and Jemmy to get honey and use his eyes, could
do it in half the time he'll take about it : 'tis my belief, if Dr.
Leichhardt do it at all, 'twill be more by good luck than good
management. Why, sir, he hasn't got the knack of some of us ;
w'hy, it comes to some like mother's milk ! can't tell how or why,
but it does. Some of my mates on the Big river were no better
at the year's end in the bush than they were in the beginning.
Regular crawlers. Mark my words, sir, Dr. Leichhardt hasn't got
it in him, and never will get it. I don't mean to be disrespectful:
and I don't mean to say he can't and won't get there: he's a
brave gentleman, I don't want to be told that : but how he'll get
there in /z/j- way, I can't guess, and don't like thinking about:
he's no bushman, and I say again sir, if you go you'll be sorry
for it. Then again, what does lie know about tlte darkies ? /
know them better than he : and 1 can't say that I should care to

Doubt. — Decision. 26 s

be in a mess with them, when he won't carry even a gun ; and if
he did, can't use one."

All this was but the echo of my own whisper ; and so 1 told
Leichhardt that I had too much to attend to in station interests
to be able to throw any shadow of consent upon the proposal :
that although it had been a pet idea of ours lately, I must not
put more serious matters aside for the sake of gratifying mv
wish ; and that he had better, if determined to carry the matter
out, go to Sydney and prepare himself there. And so we parted.

In August, Leichhardt returned to Darling Downs by
Moreton Bay, with his companions Roper, Calvert, and a clever
sketcher, but very young, named Murphy. He had others who,
with a black, made, I think, seven or eight in the party.

He had written to me from Sydney to tell me that his
preparations were nearly completed: that he had called upon the
Governor, Sir George Gipps, and had enlisted His Excellency's
good graces in the matter : and had told him that my brother
and I — having made his decision at Cecil Plains — had promised
to accompany him from Darling Downs, " and that he depended
on our doing so." This was the purport of his letter. By my
immediate reply, I repeated my reasons for having, at the time
he asked me, declined to leave the stations, and, of course,
regretted his misapprehension.

On this he did not, as on two subsequent occasions, make
Cecil Plains his starting point, and I was sorry to hear that our
refusal had retarded and disarranged his plans awhile.
Pemberton Hodgson"^ and Gilbert were afterwards added to the
party. The former soon came back having fallen out with the
Doctor : the latter was killed by the blacks in a night attack —
(where was their watch ? the blacks had at this time shown much
hostility) — upon a stream which ran to the easternmost — for
them the wrong — shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria ; in which
attack Calvert and Roper were severely wounded, and
"waddied": and after the lapse of so long a time that all hope
of their reappearance had been lost in Sydney, they sprang up
from sea-wards, — like the ' makromme,' at Wide I^ay ; brought
from Port Essington by the schooner " Heroine " one night into
Port Jackson at the very end of the following year — 1845.

* (Who with a black left the party after making their start at Kents' Lagoon
seventy miles beyond Jimbour, and returned to Darling Downs.)

66 Genesis of Queensland.

On my next meeting \vith Leichhardt — when he stayed at
Cecil Plains, in preparation for his second venture — he gave me
a description of that nights' reception of himself in Sydney, and
bearing myself back to his side — for we often sat side by side in
the old verandah — I can re-enjoy the amusement of his story.
[If I fail in correctness, there may be some yet who can set me
right.]

" We did come to Sydney, it was quite dark, we did go
ashore, and then I thought to see my dear friend." I am not
sure of the name, I think Lynd. " So I went up George-street
to the Barracks." [Which \\'ynyard Square now covers,
between D. Jones and Go's, old premises, and within fifty yards,
of the corner of Jamieson-street.] "And then I went to his
quarters, to his window, he was dressing himself. I did put in
my head : he did jump out of the other window, and I stood
there wondering. Soon many people did come round, and did
look oh ! so timid ! I did not know all. Then came my dear
friend." [I think, Nathan the composer.] ''And then there
was such a greeting : I was dead, and was alive again ! I was
lost and w^as found ! Gome now, said he, and hear, and he took
me away, all the way to Pitt-street, and to the theatre, and there
was sounding in sad song my own death elegy ! I cannot
describe after that, my friend : I was lost, and was found ! "

That elegy — if yet extant — may be sung to Nathan's music
now.

Upon this second occasion — 1846 — came with Leichhardt
his companions. The first, whose name mesmerises this pen,
was John Mann, one of a family whom I had reason to remember
in Sydney with a pulse of pleasure ; Hovenden Hely, one of the
kin fire-side; Bunce, botanist of Melbourne, where (it was Port
Phillip then) " old Ironbark " had been no man in a corner; and
— well I with the exception of two natives I can remember no
more. Mules were their spes gregis (he had horses besides) ;
the cattle they had to drive rather disheartened hope ; yet with
three " stringy-bark" bushmen of the "bonny brand," I had great
expectations of them, of bright days, bright deeds, and the
brightness of a swoop upon the denizens of the Swan River, to
which they had bound themselves, in the wake of which we
pilgrim pioneers of pasture paradises might plant our portions.

Among the mules which he had provided himself with, or had
been provided with by the Agricultural Gompany at Port Stephens,

Mules and Men in Ambulance. 367

I think, was an alarming buck-jumper. Leichhardt said " 1
will ride him ;" — it was the most promising of the lot to
look at. " You can't," had said some one (the Doctor was
not a good rough-rider). '' I did ride him once and he did
send me off : I did ride him again, and he did send me off :
we will see."

The Doctor got the mule up : on with the saddle, and into
it, hoist : in a second, I saw his head and heels describing a
Yflzyiul parabola m descent: up again, unharmed and heated,
and away again in shuttle-cock fashion the Doctor's dignity
declined.

" I will ride you !" he chewed between clenched teeth : he
did. Man and mule ! Vive le Roi !

Poor Leichhardt ! The doing of determined desire unto
death. His method and manner of doing, now no need to heed.
What says Young?

" Death is the Crown of Life,
Were Death denied, poor men would live in vain ;
Were Death denied, to live would not be life :
Were Death denied, e"en fools would wish to die."

Many weeks after. Jemmy's black face appeaf^ed at my
window : " Me been see track belongin' to that fellow saucy
yarraman that been come along a doctor." " Which way,
Jemmy?" " All along — a north branch." What was the meaning
of this? The "saucy yarraman!" The kicking brutes had
escaped from Leichhardt's hands and returned on their own
pathway. " Baal me'see 'em ; that gone good way more furder.''
Sure enough ! they went until stopped at Rosenthal. Had
they, then, been killed ? Do these herald their hearse ?

A few days more — July, 1847 — ^"'^ back in funereal pro-
cession, wasted, woe-worn, Avretched, wandered in, one behind
the other, the hale, hearty, hopeful hands-in-hand who had gone
forth so many weeks ago ! 'Twas a comfort to see so much of
them, after listening to Leichhardt's solitary plaint.

Fever, ague, rheumatism — in all their prostrating power '
''Bundle in! Lie down!" Thankful was I that not one had
lost the number of his mess. " A pot of tea. Aye ! There is
no grog." And then a careless rest — a heedless sleep, were the
first night's need ; and, in spite of the doctor's rheumatic moan
the sight of those sleepers was gladdening :

368 Genesis of Queensland.

" Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care ;
Sore Labour's bath ;
Balm of hurt minds ; great Nature's second course ;
Chief nourisher in Life's feast."

A few days yet more set them up exceedingly well. But
ours was no sociable gathering of comrades round the rough
pine-table. There was a tale to be told : that was over-plain.
Looks askance and silent lips courted no questioning: I could
but feel thankful that I had escaped the trial which better-skilled
bush-craft, truer camaraderie^ and, I am afraid, more careful and
steady observance of considerateness and self-denial, (that
blessed bond of bush brotherhood) and warmer working sym-
pathies might have spared these.

Here, I thought within me, was Leichhardt's failing. So
wrapped in his own designs and pursuits and the attainment of
his own objects : — an illustrious name to carry back to his father-
land: fame, by dint of which he might win back the patrimony
forfeited by reason of his laches in evading the conscription laws
of his country : the good report of the world wherewith to
commend himself in gallant fashion to domestic happiness ; in
these considerings so enfolded : by these so absorbed that he
seemed to forget the sharers of his toil and risk : the fellow-
workers of the wilderness without whom he could not have faced
it. Detailed explanations — worse than useless to recapitulate —
and which, in my admiration in other respects, I gladly forget,
served but to justify the estimate I had already formed of
Leichhardt as a leader in such an adventure — not sans reproche ;
however sound his title to sans peur truly was.

The inactivity of tongue did not, I was soon delighted to
find, extend to the teeth of my friends, as they threw off their
ailments. Want of variety by no means cloyed their appetites :
Beef, damper, tea — smoke ! damper, beef, tea — smoke ! tea,
damper, beef — smoke ! — just like the triple-bob ding-ding-dong-
dons of villasre chimes — came our dailv diet. Poor fellows !
they had indeed to make up for lost time on Peak Downs. The
mules had escaped from them there, I think ; if so, no wonder
that thev could'nt look after them."^

*These same mules were taken by Leichhardt on his following and last setting
forth. What can have become of them ? Surely they were not all killed. But
not one ever reappeared.

*♦

SKETCH MAP

BALONNE RIVER

AND COUNTRY HE HAD RIDDEN OVER
DONE AT CECIL PLAINS, AUGUST 1847

By LUDWIG LEICHHARDT

and given ho me.

"'W ■!'"

'iC, ,Ji

'io /AT

L, /.Id fesi^ iCJm^

Ex tempore Cures of Pain. 369

One night the smell of roasting woke me : were they so
hungry that they could'nt wait for breakfast ? Where, and what
can they be cooking? Unscrewing myself out of my blanket,
I followed my nose, which led me to Leichhardt's small separate
room. To my wonder and horror there he was, lying on his
back with his shoulder on the edge of the bed, frizzling over the
fiarne of a fat lamp, placed under it, i.e., the shoulder. His
rheumatic torture must have been, indeed, intolerable to find
relief by such a cautery. Yet Leichhardt declared it was the
first alleviation of his distress that he had been able to devise.
The prescription was an opiate for him, the sight of it robbed
me of further sleep. In the end the party broke up, and again
did Leichhardt return to Darling Downs — overland for another
invasion of the northern region. I was engaged, in March, 1848,
in an arbitration case (at the request of my dear old friend. Jack
Crowder, whose wild cattle hunting guest I was sometimes at
St. Clair, Glennie's creek, and at whose death bed I stood at
Biarritz, in the south of France, nine years afterwards) on behalf
of the Aberdeen Company ; and so met him with his associates
at Rosenthal, superintended by Frederick Bracker, and stayed
with them a while.

He told me that he did not expect to be out of sight less
than two, perhaps three years. We parted in the hope of
meeting again some day after his return from Swan River, to
which the journey-plan he had laid down was to be by the
heads of waters running to the northward until he reached those
of streams running to the western coast.

He and his party proceeded to Cecil Plains, and made a
filial exodus thence — but have never reached the terminus.

A man's hand may cover Australia on the map of man's
charnel dome. What a glorious God's-acre ! " Here lie Ludwig
Leichhardt and his lieutenants."

No need to detail the public expressions of joy at
Leichhardt's despaired of re-appearance from his first journey
which connected us by land-travel with the north coast, in
Sydney, and through the whole country. Reference to the
newspapers and other records of the day. testifying in language
fertile with expressions of hope for the paralysed commercial
and other kin interests of the colony, enchanted the prismatic
fancies of citizens, and fascinated those of squatters, which were
well nourished by the oracles of the press. Meetings were

2 A

370 Genesis of Queensland.

called for the purpose of raising means for a fitting testimonial
to the hero of the day, to whom soon after were accorded the
thanks of the country at the bar of the Legislative Boudoir. The
publication of the great traveller's report added fresh fuel
in March of 1846, to the flame of inquiry, and Leichhardtian
fame. The leaders of the daily journals were laden with
delight and gratitude, and broke down well nigh under
the burden of future promise and speculation. One para-
graph from the Herald of the 31st, proclaims the re-
action at the eleventh hour of the people's hopelessness
of the adventurer's safety in these words : — ^" The joyous
exultant sensation which this brilliant deed has inspired in
the breasts of the colonists, is the greater from its having
so soon followed the gloomy disappointment caused by
Captain Sturt's last expedition. Sturt's announcement struck
daggers into our Australian hearts. Leichhardt has applied
a balm that has neutralised the poison, and healed the
wound."

The incense of popular sentiment and sympathy enveloped
■even in its perfumed praise the gallant captain of the " Heroine,"
who had rescued and brought back the wanderers ! May that
silver snuff-box be handed about for numberless generations as a
proud heir-loom to the McKenzies !

Government, too, on Cowper's motion, was mollified to the
extent of a grant of ;^iooo from the public purse, and even the
surviving helpers in the work were not quite overlooked and
forgotten.

So Leichhardt revelled in the victory won over the wilderness
and the affections of the numerous family which he had made
happy around him.

Brisbane, too, in her admiration of success so unexpected,
spread out her arms towards the schoolmaster who had taught
her what her province was and would be. My old friend, Henry
Isaac, supported by another whom I may yet again hail in hearty
health — Dr. Cannan— expatiated, at a meeting at " Bow's," on
the whole duty which had devolved upon us of due acknowledg-
ment of the " Doctor's " prowess. Fred. Isaac, at Gowrie, when
he heard of it, found every seat too hot, and sat not down for
twenty-four hours in impulsive preparation for prompt pursuit to
Peak Downs of the proud pilgrim's sandloprints. Such was
Leichhardt's hour of success !

Chacun a son Metier. ^^j

Sir Thomas Mitchell came back from a somewhat similar pur-
suit: but he had beenout-pilgrimmed. I don't recollect his welcome
back. Success had not been his. Sturt turned up in pitiabh-
plight and suffering : public pulses beat not the more quickly.

It is not for me to withhold or wish to withdraw respect and
admiration of Ludwig Leichhardt as a brave man ; one of great
perseverance and high attainments ; but, on the lower platform
of fitness in all its varied forms for commanding that unreserved
acquiescence and cheerful obedience of his fellow-labourers as
their leader : — that unfeigned coniidence. far above the low
suspicion which a questionable, and the absence of a purely
unselfish conduct in the petty but inevitable details of a
day-by-day wearisome, plodding, toilsome, hunger-breeding
march alone can generate : — that hearty co-operation in pre-
cautionary arrangements against native — particularly night —
assaults — and last but not least, that cordial attachment to their
captain in an exploit in which to each the setting of a sun
doubled the danger ; and to each the rising renewed the fresh
day's lease of life — I refuse to lay my private tribute in addition
to the public record and reward of his public service. I must
try back to the homely expression of my unlettered, but perfect
bush-companion, William Orton, that it might be done '' in half
the time that he'll take about it : tis my belief if Dr. Leichhardt
do it at all, 'twill be more by good luck than good management.
I don't mean to be disrespectful : and don't mean that he can't
and won't do it : he's a brave gentleman, I don^t want to be told
that: but how hell get there in his way I can't guess, and don't
like thinking about : he's no bushman, and I say again, sir, if you
go, you'll be sorry for it."

Have forty and more years passed and proved the stock-
man's instinct at fault? From his return — so unexpected that
it was no uncommon expression to hear it called resurrection —
from Port Essington until he had again left with his second
party, in the hope of skirting the whole country by the north
and west coasts until he reached Swan river, Leichhardt passed
his days in pleasantness among the well-earned plaudits of all
people in Sydney. He lectured and was listened to with interest
and delight by crowds assembled at the Mechanics' School of
Arts. Public and private testimonials, evincing the colony's
thanks to our great explorer, were eagerly and substantially
conferred, and he as gratefully acknowledged the generous

372 Genesis of Queensland.

approval of his work. Just after leaving Sydney, on October i,
1846 (one of his party, John Mann, going up by water with
provisions wherewith to load the mules which Leichhardt with
the rest were proceeding to take from Stroud overland to
Brisbane), the news reached Sydney of Captain Stokes' disco-
veries, especially of the river Albert on the north coast and, by
means of his observations the correctness of Leichhardt's inland
was tested and to a great extent verified. On the way to
Darling Downs, towards the end of the month, he had the
gratification of seeing a report of this connection between
Captain Stokes' work and his own in a Herald which
was sent after him. One of his former companions to
Port Essington (Roper) accompanied the Doctor as far as
Rusden's — " Deepwater," I think, the station was called — and
then said " good-bye ;" and it was not long before Leichhardt's
map, which he had compiled and sent to Arrowsmith, was made
the subject of universal interest.

Well, we know what followed this second attempt, and I
have already spoken of the return of the whole party to
Cecil Plains, thoroughly "broken down" and "knocked up," in
July of 1847. ^" ^^^^ occasion he wrote, on the ist August, a
letter, afterwards published in Sydney, from which the following
is an extract : —

" Russell's Station, Darling Downs.

" I August, 1847.

"I had reached the camp of Messrs. Bhthe and Chauvel the 21st
July : and Mr. H. S. Russell on the 28th, where I propose to leave my
things till a new party is organised which, I hope, will be about the
beginning of May. . . . Notwithstanding the many hardships we
endured, ?}iv party behaved extremely ivell."

\\^hen sufificiently relieved from his terrible rheumatism he
left me with F. N. Isaacs — of Gowrie, — Bunce, and a black with
the view of examining the country lying between Sir Thomas
Mitchell's track — of which he had now heard — and his own, and
gave a long account of the result published in Sydney in
the following October. In it he repeated his thanks to
P)unce. one of his last party, who had not left him with the
rest who returned to Sydney. Then came out also a flattering
review of Leichhardt's Journal on his way to Port Essington in
1844-5, and the last trustworthy information b}- letter ever
\\ ritten bv him, was from Macpherson's station on F"itzro\- Downs.

Lingering Shadows of Leickliardt. 373

at Mount Abundance, in his linal effort: being ilie last, I must
further preserve it as far as I can by extracts.

•' Sheep-siation al Mounl Abundance,
"April 4, 1848.
" I left Mr. l^irrell's station (the last on the Condamine) on ilie
23rd of March. On the 24th I continued for about three miles from
Dogwood Creek in latitude 26 deg. 53 min. Passed some line country
on a good-sized creek which, 1 think, is the outlet of the Kmu Creek
which Mr. F. Isaacs is going to occupy. The 25th we travelled again to
the westward : crossed a chani of lagoons : entered again a bricklow
scrub, out of which we came into the waters of Sandy Creek, or the
" Gregor" as Mr. Archer and Chauvel called the western branch of it.
Camped on the Gregor in latitude 26 deg. 52 min. Up tlie Gregor ten
miles on the 26th. I am inclined to think that the Gregor will turn out
to be my Robinson's Creek, to which I came in latitude 25 deg. 30 min.
on my former expediuon. The 27th of March we continued our journey
about nine miles west-north-west, and camped on Horse-track River in
latitude about 26 deg. 43 min. The 28th we travelled sixteen or eighteen
miles due west, and encamped on the Yahoo River of mv former trip.
The 29th we travelled scarcely two and a-half miles, through myall scrub,
when we came on another large creek which, no doulit, is one ot the
branches of the Yahoo river. The 30th we travelled about ten and a
half miles west by south, mostly through thick bricklow scrub, and
encamped on a large creek which 1 considered to be Iknices Creek :
our latitude was 26 deg. 43 min. The 31st we travelled eight and a-half
miles west by north, when we encamped on another good-sized creek.
On our march we found the Downs next our camp did not continue far
to the westward, but that they changed into bricklow scrub with open
patches : at about four and a-half miles we crossed a creek which was
larger than that on which we had camped : the country on its banks was
very open : in some cypress pine thickets we observed numerous old
cattle tracks, which we met again going to the west creek, on which we
camped in latitude 26 deg. 41 min. This latter creek 1 distinguished
by the name of the M creek, as Mr. Hentig found that letter on one of
the trees not far off our camp. We ascertained afterwards that Mr. Mac-
pherson has taken possession of the upper part of this creek to form a
cattle station, and that he has already put some of his cattle upon it.
The 2nd April we travelled ten miles west-north-west over most beautiful
downs, with belts and patches of scrub, particularly to the south-west and
west: to the northwards (N.\V. by N.), we saw two distant hills: to the
eastward, the blue Grafton Range : to the west-north-west, a scrubby,
short range, composed of two swelling hills and a hillock, which proved
to be Mount Abundance.

374 Genesis of Queensland.

"The whole country between Mount Abundance, the Northern Hills,
and Grafton Range, is an open, almost treeless stretch, which is beautiful
indeed, and deserves Sir Thomas Mitchell's calling it ' a splendid
region." The 3rd of April we travelled over the scrubby pass of Mount
Abundance to the W'.N.W. and came after three or four miles to the
principal branch of the Cogoon, and to one of Macpherson's sheep-
stations: the head-station being about four miles to the southward, i
travelled from Birrell's to Mount Abundance in eleven days: over about
one hundred and eighteen miles. We were most kindly received. I
cannot speak in too high terms of my present party. We have killed
our first bullock at this station to obtain the necessary provisions to carry
us to the Victoria, ^^'e have been extremel\- favoured b\- the weather.
( )ur mules and bullocks are very quiet, and we have travelled from
Canning Downs (Leslie's on Darling Downs) to Fitzroy Downs (Mac-
pherson's) without any accident, and without interruption — with the ex-
ception of four days' stopping at Russell's (Cecil Plains), from the 3rd of
-March to the 3rd of April."

There was vet one, but a doubtful trace of Leichhardt's
movements in the following July. It appeared in the Maitland
A/erciay, a.nd says: " We have been favoured with the sight of
a letter from a gentleman in New England, dated June nth,

which states that a Mr. M , whose station is on the Bundarrah

river, had informed him that 'Dr. Leichhardt had returned three
hundred miles to the farthest station to say that he had found a
magnificent country, with beautiful grass and watet ; that
Leichhardt thought that he might possibly never return ; or else
not for so long a time that it would be a pity such a country
should remain unknown ; that his party were all well, and that
he had returned to them.' "

Since this apparition no sign has been made by one of that
pilgrimage. Suggestions, squabbles, surmises, and sensational
stories have been suffered in abundance. No one has un-
riddled the fate of the brave little band.

In Leichhardt's first setting forth on his chivalrous exploit,
there was not much, I think, in its conducting which was likely
to strengthen faith in followers, however willing to subject
themselves to his guidance and control ; at least some who had
been with him awhile and knew him pretty well, rather wondered
at his first success, than felt their confidence in him as a leader
established. Little surprise would have been felt had he never
re -appeared from his venture in 1844. Few, I am very sure,
expected really to see him again in Sydney : the country had

Voe Victis ! ^-^

quite made up its mind, that he and all with him had perished.
The circumstances attending his arrival from Port Essington, b\
the "Heroine:" proved how wholly he had been given up
Gilbert, doubtless, met his death through neglect of tli.
commonest precaution ; it seems strange that any escaped in
that night assualt. Had he never been restored to us, how

ready — and this I often heard before Leichhardt's resurrection

were people to cry out "I told you so! who ever thought that
a man of his ideas about the bush and the blacks could o-q
through such a journey unscathed and successful?"

Out of the despaired of result boiled up a reaction which,
to some, at least, seems excusable and natural enou^-h
but not a little extravagant. Let us read but the speeches
at meetings the applauding cries of the papers, the flatter-
ing terms which lent no additional glory to his true merit,
and which, I at times thought, were met by him with some
misgivings, and had become embarrassing. He felt thus
impelled to a grander effort. He tried and came back — as
we know. I know the terms which Leichhardt used in reference
to his companions on that occasion, and I also know they came
back in enmity — in parties of two — divided against each other.
And yet, how can I, in the face of what I know, read the
concluding paragraph of the letter which he wrote from my
station, in which they many days formed so ''happy" a family,
without amazement, now many years old, but not dwindled
away : " Notwithstanding the many hardships we endured, my
party behaved extremely well!'' What can the conclusion
fail to be ?

Has this sad story shown that first impressions as to his
capacity for such a work were groundless and unjust ?
" Success ! Ah !" cried the man of the world, the great
French philanthropist. " Nothing succeeds like success !" The
meed of honour which Leichhardt enjoyed here was, indeed,
short-lived.

The chain of his success yielded by a natural law, at its
weakest part; that one unsound link ruined the service of its
powerful coadjutors by its inefificiency in bearing a strain, to
bear w^hich it had been tested by no satisfactory proof.
Endowed by nature with a deposit of rich gifts, courage,
tenacity of worthy purpose and ambition, for which he rendered
the usufruct by enthusiastic efforts in the cause of research, and

376 Genesis of Queensland.

a course of discovery to which the spur of public hopes and
applause had been applied, he lacked, I think, in the practical
adaptation of his talents to a struggle with a venture then
formidable through unknown difficulties by land, and certain
risks by man, which he almost ignored: common sense, and a
sufficiency of self-denial in crises of suffering.

CHAPTER XXI

Now, when I look bick, it was a strange isolation I then lived in. The
men and women even speaking with me were but figures.

— Carlyle. (" Sartor Resartus.")

FrOiM this year, 1845, come thickly recollections of names
and persons which supplement those of the earlier western davs
with many, — surely in accord with the brighter life into which
the baptism of Freedom had enfranchised tlic new bairn —
Brisbane.

With "Who comes here?" might the last of the ferry-st<p
sentries have challenged the fresh foot-steps, and quickly
recovered arms with heedful respect at the sound of the reassuring
passwords of Robert Little or Kearsey Cannan, patriarchs of
progress and practice, pioneering powers of pleading and
physic in the pristine period.

Followed on ; so quickly too ! the record which bears upon
its page — Henry Buckley, Walter Gray, Robert Pickering, Cribb
and Dowse. Follow the march ! Why stop to call the roll while
on our way? No fear of filling up, for the present, and in the
present, the places of such as have fallen out of the ranks — to
rest: buty^^r my past, and in my past, none can occupy the old arm
chairs of those by whose sides I loved to linger, nor fill the void
which such recollections verify. 'Tis hard to tax one's regrets
still : yet later years crop up with such a harvest ! So
rich that I dread passing by one sheaf unregarded. Robert
Douglas, John Harris and his brother. Raff and his brother, two
Roberts, not brothers ; and within the binding conspicuous —
Duncan, Thornton, Sheridan. Round about too, on the field,
stand the jolly presences of Carter, of Kangaroo Point, old
Williams, and Grenier, of South Brisbane, Hodges, the boat-
builder, Cassim and Prentice. I'm. not yet Lethe-dipped, which-
ever bank of Styx we wander on ! Year by year fresh facts,
fresh interests, fresh stimulants to existence, — until 1847, which
I stumble over with sorrowful amazement in remembrance of
one of those terrible soul-quakes which to so many come as a
thief in the night.

'■ Good-bye ! good-bye ! good-bye ! old fellow, I am glad
you liked that bustard yesterday," said 1 to Ralph Gore^

o/<

Genesis of Queensland.

mv esteemed friend and neighbour, of Yandilla. " My brother
sJ^Qt it — a capital shot too ; measured one hundred and
twenty-three yards, with a small belted ball. Just twenty-
two pounds ; the largest I have seen killed yet. The plains
swarm with them." " Well, but — Russell — I want you to come
next Friday to breakfast upon one with me. It shall be soaked
in salt and water, as you advise, the whole night before. We've
a capital hut-keeper now ; and I want you to hear a new air on
mv old fiddle, too !" " All right, I'll be there by nine o'clock."

A pleasant, hungry ride I had over the thirty miles on
Friday morning, looking forward to a bustard breakfast— the
licst bird of any size, I think, in the country. " Well, Gore ;
here I am, with an ogre's appetite !" " Oh, I am so sorry. Can
vou believe it? the plains are covered with the turkeys, but IVe
not been able to shoot one!" My confiding simplicity that it
had been in the larder when he asked me the day but one before
to come over created general glee ; so we had the fiddle out, and
then attacked other unusually nice things which quite consoled
me. "Where did you get all these good eatables, Ralph?"
" Oh, I forgot to tell vou. My brother Robert has come up with
all his family, excepting the eldest, a daughter — left at Pemberton
Grange, on the Parramatta. They are hardly shaken down yet.
and won't be here long, I fear ; they talk already of an early
return. Will you come and see them after breakfast?" After
the pipe of repletion and preparation, down to the cottage we
strolled, and so pleasant was the entree that, being loth to leave,
I remained a couple of days, by their kind invitation. It was
early in the February of 1847. " I shall try to go to Sydney at
the same time next month as you and your family," said I, in
parting ; " my neighbour on the other side, old Denis, wants to
go too, I know. He has not been there for years, is now getting
up the ladder, I hope, and has business to see to. We'll have a
jolly party on the passage. Good-bye!" Good-bye, indeed !

In the following month — March — having unexpectedly a
good deal of work to attend to, contingent upon the driving
some cattle to ni)- run — (I was alone by this time, having a year
before bought Brook's interest in Cecil Plains, as he wished to
leave the country) — of Rosalie Plains, adjoining Jondaryan, I
found myself so hampered that it was not until the end of the
loth that I was free to catch the steamer, the "Sovereign," to
Svdney. News from the outside was so capriciously conveyed.

Saved from the '^Sovereign/' 37^

that I had heard that the southerly weather was so had that she
would remain at Brisbane for a week or more probably beyond
her day for sailing, and that there was every chance in favour of
my reaching the settlement in time. Starting that night, leadino-
one horse to relieve the other when fagged, and which when
turned adrift I knew would in another day be back at the station.
I rode through to the settlement, arriving in the following after-
noon. Then I found that I was too late, much to my chagrin
and dissatisfaction. The " Sovereign" had left Brisbane a week
before, and been ever since detained by the severe weather at
anchor at Amity Point. " Couldn't I catch her still?" Of course
I could, if I could get a boat. Angry, and rebelling against the
idea of losing my anticipated holiday : tired and out of sorts by
work and want of rest, I became the more indignant when the
chance escaped me. I could get no boat. Turning back to my
quarters in Queen-street, I saw some blacks talking and gesticu-
lating to some white men, apparently in an equallv excited
condition. " What's the matter?" "These blacks ha\e come
from Cleveland, and say that the 'Sovereign' is lost and all the
people with her !'' Terrible but perhaps inaccurate report ! A
few hours confirmed its truth, however. Of the cabin passengers
none but Captain Cape, in command, and Richard Stubbs ; of
the crew and steerage two young boys and six men were saved.
A full account of this fearful wreck appeared in a Morctou
Bay Courier of this month. The lesson learnt by such an
escape — as I now felt in conscious shame thankful for — may not be
repeated aloud. On the very day (the i6th, my own dies natal is
— I do not forget that year's anniversary) which I had proposed
spending joyously in Sydney, I rode back to Darling Downs in
silence and sadness, taught that " there's a Divinity that shapes
our ends, rough-hew them how we will."

This one sad recollection which has overtaken me, must not,
however, swamp some others which much affected us in the
previous year. For at the beginning of 1846 the discontent
of the squatters who, in ver}^ truth, were subjected to a ver)-
harrassing and unsound position, culminated in an address to
Lord Stanley, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. The
proposed " Waste Lands in Australia Bill " gave the opportunity,
and the grievances which threatened ruin to the pastoral interests
beyond the limits of location at that time were ably set forth and
urged upon the attention of the Home Government. " Fixity

380 Genesis of Queensland.

of tenure " and " right of pre-emption " were the questions at
the root of this agitation ; and these two grand principles were at
length recognised as the basis on which the "waste lands question"
should be discussed. So far, the squatters had won a victory ;
yet this squatting system had sprung up only fourteen years
before. Through this year the policy and whole bearing of Sir
George (jipps in his administration were by a very general voice
bitterly denounced : the name of Wentworth was, of course, con-
spicuous at all public meetings held with the view of making the
Governor's burden too heavy for him to bear. Daily journals all
the year through vied with each other for the most part in the
merciless assault. His Excellency was recalled — to die — ridden
to death: — jockey, "Bob" Lowe. An ineffectual attempt was made
by Lord Stanley — afterwards Lord Derby — to establish a northern
colony extending from the 26th parallel of south latitude to the
northern limits of the land, which his lordship devised to
meet the need of the times. Colonel Barney — who had been
in command at Woolwich, came back this year to set it
a-going: in January, 1S47, '^^^ Port Jackson in the ship
"Lord Auckland": entered Port Curtis: struck upon a reef:
landed, and endeavoured to form an establishment on Facing
Island : and after three or four months abandoned it, re-ap-
pearing in Sydney in the May following. So much the better
for coming Queensland !

In this year of 1846 the last vestiges of the old settlement
regime were obliterated. Captain Wickham (R.N.) was
welcomed and soon worthily " worshipped " as Police Magistrate
of Brisbane ; and our old kindly host, the last of the comman-
dants disappeared with the steam of the "Tamar;" the last of
the Government stock at Limestone in the steam of the pots,
which reduced to "fat" their full value : not so ruinous a result,
however, to the Government as poor James Canning Pearce's
" Experiment " was to him by plying between Ipswich and
Brisbane, which kept him always in hot water, and ended in the
smoke of the patriotic sacrifice he offered to public progress,
convenience and growing requirements. The project was well
conceived, and deserved success. Pearce was a man a-head of
the times.

This was an epoch, too, remarkable for energy in exploring.
Poor Sturt (whose letter addressed to me from Port Phillip with
an invitation to join his calamitous expedition the year before,

Outlaws' Orgies. 381

arrived at Cecil Plains long aft(?r he started, and was out of
reach) returned in February crestfallen and nearly broken down
in spite of his iron constitution, with many of his associates,
blind. Mitchell had been looking after Leichhardt, and already
was Leichhardt girding up his loins for the crowning effort.
The first brew of so much stirring up in the middle of 184^*
frothed into discussion and strife when grafted upon political
stock, under the heating apparatus initiated on the one side by
William Wilks : on the other by Sydney Lyon; and instituted
by their several organs, the Moreton Bay Courier, and the
Darling Downs Gazette. The local contest pre-emin(;nt being
that of Brisbane versus Cleveland as a shipping port : and
thrust and parry between Towns and Downs. The Courier
made the notable hit of the year, I thought, by first inviting and
ably sustaining a proposal for the establishment of a bank in our
present metropolis.

Other strife — but in a different sphere — caused no little
sensation — and some amusement among my neighbours on the
Condamine in the course of the year 1846. Jack Wilson and
his gang of outlaws had by some means announced their intention
of paying the Downs a visit. The report spread quickly. Great
was the consternation among some of the ladies. The question
of its probability kept the gentlemen, and their preparations for a
warm reception, on the continual qui vive. It may have been —
I cannot tell, though not far away — the subject of converse in a
typical social circle of my friends at Toolburrah, over pipes and
brandies-and-water ; Toolburrah, garrisoned by some of our best
shots and best riders in the country around. Walter Leslie, the
three brothers Leith Hay, and some whose presence I cannot
now affirm from recollection, all in full readiness with rifles
and like " weapons of precision," close by their hands — only in the
next room.

The ringing laugh, the joking "chaff" suddenly came to a
check at the gruff intimation from open windows and doors, " If
you move, you're dead men !" A muzzle which simultaneously
covered each convivial inmate, and an "ugly mug" behind each
muzzle, effectually stopped the way to "the next room." In
most gallant fashion Jack himself approached and introduced
himself to the astounded revellers : " Gentlemen, good evening.
I hope I don't intrude. Pray sit still, gentlemen ; if you don't.
I can't answer for the whims, and I shall be unable to restrain

82 Genesis of Queensland.

the feelings of the gentlemen outside who are now paying you
their respects from the verandah. Pray don't incommode your-
selves. I'll sit down and take a glass of grog, Ah ! capital tack !
Some of my friends will join us by turns, and won't we just make
a night of it I You see, I've brought in your cook and servants
to wait on us. 1 cannot dispense with their presence under my
eye ; but pray don't stir from your seats ; the results, in view of
the present state of things, might be serious. Gentlemen, your
good health ! I've sent a i:ouple of men for your horses. Thank
you, gentlemen, for keeping them in the paddock ; there are
some good ones among them. I've had my eye on them some
time. Again, gentlemen, your good health ! I'll just take a
look round at your guns in the next room. Pray take care ;
don't stir I I know where they are. I'm afraid I must borrow
some of them." And so this very Jack Sheppard's ape made
himself and his friends at home. I believe that, notwithstanding
the vigilant turn-and-turn-about in keeping up that nasty
surveillance, besieged and besiegers did make a night of it in all
courteous fellowship. My friends at Toolburrah had, for
squatters, an exceptionally well supplied wardrobe. Jack and
his mates wanted a '' rig out," and so there was much fun in
trying on drawers, fitting on boots, donning clean shirts, and
other clean garments — " only in exchange," said Jack, for those
he left behind dirty. At peep o' day, when all being well, and
freshly mounted on their hosts' horses, shouldering their hosts'
rifles, taking with them all their hosts' ammunition and their
hosts' brandy bottles, apparelled in their hosts' garments, they
took a courteous leave after a stirrup-cup, and rode on
triumphant and jubilant to — the gallows. Their race was soon
run out after this agreeable episode in their bushranging career.

Talking of races brings me back to the crowning pastime of
this period. The first positive occurrence of this character that I
can call to mind came off on Cooper's Plains flat, the first ground
used for the purpose. The occasion was a match between
" Harkaway," a grey horse of Seymour's — the officer in charge
of the last detachment stationed at Brisbane— and " Jock,"
Campbell's " Toby," a bay, in which the favourite — the former
— lost his laurels. Immediately after this, I think, it was arranged
that a race meeting should be held in the middle of i846,on the
"New F'arm" ground for three days' events. This became then, in
my day, the Brisbane Course, and as far as I know, maybe so still.

Transports of the Turf. 383

The introduction of St. George, in 1842 [see appendix), and
a true-blooded Arab of high descent, by Patrick Leslie, had
begotten an entirely new element of excitement among the hcaii
monde of us northern provincials. The spirit of the sport took
possession of the people, and for this, and for years after, it was
the glad reunion of the community far and wide.

And it was an exhilarating scene that which then met the
eyes of many a lone bush-buried hermit, drawn from his cell b\
the fame of the doings (misdoings) and seeings on that rough-
ringed course on "New Farm." The stamp of its old features
were not quite obliterated : the vigils kept in the past, niglil and
day, with musket in hand from the bifurcal boxes still "spotted "
high up the trees on the river banks often set me musing on the
days when "pot shots" were taken by the exalted sentry at an\-
black — may be white pilferers of the golden cobs of the rich
maize-crops which once had decked that swampy bight in the
penal period. Old things and new! "Correct cards and colours"
were now dinned upon one's acceptance for a consideration, by
voices old and young, as persistently as on grander grounds.
Gipsies — fortune tellers — thimble-rig. Aunt Sally and the sticks
had not yet found us out : their presence would have added
nothing to the pleasure.

What wanted we better for our heels — if not for our heads
and hearts, than the smiles coaxed from beneath the shades of
bonnets, sweetly shaped in those days. The gleam of a glancr
from beneath no monkey-fringed eye-brows ; the gentle-voiced
hope which quickened each riders' pulse ; the low whisper which
soothed the beating within for victory in that race, and for
winning his spurs in that towards a more coveted conquest !
How full was then the squatter's cup of youth — be the purse ever
so empty ! How thirsting the lips, not to sip only that present
day's draught of delassement, but to drain the opiate draught that
the present would not be to-morrow a past dream ! May I not
re-visit some spot on which, in years far away, I used to
wander, linger, loiter : may I not re-summon the phantom of
myself sitting upon that rock ; lying beneath that tree, talking
sanguine words to some old crony now passed away; may not my
fancy reflect as in a convex mirror .y^//-scenes as if enacted by
some other man than I ? The very similitudes of those around
myself seem to be there still ; may I not sadden because time has
borne me onward, so far that I seem to be another and yet the

384 Genesis of Queensland.

same. Fondly clinging to dead affections, shadows shaped b\'
tlie witherinor, well-nio-h withered branch above, on the bare
ground beneath, because there is sunlight above : above only !

Where are the cavaliers of the Logan ? Where George
INIocatta, Burgoyne, Fyfe, Ned Hawkins, Raine, Kent? Where
FUily Barker ? Where Compigne ? Look away up stream !
Where's the inimitable Co ? Colin McKenzie, ever stroking his
moustache with twinklingeye at some equivoque, which he resents
as weak wit ? Where his elder brother, the Baronet, and Balfour
— -burly if not a Burleigh? Where the brave Frank, and
his brother Fred Bigge ? With these and many more
memories must be the early spring of Queensland indelibly
\erdant. Come what may, from Patrick Leslie downwards,
the names cannot die, though deep-lettered only in the tomb-
stone tale.

"I vas to ask you, sare, if you would ride ' Voltigeur ' for
Mr. Frank in de hurdles, sare ? His veight is too mush ; he
will take de ' velters ' hisself on de old horse." "Oh, yes!
Douyere," said L in answer to dear old Bigge's French groom.
"Tank you, sare! Now I vill tell you, sare! Voltigeur can
jump veil: like de gangaroo ! You do ride, I tink, some ten
stone. He will carry you like von monkey ! But, sare, I must
tell you : Voltigeur do not talk de Inglish. Ven you come to de
hurdle you touch him on de shoulder vid de vip, and cry
'hoppe-la!' in his own langage." "Aye, aye! Douyere, I'll
remember."

Out of the scales into Voltigeur's saddle — sweet little horse
he was ! " Mind, sare !" were the last words I heard after "off"
— " mind, sare, he talk de Fran^ais !"

"Hoppela!" shouted I, with the prescribed touch on the
shoulder, and over we went "like a gangaroo." " Hoppe-la!"
at the second ; "Hop!" at the third — forgetting myself in the
heat — Voltigeur caught the top bar, and making a complete
summersault, rolled over, me under ! Somewhat confused by the
" pip," the voice of Douyere brought me to my senses : " Ah
sare ! Ah sare ! you did call de ' Hop !' not de ' Hoppe-la !' Vol-
tigeur did not — ne comprend pas l Anglais P' For years after I
was greeted with a hop ! by my friends. This was my last lesson
in French. Ned Hawkins' last word to me, before he sailed to
his watery grave in the," Sacramento " — with gold on the biain-
was : " Good-bye, old Hop !" three vears afterwards.

Taking Possession. -^j^-

The spring of 1840 having ushered in the visiting season
from the south, which had been opened by Patrick Leslie, who
had revelled in the privilege of the entree into the prescncr
chamber of " <7z/r" Queensland — Darling Downs — had warmed up
soon into the summer solstice as the throng increased. From
the ten stations occupied on the eastern side of the range, in
spots marginal to that parterre, in 1842, the number in 1846
had so stuffed every available acre on the waters affluent to
Moreton Bay, that stock had already been squeezed out far
away to the northward on either dissociated water shed. White
faces and their " monkeys " (what a savage misnomer for sleepy
sheep) were no surprise now to the natives in the purlieus of
Wide Bay, or the Burnett river, on the one hand, nor Peak
Downs on the other. In 1848 we know that Leichhardt rested
at Macpherson's station so far away to the westward as Mount
Abundance — in fact, my pen can keep no pace with strides
which bewilder all recollection of the progress of those years.

At intervals of two or three after my first occupation, I was
visited usually by a wondrous drift of the common white
butterfly from the south-west ; in such myriads did thev flake
by my hut-door at Cecil Plains, that it gave amusement and
practice in cutting them down as they passed with the now old-
fashioned stock-whip; and so this snow-storm would envelope me
for some days consecutively. Months afterwards from the north-
east, in a march which spread itself for miles from one edge of
my plains to the other, would creep in slow but sure assault on
every green thing which lay in its path, an equally marvellous,
innumerable host of green caterpillars ; every blade of living
herbage was shaved off till the soil was bare ; the rustling of
their advance was quite perceptible to the ear ; the footfall of my
horse destroyed hundreds at every step ; between the reaches of
the stagnant Condamine they would find their way, and such
wretched cabbages as I was able to grow in my small plot of a
garden, not even a ring of iire could protect. Such to the blacks
must have been the prospect upon the now steady onslaught of
the white man's flocks and herds : as wonderful to them, perhaps,
as the other scene ever was to me. They can get no further now.
unless to New Guinea, who can say ? Will that hold Australia
awhile ? or must it press to Java, the Celebes — Borneo, and join
hands with India and China, before she has quite fraternized
with the world's nations ? Who can tell ? Who, a hundred

86 Genesis of Queensland.

years hence at our present pace, would feel surprised if she did
so ? Whence the watchword — " Advance Australia ?"

It would be a hopeless task for me to detail events generally
or locally digested under treatment which every allusion of
mine pivots on the earliest start in the intercolonial race to
which these northern districts of New South Wales committed
themselves soon after this time.

One with New South Wales, any pulse which disturbed the
heart affected in like manner the extremities. The great wail of
the day was "land," in all our quarters. In the pressing on of
public interests (yet what was our population \) this one question
shouldered off every other neighbour in the crush-room of
politics : in the midst of which Governor Sir George Gipps, who
had to bear the colonial heat of the day, was ever dinning into
a ready ear in Downing-street, and into deaf ears here, the
shout of " Royal Prerogative " over our lands, a doctrine which
was repelled as unfit for our people's instruction, whose faithful
mouthpiece was a Wentworth on the -one side, and the champion
of whose "best interests " on the other was Tribune Lang.

The tale of the trials and triumph (awhile) of the squatting
tribe of which Wentworth was political patriarch, may be said to
have found its first material during the years of Sir George
Gipps' administration, who suddenly — and I say so advisedly —
seemed to think that he had been commissioned to check the
growth of the " hydra," which had begun to develop features of
many-headed dissension and discussion, by which the natural hue
of Australia's native claims were imperially obscured.

Land ! upset price ! limitation to purchase ! occupation
beyond location ! limits of location! Every aspect of the land
question had towards the latter part of his arbitrary chieftain-
ship, lilliputianised every other consideration of the colony's
well-doing. During the period of the greatest expansive force,
which the pastoral pursuits had heated into action, Sir George
Gipps laboured hard to restrain and cribb them. Notwith-
standing all his efforts the squatters had gone on confident that
they had justice and common sense on their side. The last blow
that he was able to aim at the system was through stern
adherence to his policy, with regard to the occu[)ation of crown
lands beyond what were then termed the limits of location.
The squatters, nevertheless, worked on unheeding. These
pastoral adventurers — the real pioneers of the country at large —

"Liberal" Liberty. ^g^

whose interests grew with their stock, and necessities with each
drought, compelled to search out untrodden feed, in the search
for which, danger, loss, hardship of all phases were to be
encountered, had all through the disheartening period of Sir
George Gipps' administration to contend also with the burden of
debt inevitable to bank or firm, who, having themselves at times
to succumb to the pressure of the oft panic-stricken times, yet
looked for relief to the one paramount panacea — wool ; the
producers of which they held in bonds. Truly the squatting
family began to believe that every man's hand, not bush-branded
and embrowned, was turned against them in hatred and malice
unaccountable. — ^

Having little or no voice in the far-away counsels by whicli
we were ruled, individual wants formed a large aggreo-ate of /
complaints throughout the Northern District. They were the '
sharpest spur to combined exertion. At the head of each
squatter's wants was that of labour : a want to supply which was
the general exercise of squatters' fretful tempers. Devices set
forth with a view to remedying such a grievance at once raised
antagonistic outcries which sprung up on all sides when as little
looked for as the Bathurst burr. I am able yet to recall some
occasions on which fruitless attempts were made to obtain somt;
consensus in the treatment of this sore which was eating up every
energy of the wool-grower. The year 1839 had cancelled the
covenant of the assignment system : the sources of transported
labour had now dried up : emigration had been a hope even in
the north — ^but interrupted, deferred, and unsound, had sickened
the hopeful. Guachos from the Pampas : Coolies from India :
Cingalese, had their advertisers and advocates. But the British
workman must be no competitor with coloured, foreign, and alien
races : the attempt to get work done in the bush at reasonable
but ample wages by men of so low a grade in the citizenship of
the world was offensive to the liberal landlords who inveighed
against class exclusiveness and swore by universal egalite,
fraternite, liberie \ Men for work liked town life: so men of
town had enough of men of work.

The squatters shall have our own countrymen — and no other — •
was the "Liberal" shout. Friell's experiment of Indian labour in
1847 (o" "^y brother's and Glover's old station Burrandowan)
was a solitary and only temporary success for himself : and that
culminated, when brought to a general proposal at a meeting at

Genesis uf Oueensland.

the Caledonian Hotel, in North Brisbane, in January, 1848, in but
a spasmodic effort to extend such an introduction, as another
had done in February of the preceding year at the Queen's Arms
at Ipswich. And again, long before that, in June, 1846, at a
meeting at which our devotee, Patrick Leslie, sat in the chair,
while Arthur Hodgson brought forward a resolution relative to
the importation of one hundred and fifty men from Van Dieman's
Land through the proffered agency of J. P. Robinson of Sydney,
for which the squatters, alas ! themselves were called to subscribe
the expenses — a call to which they poorly answered because
they couldn't.

It was not until the middle and end of 1848 that ships direct
from London to Brisbane arrived — one, the " Columbine," with
sixty; the other, the "Artemisia," with two hundred and fifty-
one emigrants.

The first Legislative Assembly in which the representative
colouring was admitted was convoked in 1843.

The Moreton Bay electoral district was at that time
embraced by that of Port Macquarie, and, through the late
Colonial Secretary (Alexander Macleay) the requirements of the
whole had to be set forth and pleaded. The next was Colonel
Snodgrass, who did us the honour of contesting the same seat
with Archibald Boyd, of Beardy Plains. Gentle indeed was the
voice which could be raised on the part of a seaboard of some
three hundred miles at that time! Less the effort to make it
heard.

The strength of the electoral district of Moreton, County
of Stanley, and town of Brisbane, for 1846, was exhausted
by fifty-seven votes! In 1849 Brisbane's alone was that of
ninety! Not till 1851 did Moreton Bay return her one
member. Not till 1853, ^^^'''- ^^^ ^^^P ^^ '^*^" years — 1848-
1858 — cleared nine representatives of the North Territory ;
hitherto, under the general name of Moreton Bay. The next
was no leap in the dark ; 'twas out of darkness into the light
of Separation !

But pur political pilgrimage can be certified better by
authentic sources than this simple monogram.

With my own Darling Downs' life and its attachments, it
chimes in more merrily, and regretfully, to clasp into the rest
of my time, the social and local memoranda of the period which
predetermined the "Nativity of Queensland. "

Fretting Record. ^S(,

I must ask to be forgiven at the present day if I yet cling to
the oasis in which I rested the two or three years which preceded
my going back again to the old home. Of course I watched the
occupation of the Burrandowan waters. Glover and my brother
had gone and were almost forgotten, but by myself. Burran-
dowan was in other hands — IJving's or Friell's ; and in 1H46
those jolly brothers Haly, and then Cardew, and others had
settled down upon the Stuart (I did not give it that name). In
the same year did I meet in Sydney Sir Evan Mackenzie, one of
our first squatters, who had been laying a foundation stone for
some new school in Sydney in connection with St. Andrew's
Scot's Church. And on my return thence did I find my esteemed
old acquaintance Burnett, just come back from Wide Bay-wards,
having rescued from the blacks a cast-away Tahitian who called
himself George Moir. The " Tamar," with cheery old Captain
Allen, had just before brought up forty working men, who
disappeared in high glee as soon as they had landed ; and I
heard at the same time of the murder of two men on the Tweed,
and the worrying of the Logan cattle by the blacks. • Poor old
Hexton, too ! swearing that he should be washed away some
night from Amity Point pilot-station by the ever encroaching
tides. And before getting away down came on me the hammer
of evil news that Andrew — brother of our reverend incumbent of
St. John's — Gregor had been killed by the natives on his Pine
river station, and others with him there: two men also at Coutts'
having about the same time met the same fate : the catalogue
of the year's bush horrors being wound up by the treacherous
murder by like hands of John Uhr. Such a damning record
could not be washed out by the persistent pour of rains, which
seemed to threaten a repetition of the deluge of 1841.

Broke in upon us then the failure of the Facing Island farce
as a memory of 1847, relieved, however, shortly after by
Burnett's published account of his successful whaleboat search
for the mouth of the Boync, and satisfactory examination of the
Wide Bay district waters from seawards. Landwards, too,
Archibald Campbell and John Cameron had found and occupied
fine country more than two hundred miles to the westward ; and
coastwards the "bunkum" between Cleveland and Brisbane
renewed a vigorous pen-and-ink campaign. On the Downs the
"Springs," which I could never find, became the ^weet village ol
Drayton, in which swung the profile of a ''Bull's Head,"

390 Genesis of Queensland.

supposed to be a correct likeness of " Champion," once on Cecil
Plains, which enticed many a hungry and thirsty wayfarer to
stop for refreshment at the inn kept by my old bush associate,
William Orton, about a year later on, in competition with the
" advertisement" immediately on the other side of the road lower
down the bank of the "Springs " watercourse — in which I never
saw water— of '' good accommodation and stabling for horse and
man," by Stephen Mehan ! As an extinguisher for the last
flicker of the pet ministerial scheme which gave Colonel Barney
and his suite so much unprofitable leisure at Port Curtis, the closing
vear capped one of a similar fashion. Dr. Lang's proposal of a
cotton colony to supersede and swamp the wool and the
so-called squatters' monopoly of the resources of the Australian
soil. With the proposal was raised a cry for a township on the
river Mary, and a severe dig in the ribs for the Sydney folks was
inflicted by the heels of Earl Grey, which touched up the
general sensitiveness about a proposed separation of Port Phillip.
Moreton Bav was now honoured by the presence of a harbour-
master—and a very efficient officer and good fellow he was — of
the name of Freeman. His first notable act was to save my
jjoor old friend Pilot Hexton from what is popularly termed
a " watery grave,'" almost at the same time that a brother
squatter of the name of Scott escaped a grave less delectable
even than that of Jonah of old by finding a refuge from the
hands and appetites of the blacks of the " Monoboola" in the
cabin of that nondescript but domestic type of the Brisbane
marine service the well-remembered ketch " Aurora." She was
well named ; daylight could be seen through her when I made
her acquaintance first.

The public meeting held in November, 1847, ^o consider
Friell's Coolie experiment, resulted in the proposal for another to
be held in the following February. Sufficiency of labour, at any
reasonable rates, for the wants of the district appearing to be
hopeless. This assembled at the " Caledonia," North Brisbane.
as suggested, but it came to little or nothing in earnest. Labour
offered no resource, under the burden of our need, to be turned
to nor returned to as the " Orwell " tea had done years
before ; when such a man for tea was intoned through our tenan-
cies. The Chinese war of 1838 had been drawing to a close:
hideous and vengeful accounts had got wind of the Celestial
conspiracv for extinguishing the "Barbarians" by poisoning

A Tea ''Trait." 39,

wells at home, and exports for consumption abroad. In 184 1-2,
the ship " Orwell," from China, had come into Port Jackson
with an immense cargo of tea (green only, in those times), chests
in scores found their way through the land, and supplies waning
on all far stations were replenished. Well I remember the
opening of the first at Cecil Plains ! Filthy was the smell of
paint, filthier its taste ; chest after chest similarly dcgoiUant.
'■ Can't put up with the coves' rations !" was the general shout ;
demand for settlement of wages summary : — made and met-
Each station in ignorance that the cordon de san-te, which
encircled the storm of the tea-pot — embraced its neighbour also
—almost deserted and helpless. "Why, Russell, why come here

to look for men ? ours have all bolted : its all the tea ! that

tea !" Farther and farther each would ride in wild fashion, picking
up way-farers in like quest; passing squads of men with " swag'
on shoulder, jeering as we ride on, "don't 'ee think we'll drink

your tea ! " From place to place the cry was re-echoed '

Not many days, however, ere amazement, bewilderment, and
the voice of " jeering " joined in the burden of a howl : " we're
all poisoned by those Chinese villains!" Men could not live
without their quart-pot of tea and their 'bacca. Neighbours
meeting would watch each other in dread expectancy of seeing
some fatal symptoms in each other's features. The wretched
traveller would be assailed : " Have any died yet on the next
station ? " as he parsed on. But, day by day, the " painted" tea
was moaned over, anathematised and swallowed ; the surf went
down, a calm ensued ; no bodies to bury, no tale to unfold.

The same squads of tea-travailing turn-coats dribbling in
one by one to their old quarters would beg for fresh agreements,
get them, and then pack away the perfume of the Pekoe without
imprecation nor panic. The run in a ring round Downs and
districts; men after fresh masters, masters after fresh men, made
up the total of la tea fight which ended for each where it had
begun. The following year's supply was above suspicion : the
beauty of tea without paint had lost its charms : habit had re-
conciled and then assumed the sway : taste had de — te — riorated :
another tea tour threatened at once the tapis, but stopped at
the first stir : so capriciously can " use almost change the
stamp of nature."

But there was no resource nor relief in the race for labour
now. There was no possible return to the old source from

392 Genesis of Queensland.

which the demand claimed a supply as of yore ; there was no
running in the pursuit which could make both ends meet again.
Transportation and prison-labour were at an end. It is not
surprising that after every subtle suggestion in the furtherance
of an introduction of coloured labour had failed, the squatters, in
desperation, whose success was of paramount importance to the
whole country, turned gradually with half-averted countenances
to some plan for re-opening the old polluted springs whereby
such growing interests might be preserved from the drought,
then wasting industries which could only be energised by the
sweat of man's brow. The people's taste nauseated at the
suspicion of such renewal of the good old times, or the least
modification of the old system. 'No use could change the stamp
of the country's determination. An effort was made— but not yet.
In 1849, whatever the effort — hope of succeeding in the pro-
posal was dead and buried. Nevertheless, occasion was ingeniously
handled : the thimble-rig of expediency was deftly thumbed —
soon after — as I shall endeavour to show — when the finger was
raised to beckon deliverance from apron-strings, and the privilege
to handle reins with which Queensland eventually jehued herself
to the grand field of free paces over the intercolonial race-course.

Pre-separation annals yet scored up many occurrences of no
mean stamp : one of which opened the door of 1848 to the brave
and since lamented Kennedy and his exploring companions.
The thirst, in a more limited sense, for better knowledge of the
country, far off as well as near, kept pace with the hunger for
fresh pasturage, waiting watchfully for the multiplying sheep ;
with the greed for speculation in towns, and with the exercise of
wits keen in unriddling the promise of future progress. One of
our oldest residents, Warner, had his specialty in the Surveying
Department authoritatively stamped upon the parcelling out of
the immediate Moreton Bay platform : Burnett, another old
compatriot in the same service had his on the more distant
environing pastoral areas. Poor Burnett ! it was this setting
forth into the rough work west and north that sowed the
seeds of that wasting rheumatism which in a few years more
brought him to my neighbourhood, Kangaroo Point, to die on
the banks of the Brisbane river.

How persistently will death at times run with violence
through the groove of a family following! The first minister of
religion of any denomination that I had seen on the Condamine

Death's "Dour" Dealing. yy^

was he who was at this season incumbent tor the Church ot
England at St. John's, at Brisbane — the Rev. John Gregor. Hf
had, If I recollect aright, been in the Scottish days at honn-,
preceptor through the early years of Patrick Leslie's puerile
pranks and propensities ; and in the blaze of boyhood, perhaps,
perversities. He may, for aught I know, have followed his old
pupil, and the passages of his old pupil's exploring prowess, with
pardonable pride ; and been content to span his years with thr
bridge of attachment from the horizon of the one hemisphere to
the other. But he and his brother Andrew compassed not th(.'
natural end of their lives' engagements. The strong band whicli
thrust each into a grave brought itself down suddenly and
sullenly. The savage yell of the black murderer was, perhaps,
the last sound in the ears of the one ; as the screeching suck of
the stifling waters in the ears of the other. John Gregor was
found drowned at the German mission station, near Brisbane.

These deaths recurred to me years afterwards. A noble
frigate, the " Orpheus," was lying at anchor in the bay, opposite
my house, about two miles away. Her commander — Commodore
Burnett — was coming to have luncheon with me on the day on
which he was to leave for New Zealand. " In past years, Com-
modore, I was acquainted with a brother of yours out here ; he
always went by the name of ' Jemmy ' Burnett ; everyone liked
him ; poor fellow ! he was drowned in trying to cross one of our
rivers." "Yes," said the Commodore, "he was; we in our
family were four brothers ; my other two were also drowned ; I
only remain."

The day passed so pleasantly that the story of same-sadness
had worn off, and blithely did I say good-bye, " hoping to hear
from you, Commodore, when you get to New Zealand." " Aye I
aye ! that you shall," he shouted, as the gig pulled off. I watched
the fine new ship as she got away, with unconscious interest. I
never saw her again ; nor the Commodore. That powerful
shapely fabric broke up like glass on the Manukau Bar, and all
perished, save a few — who afterwardswentdoivn in the "Lo7idon "

I knew of no disquietude to the even tenor of bush life so
intolerable as that of saying good-bye to old friends going
home. Every occurrence of this kind tangled the fibre of one's
bush system more than any real mishap. I cannot cast off reflection
upon the most trying occasion of this character in the earlier
part of 1848.

394 Genesis of Queensland.

Caparisoned in the joyous garb of hard-earned success, down
on me at Cecil Downs, one unheeded afternoon, swooped a
throng of merry cavaliers of the olden (Darling Downs) time.
Arthur Hodgson :— shall I name more? No! re-gathering now
the faces of that familiar group the review dwells on features of
dust. All but he have passed on. Laden with convivial elements
which symbolised the good-fellowship of the stirrup-cup of part-
ing, these, my then friends, about to leave, had come, in all
kindness, to say good-bye !

To the squatter within the loneliness of his own marked trees
the good-bye of members of his order " home-ward bound " was
in all truth, a concealed but deep distress ; if so, to me, was I a
foolish exception ? The verandah of the thinker left behind with
seats of friendship, hitherto always filled by some of the brother-
hood at the Yule-tide — to be henceforth empty ! The cry which
came with these happy fugitives, as it were, from his own dear
ones, "Come back to us!" borrowed sound and substance
in the presences of this glad gang of old cronies, happy ! oh !
how happy in the gaze upon a change to that dear old " Home-
spot," which in them, as in me, spiritualises the love of
native land, as it does that of those who are awaiting at home
wanderers whose instinct for " Home " they know out of the
secret of their blood-knit hearts. Yet when the cry was
answered but the shadow of home ! These breakings up of
the attachments brought the truth home more than one cares to
talk about.

Time drivrs us on with our surroundings, and stows away
in each man's wallet of memory many a valued morsel dropped
by each year, on its track. Helpful and hopeful was it to pick
up the news that there was a higher standard to be raised
for the serious thought of life among our people in 1848's
March. The name which I shall never speak, but with reverence
and respect, w^as presented to us in the Ministry of the Church :
that of one who bore ever since the burden patiently and worthily :
the service of which the "yoke is easy." I mean that of Benjamin
Glcnnie. He was not one who would say in clerical " parlance"
I will do it, I), v., as Sl f argon de parler. I never met a man in
whom submission to those conventional letters, in faithfulness
and simplicity, was more truthfully manifest. If he were yet
alive, I could bring back to him from Drayton, in 1853, the
grounds on wh.icli I V)uilt my conviction. How deep a good

A Page of Contrast. -q-

man's syllables sink into the mud of mere sense ! Thirty-four
years ago ! yet but as yesterday.

Murders by blacks this year — notably one at David Perricr's
— were all, I think eclipsed by a foul deed at Kangaroo Point,
Brisbane. There had been a man of the name of Cox in an inn
called " Sutton's." He was missed one day, and a headless body
and limbs were found on the bank of the river. Shortly after the
head was picked up out of a brick " tumulus" called " Campbell's
Folly." (Colin Campbell, of Glengallan, had begun but never
completed the edifice.) A man — then cook. I think, at
" Sutton's" — was charged with the crime, tried, convicted, and
hung, in spite of loud protestation of innocence. Some years
afterwards another, in the horror of a death-bed upbraiding,
confessed that he had been the guilty one, and had looked on at
the execution of his innocent locum tenens! Let his name perish!

In April of this my last whole year — 1848— on Darling
Downs, the entertaining but dilatory Commissioner of Crown
Lands for New England made way for one whose name in the
same position at Armidale, and whose brother's name afterwards
at Brisbane as police magistrate, were and are yet held high in
public as well as in private regard. About my first meeting with
the latter some years before, there was to me a material gratifi-
cation beyond the pleasure of making anacquaintance then which I
have since learnt so much to value. Hamon Massie let me buy a
horse from him, which, when I looked at, I had little hope of his
consenting to part with. " Rodney" was the best animal I ever
rode or drove in Australia. The way in which he stood by me
in my need in some sorely unpleasant scrapes in the bush made
me often eternally grateful to the name of his former master.
In after days, however, long after this period, " Rodney," I
found, had never outpaced the kindly feelings which two such
brothers — men of the old English squirearchy stamp — ^won from
one who had learnt to appreciate them for what they, in sooth,
were. George Macdonald disappeared as commissioner in the
Lower Darling District.

The Monoboolahad been just now gazetted the river Mary, in
memory of Lady Mary Fitzroy. Many old friends' names were
being reproduced on stations pressing on north. Ferriter and
Uhr, Hawkins, Lawless, Humphries and Herbert, Mort.
McTaggart, Scott, Ross, and a legion of others about the water,
of the Burnett or Wide Bay. Ah ! then the recurrence of the

3g6 Genesis of Queensland.

May meeting on the New Farm Racecourse ! Baronet and
Dermott McFigg pitted against each other by their respective
owners, Mackenzie and Bigge, in a private match for £ioo.
Riding Dermott — by request — /did not w\n\ alas!: great the
rejoicing over " Baronet" ! " Creeping Jenny," " Molly Bawn,"
•' Meerza," "Sir William," "Sir Harry" can't even now be
separated from their several owners — Patrick Leslie, O'Grady
Haly, George Burgoyne. Drayton followed suit the following
July on the course over Westbrook Plain. Here our commis-
sioner Rolleston's " Yarico " beat seven others for the Hack
Stakes. What a shout went up ! And these were followed by a
galloping visit to Moreton Bay by the Bishop of Newcastle —
Dr. Tyrrell — our first episcopal stirring up, not before church and
school matters required it. The Bishop rode hard : of course
every one lent him a horse when required. I did so at Cecil
Plains, and when it was brought back in a day or two I saw that
his Lordship had been very accurate when he assured me in the
way of warning "that he used his own spurs."

Much was made and said of the Moreton Bay exports during
the year from June, 1847, ^^ June of this year. The sheep were
about six hundred and ninety-nine thousand, cattle over forty-
eight thousand, horses more than two thousand. Business men
sorely felt the want of a bank. This half-year's exports were
valued at about ;<;6o,ooo.

The journal of Sir Thomas Mitchell's expedition in search
of a route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria was in August
supplied to our inquisitive appetites, too late after satiation by
Leichhardt's diet; but it signalled the return of the Surveyor-
General again from England, by the " Countess of Yarborough,"
recently. Locally the launch of the " Eagle " steamer — wooden
— built by and supplied to the acquisitive desires of the Moreton
Bay trade, by Chowne, of Johnston's Bay, Sydney, for the
Hunter's River Steam Navigation Company, created a sen-
sation and raised expectation ! The military barracks converted
into an immigration depot, much more. The little "Raven,"
however, had outstripped the " Eagle's " first flight, for she was
already active in her passages between Ipswich and Brisbane,
carrying wool in desperation ; for wool was, alas ! very low at
this wretched time. For what purpose the "Tamar," as we
ncared the end of the year, brought up D.A.C.G. Walker
Cameron, and thirty-live of his i ith Regiment men, I cannot and

Off and On. 3^^

never could tell. They were more intelligibly followed by some
sixty Chinese in the ship " Nimrod." Dull and dismal was the
e;nd of 1848, when it made room for the January, which with its
rumours of the golden wonders of the Californian digo-ino-s at
once began to drive men mad, and dissatisfied with every-
thing Australian. Another good-bye to next neighbours and old
friends, the Tummavil family of Rolland, " Home " directly by the
" Cheapside," broke up the old social ring on Darling Downs,
and clinched my decision for a change too. The sense of
loneliness became oppressive. I was in another Wide Ba}' fog.
February of 1849 was notable by reason of the arrival of
Dr. Lang's emigrants, who, in thankfulness to the ship which
brought them, surnamed the pretty spot on which, after some little
trouble, they managed to settle themselves, " Fortitude Valley."
A mishap, almost coincident with this event, to the brother of
my early Sydney acquaintance, Bob Graham, of the firm of
Graham and Montefiore, stamped the time on my recollection.
The " Tamar " was lying in the river ; Charles Graham pulled
alongside and went aboard, leaving in his boat a box containing
some ;^400 (a larger sum then than it is thought now), and when
he came back the boat — it was bare ! The box's contents were
never traced : the box was, a long time afterwards. On her
return from Sydney after this occurrence, the "Tamar" brought
up the whole family (some members of which had lately come
from England) of my neighbours at Clifton on Darling Downs, at
the head of which was, for her first visit to the north, the widow
of our first Australian Chief lustice, the highly-gifted Sir Francis
Forbes. In the month following — March — Sydney showed herself
resolute in her refusal to receive more convicts into her territory,
and one whose name must be yet green in Queensland, the
Rev. Stewart, came to the front of his fellow-passengers in the
" Fortitude " as an able minister devoted to the Presbyterian
Church. Moreton Bay had become a warehousing port for the
bonding of all dutiable goods ; but all encouraging memoranda
of " advance " were much clouded by the terrible drought, in
Darling Downs especially. Pushing on to Wide Bay apace, the
schooner " Vixen," of forty-five tons ! was positively crammed
with more than a score of passengers, and Brisbane and Cleveland
began to form a ring for their wonted annual prize-fight for supre-
macy as the champion shipping port and anchorage. Brisbane got
the best of it, and so in the middle of this year she at length

398 Genesis of Queensland.

decided upon a site for a custom-house on the river. It must
have been about May, just before, 1 think, that Edward Moriarty
and Bagot came up and added supreme strength to the surveying
and engineering requirements of the district, for I fancy I found
them not long afterwards camped together on the Downs side of
the main range, but I do not remember what their special work
at the time was.

Rumours about the aspect of our labour difficulty had for
some time floated about, and in July we heard that that admirable
keen-witted member of the Legislative Council, " Bob " Nicholls
had asked " whether Government had received any communica-
tion from l:^norland as to an intention to forward convicts to
Moreton Bay?" Reply from the Colonial Secretary : " None !"
But of this, more by-and-by.

Just at this time, Charles Gray, master of that remarkable
ketch ■' Aurora " — Scott's ark of refuge on the Wide Bay Coast
some time ago — was murdered by the blacks at Bribie's Island.
On my return shortly afterwards to Brisbane, I became acquainted
with the Revs. Robert Creyke (formerly, I think, rector of
Edlington in Yorkshire) and W. Bodenham, for whom work was
clerically found by the Church of England. Both these clergy-
men had come to Brisbane in search of health. The new colonial
wooden built steamer " Eagle " made her maiden trij) from
Sydney on the 28th July, and on her return from Moreton Bay, I
went ashore at the old "' Flour' Company's Wharf" in Sydney,
on the 6th of August, 1849.

My bush — not my Australian existence — had come to an
t nd. I have seen neither Condamine, nor Cecil Plains, nor
sheep, nor ox of mine since. By the " Phoenician," on the
23rd January of the following year (1850), I was the only male
cabin passenger to England.

On my return, in January of 1851, I lived at a house which I
completed and called " Shafston," at Kangaroo Point, on the
banks of the Brisbane, opposite the old cottage of " New Farm."

The only topic — but that was theengrossing topic of the day —
on which I shall venture to say a few words more is " Separation
of Queensland" from New South Wales, which, as soon as I knew
it to be un fait accompli in the designs of the authorities in
London, I preceded in such assurance (for I had again made a trip
'Home" in 1855) in 1859, at the end of which it was declared.

And so my story's done !

CHAPTER XXll,

With other eyes, too, could I now look upon my fellow-man ; with an infinite
love, an infinite pity. Poor, wandering, wayward man ! Art thou not tried, and
beaten with stripes, even as I ann ? Ever, whether thou bear the royal mantle or
the beggar's garbardine, art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden ; and thy bed of
rest is but a grave.

— Carlyle. (Sartor Resartus.)

Having begun this small chronicle of pre-Queenslandiana witii
the name of the first, it would be inexcusably defective if it did
not end with the name of the last official explorer of the north
land — Allan Cunningham — Edmund Kennedy. However notable
his life had been and promised to be, far more conspicuous w.is
Edmund Kennedy's death.

" More are men's ends marked than their lives before."

Edmund B. Kennedy, Assistant Surveyor, had returned, at
the end of 1847, fi'oni conducting an expedition to ascertain thtj
course of the " Victoria," the river so named by Surveyor-
General Sir Thomas Mitchell, and presumed to run into the Gull
of Carpentaria. Kennedy identified it with Sturt's Cooper's
creek. His despatch detailing the particulars of his journev
may be found in the New South Wales Government Gazette, of
Monday, the 24th January, 1848.

He had little rest. In the barque "Tarn O'Shanter" —
Captain Merionberg — he sailed from Sydney on the 29th of April,
1848. H.M.S. " Rattlesnake " — Captain Owen Stanley — accom-
panied her. His associates in the work were William Carron- -
botanist — and Thomas Wall — naturalist. On the working strength
of the party were C. Niblett (storekeeper, who betrayed his trust),
James Duff, Edward Taylor, William Costigan, Edward Carpenter,
William Goddard, Thomas Mitchell, John Douglas, Dennis Dunn,
and Jacky, an aboriginal of Patrick's Plains, on the Hunter :
thirteen all told, of whom, only two, Carron and Goddard, sur-
vived to tell their pitiable tale, besides that black diamond
Jacky, by whose brave fidelity even these two were rescued.

The object of the expedition was to explore the country
lying between Rockingham Bay and Cape York.

By any one who had ever attempted travelling on a line
parallel with and but little removed from our eastern board the
difficulties of such a journey would have, I think, been weighed

^oo Genesis of Queensland.

with more caution and better judgment than seem to have pre-
vailed in the counsels of those who gave instructions for such a
crawl over nine degrees of our coast country. On a more limited
scale, the energetic Logan would attempt it only on foot, and
even on foot could not always surmount obstructions. Abrupt,
precipitous gullies : banks of torrent-channels, not only walls on
either side but almost invariably imprisoned within belts of dark
tano-led scrub, impenetrable without the aid of tomahawk or axe;
depth of streams so near debouchitre: notoriously sw^ampy and
rotten conditions of most land marginal to the salt water and
within its tides : ranges or broken ridges rarely clear of their
dismal clothing of pine or other brush : the w^ell-known excessive
hostility, treachery and bloodthirstiness of the sea-shore tribes,
even in contrast to like propensities among the inland or up-
river natives might surely have claimed extraordinary provision
against such obstacles to success and undue risk to the explorers.
Surely a course removed but a hundred miles or even fifty back
from such known natural difficulties could have better — at least
equally well — have answered the desired purpose : examined the
system of drainage and mapped out the intervening land.

Again, it was no new information that coast grass, however
o-reen and pleasant to the eye, never fattens nor even sustains
sheep, horses, nor cattle, whether travelling or not. Was any
thought given to the necessity of crossing with such a following
tidal streams so frequent in stopping the way, their banks, if
approachable at all, unsound and treacherous, irrespective of
depth and width ? Wheels, too, for such an undertaking — over
five hundred miles or more ! No wonder they were soon left
behind ! These are not after-thoughts. The realities of such a
coastal course even in 1848 were no conjectures ; they were the
characteristics of the whole then knowm seaboard. In the bush.
I well recollect the chances of Kennedy's prevailing over them
being discussed with many doubts.

I have before me a pamphlet, now perhaps out of print,
written by one; of the two survivors (William Carron), who so
bravely and nobly bore himself and his companions through the
harrowing scenes which he describes with little mention of
himself however. The kind courtesy of Mrs. Carron supplied
me with it.

It contains, in addition to this journal, the statements made
by Jacky, and others who took part under his guidance in

A Bad Start. ^qi

recovering the two who were spared, and the relics of Kennedy's
papers. His bones were never found.

An early shadow seems to have fallen upon the venture.
" A tedious passage of twenty-two days " before they arrived at
Rockingham Bay. " Even here, at the very starting point of
our journey, those unforseen difhculties began to arise which led
us subsequently to hardships so great and calamities so fatal."

Out of twenty-eight horses, one was lost on the passage; out
of a hundred sheep, eleven. One more horse drowned in landing
here, after their unavoidable swim ashore of a quarter-of-a-mile.
They had three carts. Two miles brought them to a river one
hundred and fifty yards wide, which fended them off by man-
grove swamps, and then thick brush. The "Rattlesnake" boats
here helped them.

From June 5, struggling and straining through swamps ;
wading or swimming, clearing way through scrub or running
miles up and down to find crossing places ; rain in torrents ;
axles breaking brought the carts, at length, to their last stand-
still on July 17th.

Tomahawking scrub after scrub for a passage, skirting creek
after creek, which ran " in all directions," with banks so steep
as to " present another obstacle to the progress of our horses,"
brought them, Sunday after Sunday, a day of rest which was
observed in Christian fashion. Soon another " impediment "
bewildered them, even the blocks of granite clustered together
on the beds of crossing places, which " rendered it very difficult
for our horses to pass. One of them fell from a ledge of hard
rock at the edge of a river, nearly thirty feet," and, of course,
died. On the 29th July " the horses began to look very poor
and weak, and although they had always \\-^^ plenty of grass.'*
On the 31st July they had "begun clearing up a mountain," in
which work Kennedy " spoke very highly of Jacky." And so it
went on, day after day, "but made very little progress, owing to
the great labour of clearing and the number of steep ascents we
met with"; rain, rain, rain, keeping company with them.

"August 10. This morning we took the sheep and horses
to a spot in the river where the current was not so strong and
drove them across. We then cut down three small, straight
trees, and made a bridge across a deep channel which ran
between two rocks which projected out of the water, across
which we carried our stores on our backs. The position of our

2 c

402 Genesis of Queensland.

camp here was about 17 deg. 48 min. S. latitude, 145 deg. 20 min.
E. longitude." Here Kennedy, having discovered the store-
keeper's breach of trust, made over charge of the remaining
stores to Carron.

*' 15th August. Cutting through scrub all day, and crossed
several small creeks. The horse carrying my specimens had
become so poor and weak, that he fell five different times ; so
many became ' poor and weak ' and fell so often, that we now
made up our minds for the first time to make our horses, 'when
too weak to travel, available for food" — and they soon found an
appetite for such beef. "On. the 17th, the weak state of our
horses prevented us making almost any progress. 19th. A
horse died," which they did not eat. 28th. Another horse fell,
and was fed upon. 29th. Another. "30th and 31st. The
country was very mountainous, and so full of deep gullies, that
we were frequently obliged to follow the course of a rocky creek,
the turnings of which were very intricate." (Who does not
compare, if he know either, the old Crawney road from
Aberdeen to the Page, or the old Bulga track from Maitland to
Sydney, with this description of coast country ?) " To add to our
difficulties many of the hills were covered with scrub so thickly
that it was with much difficulty that we could pursue our course
through it. We had intended to keep along the bank of the
river, thinking it might lead us to Princess Charlotte's Bay.
Sept. 4 and 5. The country much the same, making travelling
most difficult and laborious. We were now in the vicinity of
Cape Tribulation. 6th. We now found the river beginning to
run in all directions through the hills, over which it was impos-
sible to travel. We were consequently forced to keep the bed
of the river, our horses falling every few minutes in consequence
of the slippery surface.

September 23. They fell in with "a great many trees of
moderate size, about fifteen to twenty feet high, of rather
pendulous habit, loaded with an oblong, yellow fruit, having a
rough stone inside. The part covering the stem has, when ripe,
a meally appearance and a very good flavour. I considered,
from its appearance, it was the fruit which Leichhardt called
' Nonda,' which we afterwards called it. We all ate plentifully
of it.' '

In the middle of September, the repeated thefts by some one
of the party were detected, and alarm as to the consequences —

Fai7it, yet Fighting. 403

before arrival at Cape York, where a vessel was to meet them — was
intelligible. Either Kennedy, Carron or Wall had "to watch''
the stores "by day and night," and even "the food whilst cook-
ing," much of which was supplied by the death of their wretched
horses !

" October 3. Kennedy found that it was even necessary to
have the horse-flesh watched while drying, finding that two or three
of the party had secreted small quantities amongst their clothes ;
such precautions were quite necessary, as well in justice to the
whole of the party, as to keep up the strength of all, which
seemed to be fast declining. At night we made a fire to smoke
the meat ; and to destroy the maggots. All we got from the
horse we last killed was sixty-five lbs. of meat.

" October 9. Came to a river running into Princess Char-
lotte's Bay, in latitude S. 14 deg. 30 min., longitude E. 143 deg.
56 min. Crossed it about twelve miles from the sea. 13th
Kennedy abandoned the thought of going to the beach, as he
felt sure H.M.S. ' Bramble,' which was to have met us at the
beginning of August would have gone, our journey having
occupied so much longer time than we could possibly have
anticipated. i6th. Another horse to be eaten. We left one of
our round tents and such other things as we could possibly spare
behind us, as our horses were now so weak they could not carry
their loads. 19th. Several of our horses were now quite unable
to carry anything but the saddle. 21st. Killed another, too
weak to stand. The health and hearts of many began now to
fail them. Three could not walk. November ist. Killed
another horse, too weak. 5th. Another. 6th. Two more, and
packed the meat in the hide of one." And so, men and horses,
well nigh helpless, Kennedy resolved to push on for assistance
to Cape York, with Jacky, Costigan, Luff and Dunn, leaving the
rest of his companions as near Weymouth Bay as possible.
" November 11. After we had camped we killed our last sheep.
We had but nine horses left. One of our dogs killed a young
dog belonging to the natives during the night, which I afterwards
ascertained was eaten by Dunn, Luff, Costigan and Goddard.

"November 13th." From this date the journal was written
and " preserved in full " to that of rescue, 30th December.
" This morning everything was prepared for the departure of
Kennedy and his party, and the last of our mutton was served
out. Kennedy gave me written instructions how to act during

404 Genesis of Queensland.

our stay at Weymouth Bay, it being his intention to send for us
by water if possible, as he expected to meet H.M.S. ' Bramble'
at Port Albany. He calculated that he should be from ten to
fifteen days before he reached that place, and directed me to
keep a sharp look out from the hill for a vessel, and, if I should
see one, to hoist a flag on the hill. If the natives were friendly
I was to put a ball beneath the flag, and above it should they be
hostile. In the evening I was to fire three rockets, at intervals
of about twenty minutes. The party left in my charge were
eight in number. The provisions consisted of two horses and
twenty-eight pounds of flour. The whole party left at the camp
were very weak. Luff being the weakest man that proceeded to
Cape York. Before leaving, Kennedy told me that he expected
to meet with some difficulties for the first few days, from the
nature of the country he had seen from the hill. I did not
mention this to the rest, for fear it might still further tend to
depress their spirits, as three or four of them seemed even now
to despair of ever reaching our destination. I did all in my
power to keep them in good heart, but they were saddened from
long suffering. We removed our camp back along the creek to
the side of the high bare hill on which 1 was to hoist a flag, and
from which 1 could look out for a vessel. It also afforded us a
security from the natives, as we could see them at a greater
distance. The latitude of this camp was i2 deg. 35 min. S.
Wearied out by long endurance of trials that would have tried
the courage and shaken the fortitude of the strongest, a sort of
sluggish indifference prevailed that prevented the development
of those active energies which were so necessary to support us
in our critical position. The duties of our camp were performed
as if by habit, and knowing how utterly useless complaint must
be, the men seldom repined aloud."

The desolation of these poor starving prisoners of the bush
quickly became too great for some of them to endure and live.
The self-denying, considerate nature of William Carron shines
out brightly in the midst of the growing darkness. With him, as
with Kennedy, the grand principle was manifestly, as it had been
with some whose renowned names have taken men's minds and
admiration captive, " Duty." With his human circle around
him, heart and health broken, sullen in their agony and despair,
with but one brother in peril perhaps (Wall) with whom he could
in any way hold counsel and sympathetic converse, and by whom

Doom Dallying with Despair

4"5

he might be understood as men of education and rdiiud libit-
only can understand each other's unexpressed and inexpressibh-
feeling, Carron's sense of what was due to them and to the
wishes of his official superior seems never to have been lost sight
of. Three days of this strain of inactive despair brought the first
of that circle to the grave. "Douglas died this mornincr "
(November i6th), " and we buried him at dusk, when the natives
were gone, and I read the funeral service. . . His death cast
an additional gloom over us." 19th, Sunday. " I read prayers
to-day." 2oth. "Taylor died this morning, and we buried him
in the evening by the side of Douglas. I read the funeral
service." 26th. " Carpenter died this morning, without pain or
struggle. At eleven o'clock I read prayers, and in the evening
buried our late companion in the bed of the creek, and I read the
funeral service." 27th. "Killed the other horse this morning,
with all appearance of a fine day to dry it ; but about eleven
o'clock a heavy thunderstorm came on, and it rained all day."
28th. "We were very uneasy at the continued wet weather, as
it threatened to destroy the scanty remains of our provisions, the
flesh already beginning to smell very badly." 29th. " The meat
almost putrid." 30th. " Cut up all the meat that would hold
together, but a great deal of it was quite rotten. I saved the
hide of the horse for ourselves; the other I had fed the dogs with,
Kennedy having requested me to keep them alive, if possible."

And out of this fearful fog of hopelessness and helplessness
flared out a cruel beam (an ignis faUius such as many a lost thirst-
throed wanderer has hailed in an agony of reacting gladness
as the light of some shepherd's hut — some white man's camp-
fire- — and struggled and striven and staggered on towards it
until he has sunk under the sudden perception of the impish
treachery) upon the withering hearts of those sufferers. Cruel! oh
how cruel was the chance that the morning of the ist of December
conveyed to Carron's strained sight of a home at last ! A schooner ■'
beating towards them, too, from the northward ! Rescue from death
at last! the promised coming of Kennedy! "Down on our knees
men! with thanksgiving," (I can fancy the glad-tidings carrier)
" here comes the ' Bramble' !" Let the journal speak for itself:
" I supposed her to be the ' Bramble,' as it was about the time
Kennedy had given me expectation of being relieved by water,
and I afterwards found I was right in the supposition, f naturally
concluded that she had come for us ; and full of hope and joy I

4o6 Genesis of Queensland.

immediately hoisted a flag on a staff we had previously erected
' on a part of the hill where it could be seen from any part of the
bay. We placed a ball above the flag to put the crew on their
guard against the natives. We then collected a quantity of
wood and at dusk lighted a fire and kept it burning till about
half-past seven or eight o'clock. I then fired off three rockets one
after the other at intervals of about twenty minutes. I also took
a large pistol up the hill, and stood for some time firing it as
quickly as I could load it, thinking they might perhaps see the
flash of that, if they had not seen the rockets.

" December 2nd. Early this morning I was up straining my
eyes to catch a view of the bay, and at length saw the schooner
standing in to the shore, and during the forenoon a boat was
lowered. I now made quite certain they were coming for us, and
thinking they might come up the creek in the boats, for some
distance, I hastened down the hill and began to pack up a few
things, determined to keep them waiting for our baggage no
longer than I could help. I looked anxiously for them all the
afternoon, wondering much at their delay in coming, at last I
went up the hill just in time to see the schooner passing the bay^
" White as a white sail on a dusky sea,
When half the horizon's clouded, and half free,
Fluttering between the dim wave and the sky,
Is Hope's last gleam in man's extremity !"

" I cannot describe the feeling of despair and desolation
which I, in common with the rest of our party, experienced as we
gazed on the vessel as she fast faded from our view. On the
very brink of starvation and death — death in the lone wilderness
peopled only with the savage denizens of the forest, who even
then were thirsting for our blood. Hope, sure and certain hope,
had for one brief moment gladdened our hearts with the consoling
assurance, that after our many, many trials and protracted suffer-
ings, we were again about to find comfort and safety. The
bright expectancy faded, and although we tried to persuade our-
selves that the vessel was not the ' Bramble,' our hearts sank
within us in deep despondency.

" December 4th. Finished our scanty remnant of flour.

" December 7th. Our horse-flesh was so bitter that nothing
but unendurable hunger could have induced us to eat it. A
number of small brown beetles were generating from it, which
ate it, and we were also much annoyed by flies.

Dead and Livinfr Skeletons. 407

"December 13th. This morning Mitchell was found dt-ad
by the side of the creek with his feet in the water. He must
have gone down at night to fetch water, but too much exhausted
had sat down and died there ! None of us being strong enough
to dig a grave for him, we sewed the body in a blanket, with a
few stones to sink it, and then put it in the brackish water.
Rain ! rain ! rain !

" December 21. Our kangaroo dog being very weak, and
unable. to catch anything, we killed and lived on him for two
days. We drank the water in which we boiled him.

" 24th. My legs had swelled very much, and I was able to
walk but a very short distance. 26th. The natives brought us
a few pieces of lish and turtle, but almost rotten ; also, a bluc-
tongued lizard, which I opened and took out eleven young ones,
which we roasted and ate. We always equally divided whatever
we got, but the natives brought us very little that was eatable.
I could easily see that their pretended good feeling towards us
was assumed for the sake of fulfilling their own designs upon
us. Their object was to obtain an opportunity of coming upon
us by surprise, and destroying us. They had many times seen
the fatal effects of our fire-arms, and I believe it was only the
dread of these that prevented them from falling upon us at once.
They were a much finer race of men than the natives we had
seen at Rockingham Bay, most of them being from five feet ten
inches to six feet high. 28th. Niblett and Wall both died this
morning. Niblett was quite dead when I got up, and Wall,
though alive, was unable to speak. I had been talking with
them both, endeavouring to encourage them to hope on to the
last, but sickness, privation and fatigue had overcome them, and
they abandoned themselves to a calm and listless despair.
About eleven o'clock some fifty natives, armed with spears, and
many of them painted with a yellowish earth, made their appear-
ance in the vicinity of our camp. There were natives of several
strange tribes among them. They were well aware that neither
Niblett nor Wall was able to resist them, if they did not know
that they were dead. They also knew that we were very weak,
although I always endeavoured as much as possible to keep that
fact from them. This morning when I made signs to them to
lay down their spears they paid no attention, with the exception
of two who had been in the habit of coming very frequently to
the camp. These two came running up quite close to us with-

4o8 Genesis of Queensland.

out their spears, and endeavoured to persuade one of us to go
across a small dry creek for a fish, which another of the rascals
was holding up to tempt us.

"They tried various methods to draw our attention from the
rest who were drawing their spears along the ground with their
feet, closing gradually around us and running from tree to tree
to hide their spears behind them. Others lay on their backs
in the long grass and were working their way towards us.
Goddard and myself stood with our guns in readiness and our
pistols by our sides for about two hours, when I fell from exces-
sive weakness. When I got up, we thought it best to send
them away at once or stand our chance of being speared in the
attempt ; both of us being unable to stand any longer, we pre-
sented our guns at the two by our side, making signs to them to
send the others away or we would shoot them immediately.
This they did and ran off in all directions without a spear being
thrown or a shot fired. ... As the evening came on there
came with it the painful task of removing the bodies of our
unfortunate companions who had died in the morning. We had
not strength to make the smallest hole in the ground as a grave,
but after great exertion we succeeded in moving the bodies to a
small patch. . . . We laid them side by side and covered
them with a few branches. ... I did not quite despair,
but I knew we could not live long. . . . Our sole remain-
ing companion, the sheep-dog, I intended to kill in a day or
two, but he could not last long, as he was nothing but skin and
bone.

"December 30th. Goddard went to get another pigeon,
and, if the natives made their appearance, I was to fire a pistol
to recall him to the camp. After he had gone I saw natives
coming toward the camp, and immediately fired a pistol, but
before Goddard could come back they were in the camp, and
handed me a piece of paper very much dirtied and torn. I was
sure from the first by their manner that there was a vessel in the
bay. The paper was a note from Captain Dobson, of the
schooner ' Ariel '; but it was so dirtied and torn that I could only
read part of it. For a minute or two I was almost senseless with
the joy which the hope of our deliverance inspired. I made the
natives a few presents, and gave them a note to Captain Dobson,
which I made them easily understand I wanted them to take to
that gentleman. I was in hopes they would then have gone, but

The Remnant Saved. 409

I soon found they had other intentions. A great many were
coming from all quarters, well armed with spears. I had given
a shirt to the one who had brought the note and put it on him,
but I saw him throw down the note and pull off the shirt, and,
picking up his spear, he joined the rest, who were preparing to
attack us. We were expecting every moment to be attacked
and murdered, our newly-awakened hopes already beginning to
fail, when we saw Captain Dobson and Dr. Vallack, accompanied
by Jacky and a man named Barrett, who had been wounded a
few days before in the arm by a barbed spear, approaching us
across the creek. I and my companion, who was preserved with
me, must ever be grateful for the prompt courage with which
these persons, at the risk of their own lives, came to our
assistance, through the scrub and mangroves, a distance of about
three miles, surrounded as they were all the way by a large
number of armed natives. I was reduced almost to a skeleton.
The elbow of my right arm was through the skin, as also the
bone of my right hip. My legs also were swollen to an enormous
size. Goddard walked to the boat, but I could not do so without
the assistance of Captain Dobson and Dr. Vallack, and I had to
be carried altogether a part of the way, Jacky and Barrett kept
a look out for the blacks. I could only secure an abstract of my
journal: that portion of it from 13th November to 30th
December, which I have in full.

" We got on board the ' Ariel,' and, after a very long
passage, arrived in Sydney."

And this journal was penned from the 13th of November to
the 30th of December, at a time when Carron was encompassed
by a cordon of death ; when himself dying by the slow process
which was enticing Death's presence day and night within the
shrinking ring in which he was pent up. Not a word of his own
torments ; no querulous cry ; no reproachful reflection. Calm,
observant, collected, and patient, this sufferer, ministering to his
fellows ere they passed away, in forgetfulness of self and devotion
to duty, kept — mirabile dictu ! — likewise a daily record of every
object which attracted the scientific exercise of his vocation.

Such power makes one proud of such a fellow countryman !

Calm ! In the words written under his soul's overpowering
disturbances, is there aught but calmness ? Observant ! In the
whirl of his daily and nightly agony did he fail ? Not a plant,
not an object, not even when Death had brought him a first

4IO Genesis of Queensland.

summons to prepare himself to follow Douglas, did he allow the
texture of the native women's girdles to escape notice.
Collected ! When was he off his guard against his savage foes?
When taken by surprise ? Patient ! His simple precis of the
sufferings around him and within him is a monument on which
his name may endure. I fall short of telling what this journal
speaks to myself, at least. I must find shelter for my short-
comings in a grand man's cry, even Carlyle's : " How happy
could I, but in any measure, in such times as these, make manifest
the meanings of Heroism !"

From Carron let us turn to his leader. Noble must
have been some feature in Kennedy's character which could
thoroughly win the attachment — even unmistakeable affection —
of an Australian -aboriginal. Attributable to other powers must
have been the faculty of ensuring the respect of his own people.
No ill-will, no suspicion, no jealousy of the method prescribed,
— pour savoir vivre^ no sullen rejection of instruction, or advice,
nor inattentiveness to his expressed directions — no animosities,
notwithstanding the thousand and one provocations to which
such a trial of sickness, hunger, helplessness and death subjected
the general temper — why was it so? Kennedy was fitted to his
work, and under this conviction, others cheerfully and confidently
fitted themselves to terrible occasions under his leadership,
and were left no room for complaint nor passion. What testimony
gives William Carron from the very outset ? June 22nd.
" Kennedy returned this evening, and again having found
it impossible to cross the swamps, we were obliged to
return to the beach, where the travelling was better than
among the trees. At this time we had only two meals a day ;
breakfast at daylight, and dinner when we had completed
our day's work, and camped. ' Whenever any birds were shot
they were boiled for supper.' ' Kennedy appeared admirably
fitted for the leader of an expedition of this character in
every respect.'

* "The meals were cut up into thirteen parts, as nearly equal as possible, and
one person touched each part in succession, whilst another, with his back turned,
called out the names of the party, the person named taking the part touched. The
scrupulous exactness we were obliged to practise with respect to our provisions
was increased by our misfortune in getting next to nothing to assist our scanty
ration, while the extreme labour to which we were subjected increased our
appetites." — Cakkon's Iournal.

Nil Desperandum, te Duce ! 4,1

"Although he had innumerable difficulties and hardships to
contend with, he always appeared cheerful and in good spirits.
Travelling through such a country as we were, such a disposition
was essential to the success of the expedition. He was alwavs
diverting the minds of his followers from the obstacles we daily
encountered, and encouraging them to hope for better success :
careful in all his observations and calculations as to the position
of his camp, and cautious not to plunge into difficulties without
personal observation of the country to enable him to take the
safest path." . . . (What a comment on the style of ground
they had to overcome!) . . . " But having decided, h(; pur-
sued his deliberate determination with steady perseverance,
sharing in the labour of cutting through the scrub, and all the
harassment attendant on travelling through such a wilderness,
with as much or greater alacrity and zeal than any of his
followers. It was often grievous to me to hear some of the party
observe after we had passed over some difficult tract ' that a
better road might have been found, a little to the right or to the
left.' Such observations (the nearest to grumbling 1 meet with)
" were most unjust and vexatious, as in all matters of difificulty
and of opinion he would invariably listen to the advice of all,
and if he thought it prudent, take it. For my own part, I can
safely say that I was always ready to obey his orders and con-
form to his directions,' confident as I then was, of his ability to
lead us to the place of our destination as speedily as possible."

Having followed Kennedy so far, we must follow him to his
death. Of that there was but one witness, Jacky ; from whose
statement when taken on board the " Ariel, " at Port Albany, I
have the sad story.

Kennedy had on the 13th of November started from Carron's
camp within sight of Weymouth Bay with Jacky, Costigan, LufT,
and Dunn. A few days afterwards Costigan was severely
wounded through his own careless handling of his gun. Kennedy
left the sufferer with his two companions at a place which he
called " Pudding-pan Hill" near Shelburne Bay. "Mr. Kennedy
wanted to make great haste when he left this place to get the
doctor to go down to the men that were ill. This was about three
weeks after leaving Weymouth Bay. Next morning Mr. Kennedy
and me went on with four horses — leaving one with the men
at Pudding-pan Hill. One horse got bogged in a swamp. We
tried to get him out all that day but could not : we left him there.

412 Genesis of Queensland.

"The next day Mr. Kennedy went on again, and passed up a
ridge, very scrubby, and had to turn back again, and went
along gullies to get clear of creek and scrub." (Rain ! rain !
rain ! day and night!) " My horse fell down, me, and all ; the
horse lay upon my thigh. Here Mr. Kennedy got off his horse
and moved my horse off my thigh ; we stopped there that night,
and could not get the horse up ; we looked to him in the morning
and he was dead.

" The next day we went a good way. Mr. Kennedy told me
to go up a tree to see a sandy hill somewhere : I went up a
tree, and saw a sandy hill a little way down from Port Albany.
That day we camped near a swamp ; it was a very rainy day.
The next morning we went on, and Mr. Kennedy told me we
should get round to Pore Albany in a day.' We travelled on all
day till noon, and then we saw Port Albany. Then he said :
' There is Port Albany, Jacky ; a ship is there — you see that
island there' — pointing to Albany Island ; this was when we
where at the mouth of Escape river. We stopped a little while;
all the meat was gone ; I tried to get some fish, but could not;
we went on in the afternoon half-a-mile along the river side, and
met a good lot of blacks and we camped. The blacks all cried
out ' powad ! powad ! ' and rubbed their bellies, and we thought
they were friendly, and Mr. Kennedy gave them fish-hooks all
round ; eveiyone asked me if I had anything to give away, and I
said ' No,' and Mr. Kennedy said 'give them your knife, Jacky.'
This fellow on board was the man I gave the knife to ; I am sure
of it ; I know him well ; the black that was shot in the canoe was
the most active in urging all the others on to spear Mr. Kennedy.
I gave the man on board my knife. We went on this day, and I
looked behind, and they were getting up their spears and ran all
round the camp which we had left. I told Mr. Kennedy that
very likely those blackfellows would follow us, and he said ' No !
Jacky, those blacks are very friendly.' I said to him 'I know
those blackfellows well ; they too much speak.' We went on
some two or three miles and camped. I, and Mr. Kennedy,
watched them that night, taking it in turn every hour all night ;
by-and-by 1 saw the blackfellows ; it was a moonlight night, and
I walked up to Mr. Kennedy and said to him ' there is plenty of
black fellows now;' this was in the middle of the night.

"Mr. Kennedy told me to get my gun ready. The blacks
did not know where we slept, as we did not make a fire. We

Done to Death. _^,-j

both sat up all night. After this dayligrht came, and I Idchcd
the horses and saddled them. Then we went on a good way up
the river, and then we sat down a little while, and we saw three
blackfellows coming along our track, and they saw us, and one
fellow ran back as hard as he could run and fetched up |)lenty more,
like a flock of sheep almost. I told Mr. Kennedy to put the
saddles on the two horses and go on, and the blacks came up
and followed us all the day. All along it was raining, and 1 now
told him to leave the horses and come on without them — that the
horses made too much track. Mr. Kennedy was too w(.'ak and
would not leave the horses. We went on this day till towards
evening ; raining hard ; and the blacks followed us all the day,
some behind, some planted before — in fact blacks, blacks, all
around, following us. Now we went into a little scrub, and I
told Mr. Kennedy to look behind always. Sometimes he would
do so, and sometimes he would not look behind, to look for the
blacks. Then a good many blackfellows came behind in the
scrub and threw plenty of spears, and hit Mr. Kcnnt;cly in the
back first. Mr. Kennedy said to me, ' Oh ! Jacky, Jacky, shoot
'em, shoot 'em !' Then I pulled out my gun and fired, and hit
one fellow all over the face with buck-shot. He tumbled down
and got up again and again, and wheeled right round, and two
blackfellows picked him up and carried him away.

"They went away then a little way and came back again,
throwing spears all round more than they did before — very large
spears. I pulled out the spear at once from Mr. Kennedy's
back, and cut out the jag with Mr. Kennedy's knife. Then
Mr. Kennedy got his gun and snapped, but the gun would not
go off. The blacks sneaked all along by the trees, and speared
Mr. Kennedy again in the right leg, above the knee a little, and
I got speared over the eye; and the blacks were now throwing
their spears all ways, never giving over, and shortly again
speared Mr. Kennedy in the right side. There were large jags
to the spears, and I cut tlu^m out and put them into my pocket.
At the same time we got spean^d the horses got speared too
and jumped and bucked all about, and got into the swamp. I
told Mr. Kennedy to sit down while I looked after the saddle-
bags, which I did, and when I came back again I saw blacks
along with Mr. Kennedy. I then asked him if he saw the blacks
with him. He was stupid with the spear wounds, and said ' No.'
Then I asked him where was his watch. I saw the blacks taking

^.14 Genesis of Queensland.

away watch and hat as I was returning to Mr. Kennedy. Then
I carried Mr. Kennedy into the scrub. He said, ' don't carry
me a good way.' Then Mr. Kennedy looked very bad — this
way" (Jacky rolled his eyes). "I said to him, ' Don't look far
away,' as I thought he would be frightened. I asked him often,
'Are you well now?' and he said, ' I don't care for the spear
wound in my leg, Jacky, but for the other two spear wounds in
my side and back,' and he said, ' I am bad inside, Jacky.' I
told him blackfellow always die when he got spear in there — the
back, He said, ' I am out of wind, Jacky.' I asked him,
' Mr. Kennedy, are you going to leave me?' and he said, 'Yes,
my boy, I am going to leave you.' He said, ' I am very bad,
Jacky. You take the books, Jacky, to the Captain, but not the
big ones ; the Governor will give anything for them.' I then
tied up the papers. He then said, ' Jacky, give me paper, and
I will write.' I gave him paper and pencil, and he tried to
write, and he then fell back and died, and I caught him as he
fell back, and held him, and I then turned round myself and cried.
I was crying a good while until I got well ; that was about an
hour, and then I buried him. I digged up the ground with a
tomahawk, and covered him over with logs, then grass, and my
shirt and trousers. That night I left him near dark. I would
go through the scrub, and the blacks threw spears at me — a good
many — and I went back again into the scrub. Then I went
down the creek, which runs into Escape river, and I walked along
the water in the creek very easy, with my head only above water,
to avoid the blacks and get out of their way. In this way I went
half a mile ; then I got out of the creek and got clear of them,
and walked on all night nearly, and slept in the bush without a
fire. I went on next morning, and felt very bad, and I spelled
for two days. I lived upon nothing but salt water.

" Next day I went on and camped one mile away from where
I left and sat down there, and I wanted to spell a little there and
go on : but when I tried to get up, I could not, but fell down
again. One mile, and got nothing to eat but one nonda, and I
went on that day and camped, and on again next morning about
half a mile, and sat down, where there was good water, and re-
mained all day. On the following morning I went a good way ;
went round a great swamp of mangroves and got a good way by
sundown. The next morning I went and saw a very large track
of blackfellows : I went clear of the track and of swamp or

Jacky's "Ariel." 415

sandy ground. I then came to a very large river and a largr
lagoon — plenty of ^illigators in the lagoon — about ten niik-s from
Port Albany. I now got into the ridges by sundown, and went
up a tree and saw Albany Island. Then next morning at four
o'clock I went on as hard as I could go, all the way down over
fine clear ground, fine iron-bark timber, and plenty of good
grass. I went on round the point" (this was towards Cape York,
north of Albany Island) " and went on and followed a creek
down, and went on top of the hill and saw Cape York, because
the sand did not go on further. I sat down then a good while.
I said to myself ' this is Port Albany, I believe, inside some-
where.' Mr. Kennedy also told me that the ship was inside,
close up to the mainland. I went up a little way and saw the
ship and boat. I met close up here two black gins and a good
many piccanninies. One said to me ' powad ! powad ! ' Then I
asked her for eggs : she gave me turtle eggs, and I gave her a
burning glass. She pointed to the ship which I had seen before.
I was very frightened at seeing the black men all along here,
and when I was on the rock coo-eeing, and imirry, murry glad
when the boat came for me."

Captain Dobson of the " Ariel, " tells the sequel of this
terrible episode in this ill-advised exploring venture. "Pro-
ceeded on the 2nd of October last — 1848 — to Port Albany to
meet Kennedy's exploring party and to supply them with pro-
visions. We arrived at Port Albany on the 27th October, and
remained there till the 23rd DecembeCtJyhen, in consequence of
a signal, I went on shore and learnt from Jacky-Jacky the death
of Kennedy and the unfortunate fate of the expedition. And, in
consequence of this information, we made preparations, and the
next day weighed anchor and sailed to Shelburne Bay. Jacky
informed us that Pudding-pan Hill, between Albany Point and
Shelburne Bay, was where Kennedy had left the three sick
men. On proceeding there, Jacky said it was not there but
on a hill like it further dov*'n. On arriving at Shelburne Bay
Jacky recognised the hill ; we landed early in the morning
and fell in with the natives and went inland, but could not
get through the scrub ; we came back to the beach and found
a canoe with the cloak (produced) in it ; on the afternoon
previous, thought I saw two natives on the beach with cloaks
or blue shirts on ; we then pulled further on and landed
again, and went about six miles inland, but Jacky could

41 6 Genesis of Queensland.

not cross the track Kennedy had taken ; he recognised the hill
where the camp was, and said we might reach it to-morrow. At
starting Jacky said it would not take us long, and we took no
food with us, After a consultation we agreed to return to the
vessel, believiiij^ from the cloaks on the natives that the men
must have perished. We then pursued our way to Weymouth
Bay, and rescued Carron and Goddard. We brought with us
what instruments we could from the camp — they were not many
— as Carron was hardly in a state to tell me what was there.
We then consulted and determined to come on at once to Sydney,
as from what Jacky told us, it was thought useless to return to
look for the men at Shelburne Bay.

" I should have returned to the camp at Weymouth Bay to
save everything but for the hostility of the natives, who sur-
rounded us in great numbers, and, as soon as we had left the
camp, rifled it."

Dr. Vallack's description of the scenes during the rescue
conducted by Jacky is full of interest : " Saturday, 3rd Decem-
ber, 1848. About eight o'clock, a.m.. Captain Dobson called
down to me, saying he thought Kennedy had arrived, as there
was a black on shore, with a shirt and trousers. . . . The
Captain left in his dingy, and I observed with the glass the black
first standing, then walking very lame ; then sitting down on a
rock. The dingy made there and took him on board. It turned
out to be Jacky, who looked very haggard. He became faint on
board, and a glass of wine revived him. He told a woeful story.
Depositions were taken. Conversing with Jacky all the next
day, I took down in pencil what he had to say, changing the
subject now and then by speaking of his comrades at Jerry's
Plains. I did so, as he told me what kept him awake all last
night was ' thinking about Mr. Kennedy.' The following day
saw what appeared to be land. On nearing found it to be a
canoe, about fifteen feet long, with seven or eight natives in it,
shearing about, now in one direction, now in another. They
drew close to the vessel ; very wary, however, in doing so.
Jacky was placed in the fore-top, and word came that Jacky knew
all those fellows; that they were the party who speared Kennedy.
One was allowed on board. A seaman, Parker, told me that Jacky
wanted to speak to me. He said, ' that fellow,' pointing to the
one named, ' is the fellow that speared Mr. Kennedy. I gave
him a knife; bale let him go.' He was immediately secured.

A Canoe Chase. ^^j

" It was as much as three men could do ; the others in the
canoe jumped overboard, and observing now that the man secured i
had a part of a bridle round his arm, and a piece of sinew or !
tendon of a horse, and Jacky being so positive as to his identity,
it was determined to examine the canoe, and an order was given
to fire over their heads whilst they (the blacks) were endeavour-
ing to recover the canoe. The long boat was sent after the
canoe, but in the meantime the blacks had recovered it and a
hard chase took place : the boat overhauled them, and as it closed
upon them I saw the blacks jump overboard again, and after-
wards the ship's boat bring back the canoe. Barrett said to me
when alongside that he was speared, and that he had shot the
black who had speared him, and who was now in the canoe
nearly dead. It appears that one black stuck to his canoe, and^ — v
on the ship's boat nearing it had thrown a spear into Barrett's
arm, and was on the eve of throwing another when Barrett shot
him. From the canoe was brought the leg part of a pair of
trowsers, three spears, a piece of saddle-iron, &c., and a piece
of moleskin was taken off the native's leg, which Jacky says was
part of a pair of trowsers which he had tied round Kennedy's
head when he buried him : Jacky being sure that they had dug
up the body. I had observed at the time that the native was
nearly on board, the moment he and they saw Jacky, they looked
at each other as if everything was not right. As we neared
Pudding-pan Hill— as marked on the chart — Jacky said ' this is
not the place.' Being placed in the fore-top he became more
positive, saying at length, ' do you think I am stupid ? Mr.
Kennedy sent me from the camp to look out the coast so that I
might know it again when I came back in the ship, and I will
tell you when we come to it : the ship must go on that way
further,' pointing to the south.

"26th December. We anchored in Shelburne Bay, oppo-
site where Jacky wished to proceed to recover the three men :
he was sure this was the place, seeing the mountain which
Kennedy had called Pudding-pan Hill" (it may be here stated
that this mountain is the very /a c simile of Pudding-pan Hill of
the chart). The result of the search for the three men has
been briefly told by Captain Dobson, but at greater length in
Dr. Vallack's journal. It is all most interesting ; and then
enters into the particulars of their coasting to Weymouth
Bay. "Saturday, December 30. At Weymouth Bay'' (returning

2 D

_li8 Genesis of Queensland.

to Dr. Vallack's journal) "five canoes were now seen creeping
off towards us from under the mangroves with from five
to ten natives in each : there was yet no flag nor any token of
white people on the hill.

" The canoes gradually neared us, in a string, and one
came cautiously alongside, making signs and saying ' ferraman,
ferraman ' (white man), and pointing towards Jacky's mountain.
A few lines were written, stating that a vessel was in the bay
and the bearer, one of the natives, would take them to it. This
was given to one of the natives in the first canoe, and Jacky,
whom they had recognised, beckoned and motioned to them to
take the note to the camp. In the meantime, the captain and I
had determined, as soon as the boat could be got ready, to
proceed, according to Jacky's instructions, to the camp. Jacky
directed us some distance off, in the wake of the canoes, there
being nothing but a mangrove swamp on the shore near us. We
landed beside a creek, knee deep in water, among some man-
groves. Here we got out of the boat — Jacky, the Captain,
Barrett, and myself, — Jacky leading through a mangrove swamp
for a considerable distance till we came out on a beautiful flat,
and followed up a creek, which Jacky said would lead us to the
camp. After getting on (keeping a good look-out) for about
two miles, Jacky doubled his pace, and all at once said with great
emphasis, ' I see camp.' ' Well done, Jacky,' I think, was
exclaimed by all of us. Jacky, still going on at a sharp pace,
stopped for a moment and said, ' I not sure,^ and suddenly, with
great excitement, exclaimed, ' See two whitefellows sit down
and camp !' We were now on one side of the creek. Down
the creek we went, and up on the other side in double-quick
time, and a scene presented itself.

" On the side of the hill, not two hundred yards from us,
were two men sitting down looking towards us, the tent and fire
immediately behind them; and on coming up to them, two of the
most pitiable creatures imaginable were sitting down ! One
had sufficient strength to get up ; the other appeared to me to
be in the very last stage of consumption. Alas ! Alas ! They
were the only two left of eight men ; the remainder having died
of starvation ! Whilst we were considering what was best to be
done, natives in great numbers were descried watching our
movements. Jacky said — calling me aside — ' Doctor ! now I tell
you exactly what to do ; you see those blackfellows over there ;

Near the Last Gasp. ^yg

you leave him tent, everything, altogether there, and get the
two whitefellows to the boat, quick ! '

" Jacky was exceedingly energetic and grave as well. ' Get
away as quick as possible' was resounded by all ; but what was
to be done ? Two men almost dead to walk two or three miles.
We looked over the tent, asked Carron for what important
things there were, and each laid hold of what appeared to be of
most value — the Captain taking two sextants, others firearms,
&c. ' Come along !' again and again Jacky called out, and the
Captain too, whilst they were half-way down towards the creek, and
Barrett and I were loading ourselves. I took a case of seeds,
some papers of Carron's, a double-barrelled gun and pistol, which,
together with my own double gun and pistols, thermometer, and
my pockets full of powder and shot, was as much as I could
manage. Seeing Carron could not get along, I told him to put
his hands on my shoulders, and in this way he managed to walk
down as far as nearly through the mangrove swamp towards the
water's edge, when he could not in that way possibly get any
further. Barrett, with his disabled arm, carried him down to the
edge of the water. Goddard, the other survivor, was just able to
walk down ; spoke and looked exceedingly feeble. They were
brought on board at noon, and attended to according to my
instructions. Carron's legs were dreadfully swollen — about
three times their natural size. In the afternoon both reviving,
and thanking God for their deliverance. I was for some time
afraid of Carron. At ten p.m. they are both doing well, and I
trust will be enabled to tell their own tale, which renders it
unnecessary for me to write it down here. It was too great a
risk to return for the purpose of securing anything, so we
proceeded direct to Sydney. Carron and Goddard were a
considerable time in getting better, the former being subject to
daily fits of ague.

"Thursday, January nth, 1849. The black native had made
his escape during the night whilst it was raining and blowing hard.
We were, at this time, anchored one and a-half to two miles from
Turtle Reef, and a distance of eight miles from Cape Bedford, I
the nearest point of the mainland. Search was made on the
reef but no marks of him ; a strong current was making towards
Cape Bedford and he might have taken that direction. Two
large sharks were seen about the ship this morning; it is our
impression the man can never have reached the land. The black

420 Genesis of Queensland.

was seen by Parker on deck at two a.m., whilst it was thundering,
lightning, and raining, but never seen afterwards."

The last scenes of this ill-starred adventure are described in
the private log — published in extract and attached to Carron's
pamphlet — of T. Beckworth Simpson, captain of the brig " Freak,"
which gives an account of her proceedings when employed
in searching for the papers, &c., connected with the late
Mr. Kennedy's exploring party.

The " Freak " and "Harbinger" — Captain Simpson — sailed
in company from Port Jackson. On the 15th April, 1849, shortly
after rounding the north end of the North Percy Islands,
Jacky, who was of course the mainspring of the search, pointed
out from the " Freak" two white men on the island who were
making signals. When taken off by one of the boats they repre-
sented themselves as shipwrecked seamen cast away in a
schooner named the " Buona Vesta" from Port Nicholson, bound
to Torres Straits for beche-ed-mer. One of the men, named
Clarke, after much hesitation admitted they had another com-
panion who he thought must be dead : he was found about a
hundred yards from where we had landed, insensible, and remained
so till sunset, when he died: the two men were taken to the
" Freak." Their story and conflicting statements excited
suspicion. It was reported next morning that Clarke had
been tearing up papers and throwing them overboard.
Captain Simpson picked up some of the scraps, on one of which
was an address to " Matthew Clarke on board the " Marion
Woolwich,'" and sufficient to prove their story false, and he had
no doubt that they were runaway convicts.

This conclusion seemed to be further established on an
after examination of what was found on the island, on which
they buried the body of the dead man, a purple mark on whose
throat, coupled with the prevarication of the two survivors,
raised a strong suspicion of foul play. Hitherto, and until May,
strong squalls and heavy gales blowing from S.S.E. May 2nd.
Anchored within sight of the hill pointed out by Jacky, where
Kennedy had left the eight of his party at Weymouth Bay. and
where Carron and Goddard had been rescued by the " Ariel."
The rain poured in torrents, so much so, that they could not load
their guns the next day, when they landed for the purpose of
looking for any papers or other relics : found part of a blanket
where the\- landed, a piece of tarpaulin and canvas, part

Dust and Ashes. a2\

apparently of a tent ; little way up the creek three Ldno, =, with
out-riggers on both sides : they were up to their waists in water in
the mangrove swamp, to avoid crossing which they used the
boats, and pulled a short distance up the creek : left the boats
with a party and, Jacky leading, came out from a mangrove
swamp to an open spot : saw five natives, each carrying a bundle
of spears, who ran off at once. This " open " was knee-deep in
water : the whole distance it was ankle-deep.

After proceeding some distance, Jacky pointed out the
place where Kennedy had left the eight men, who afterwards
moved to the other side of the creek ; near this was a tree carved
with large letters K. LXXX. The stream was too strong for
fording; but they found a tree lying across, on which they got
over, where the grass was as high as their shoulders. A bare
spot of ground indicated the exact locality of the camp. It was
" strewed with portions of books, all of a religious or scientific
description ; among them a portion of Leichhardt's journey over-
land ; no manuscript, parts of harness, pieces of cedar boxes in
leather covers, tins for carrying water, a camp stool, odds and
ends of every description, and specimens of natural history all
destroyed. There were also the bones of a horse and a skull of
a dog ; a piece of torn calico adhering to a portion of a chart, on
which could be made out the words ' Mitchell river.' I was
some time," says Captain Simpson, "before I could find the
remains of Wall and Niblett, who were the last men that died,
and had not been buried, the survivors being too weak. I placed
myself at the camp, and looked about for the likeliest place to
which a corpse would be taken under the circumstances. I went
down into a small gully about sixty yards from the camp. Under
some small bushes, in about two feet of water, I found their bones,
two skulls and some of the larger bones : the smaller ones having
most probably been washed away. They were all collected care-
fully and taken on board. I was rather surprised to find some
cabbage-palm trees growing in the vicinity of the camp ; the tops
are very nutritious and would have been very desirable for men
in a starving state, had they been aware of it. I picked up the
key of a chronometer. Jacky's insisting upon the uselessness of
going to the camp where the three men had been left at Shel-
burne Bay, the attempt was not made, but the whaleboat, with
Jacky, was sent to follow up the coast as close as possible to the
beach, to land occasionally, and examine all native camps." In

422 Genesis of Queensland.

the evening of the 4th May, the boat rejoined the brig — the
"Harbinger" had parted company — having found a native camp
and canoe ; in the latter a leathern pistol holster marked 34. Three
natives were seen, who ran off; but there w^ere no indications of
Europeans. " Jacky was confident that the men left had been killed."
On May 7, near the mouth of the Escape river, the '"Freak"
fell in with the " Coquette," schooner, Captain Elliott, wdio
volunteered to accompany Captain Simpson in his farther search.
"At half-past six on the morning of Monday, May 7," writes
Captain Simpson, " we ran before a strong breeze from the S.E.
for the entrance to the Escape river. At half-past seven, hauled
in round the south head of Point Shadwell. After entering the
river perceived a bay with small sandy reaches, one of which
Jacky pointed out as the place where Kennedy first met the
hostile natives. From this place we observed some of them
launching a canoe for the purpose of speaking with us. . . .
After steering west about live or six miles, the river began
gradually to wind to the northward, and afterwards S.S.E. The
river, six or seven miles from the entrance, was upwards of one
mile in width ; both banks were covered by an impenetrable
mangrove swamp. After the river trended to the south we had
to lower our sail and pull. I observed several branches of the
river trending to the north and west. We remained on the
southernmost branch, the principal one. As w^e proceeded on
the left hand side of the river, we came to a clear place, free of
mangroves, the only one we had seen, and Jacky pointed it out as
the place where Kennedy had come down on the morning of the
day he was killed. It was here Jacky advised him to abandon the
horses and swim the river, here about thirty yards wide.jj Jacky
pointed out the tree where they made the horses fast whilst they
went down to the river and searched in vain for oysters, they
having eaten nothing all day. We again proceeded, the river
gradually becoming narrower, and the water perfectly fresh.
After going two or three miles the river became so narrow our
oars could not be used. We were compelled to haul the boats
along, against a strong stream, by the overhanging branches,
frc^quently coming across fallen trees, over which we had to
launch our boats, running the risk of staving them, and, again,
obliged to force them under others. We still proceeded, until
the boats could go no further. We had traced the Escape river
to its source, a small fresh-water creek.

J-acky in Search.

423

" We went a short distance inland, saw an extensive plain
which Jacky recognised as the plain he had crossed the day
Kennedy was killed. Jacky went a short distance further and
returned, having perfectly satisfied himself as to our locality, we
proceeded, leaving four hands in charge of the boats : we walked
some distance across a swamp, still following the course of the
creek. We traced the creek for nearly a mile looking out for a
crossing-place, when Jacky pointed out on the other side of the
creek the place where he had secreted the saddle-bags. At
length we came to a tree which had fallen, and formed a kind of
bridge, over which we passed with difficulty, and went to the place
where Jacky said the saddle-bags were planted. Jacky then
showed us the place where •' horse tumble down creek ' after being
speared. Some horse dung was found on the top of the bank
close to this place which confirmed Jacky's statement. He then
took us a few yards into the scrub to look for the saddle-bags,
and told us to look out for a broken twig growing over a thick
bush. The place was found but the saddle-bags were gone.
On searching under a bush among the leaves, the horizon glass
of a sextant was found, as strong proof that Jacky had found
the right place. Jacky then took us through a dense scrub
for some distance, when we came on open swampy ground,
about half a mile wide. On the opposite side there was
more scrub close to which there were three large ant-hills.
Jacky took us to the centre one, five yards from which poor
Kennedy fell. Against this ant-hill, Jacky placed him when
he went after the saddle-bags. Jacky told us to look about
for broken spears : some pieces were found : he then took
us toija place about sixty yards from the ant hill, where he
put Kennedy, who then told him not to carry him far.
About half a mile from this place, towards the creek, Jacky
pointed out a clear space of ground close to three young pan-
danus trees as the place where the unfortunate gentleman died.
Jacky had taken him here to Vv-ash his wounds and stop the
blood. It was here, when poor Kennedy found he was dying,
that he gave instructions to Jacky about his papers, when Jacky
said ' why do you talk so, you are not going to leave me ! '
Jacky then led the way to a dense tea-treescrub distant about three
or four hundred yards where he had carried the body and buried
it. When we came to the edge of the scrub Jacky was at a loss
where to enter it, as he said when he was carrying the corpse he

^24 Genesis of Queensland.

did not look behind, all the objects in front being nearly alike
he did not get a good mark. Into the midst of the scrub we
went, divided ourselves and searched in every direction, but
could not find the place. Jacky had not made the spot too con-
spicuous fearing the blacks might find it. He had only bent
two twigs across each other ; the scrub was not very extensive
but exceedingly thick.

"Jacky led the way to a creek, and pointed out the place
where he had crossed. Jacky said, ' I threw him down one fellow
compass somewhere here.' It was immediately found. Jacky
then went to a place where he 'plant him sextant,' but
the flood had been over the place and washed it away.
When returning I found the trough of an artificial horizon washed
upon the banks of the creek : this had been left with the sextant.
Jacky crossed the creek, and found a small wooden bottle of
quicksilver in the same place where he had left it in. We
returned to the scrub where Kennedy was buried. When we
came to it I placed the party — eleven in number — five yards
asunder, and traversed it this w^ay in all directions, but without
success. I then took Jacky to the place where the poor gentle-
man died, and told him to go towards the scrub in the same
manner he did when he was carrying the corpse and not to look
back, which he did, telling me the manner in w'hich he carried it,
and where he shitted it from one shoulder to the other. In this
way he entered the scrub, and I have no doubt he took us very
near the exact place where the body was buried. We sounded
the orround all round with our ramrods, but without success.
After taking another good look, we reluctantly gave up the search,
as the night was rapidly approaching, and returned to the boats.

" My opinion is, that the remains of the unfortunate gentle-
man have not been exhumed. If they had, we should have seen
some indications of them : the natives would not have taken
the trouble to fill the grave, or take away the bones. The
only clue that gave rise to the supposition that the natives
had found the body, was the fact that part of Kennedy's
trowsers were found in the canoe taken by the schooner ' Ariel.'
Jacky said there were other trowsers in the saddle-bags exactly
like those he had on at the time of his death. There is not the
slightest doubt the saddle-bags were found by the natives.

" Poor Jacky was very quiet, but felt, and felt deeply during
the day. When pointing out the spot where Kennedy died, I

Jacky's Faithfulness. 4215

saw tears in his eyes, and no one could be more indefatigable
in searching for the remains. His feelings against the natives
were bitter, and had any of them made their appearance at that
time I could hardly have prevented him from shooting them. At
eleven we arrived — by the boats then rejoined — at the entrance
of the river where I camped for the night on a sandy beach not
far from Cape Shadwell, having determined to examine the
native camp at daybreak ; set a watch but made no lire, as I
wanted to take the natives by surprise. At day-break launched
our boats and pulled towards the camp where we had seen
natives the day before. Some of the party went alono- tht;
beach. On arriving at the camp, found it had very recently
been abandoned. I went with Jacky some distance into the
bush ; he showed me the place where a native threw a spear at
him the day before Kennedy's death.

" We searched the camp, found a small piece of red cloth,
which Jacky recognised as part of the lining of Kennedy's cloak,
also a piece of painted canvas. A canoe on the beach we
destroyed. Finding nothing more could be done we pulled out
of the river, and got on board at ten a.m., after a very hard pull
against wind and tide. Finding the brig rode very uneasily in
consequence of the heavy sea, and as Jacky said the other
papers, called by him the 'small ones,' and which I conceive to
be the most important, as he was particularly instructed to take
them to the Governor, were secreted at the head of another
river, about eight miles further north, I determined, when the
tide eased, to weigh and seek some more secure anchorage.
About half past twelve p.m. weighed, the ' Coquette' in company,
and stood to the north. At half past four rounded the Tree
Island Reef and anchored in five fathoms, about a mile and a half
from the north end of Albany Island.

"May 10, Thursday. Blowing hard and squally, went ashore
for the purpose of selecting a spot to inter the remains of Wall
and Niblett. Saw the horse left by the 'Ariel.'

"May nth, Friday. Despatched the whale-boat, fully
manned, armed, and provisioned for two days, with Jacky and
Jiis two companions. Captain Elliott volunteered his services
and accompanied my chief officer, MacNate.

" May 1 2th, Saturday. At half-past one p.m. the whale-
boat returned, having got the papers, &c., secreted by Jacky in \
a hollow tree. A rat, or some animal, had pulled them out of '^

426 Genesis of Queensland.

the tree and they were saturated with water, and, I fear, nearly
destroyed. They consisted of a roll of charts and some memo-
randum books.

"Sunday, May 13th. At three p.m., having put the remains
of Thomas Wall and Charles Niblett into a coffin, left the ship
in two boats, with nearly all the ship's crew, and pulled to the
south end of Albany Island, landed, and went up the highest
hill on that part of the island. On the top, in a clear open space,
we dug a grave, interred and read the funeral service over them.
About ten or twelve natives were present. Poor Jacky was
much affected. At each end of the grave I placed two large
bushes : on the top were placed several large stones. A bottle
was placed over the grave with a paper in it stating who was
buried there. I purpose sailing to-morrow for Booby Island.

" I cannot close without mentioning the exemplary conduct
of Jacky. Since he came on board I have always found him
quiet, obliging and very respectful : when on shore nothing
could distract him from his purpose : the sagacity and knowledge
he displayed in travelling the trackless wilderness was astonishing,
when he found the places he went in search of, he was never
flushed with success, but invariably maintained his quiet unob-
trusive behaviour. He was much concerned at not being able
to find the remains of his late master, to whom he was sincerely
attached.

" May 14. Sent a party on shore to endeavour to catch the
horse, caught, and after a long chase, tethered him to a tree for
the night.

" May 15. Got the horse safely on board. Blowing, with
heavy rain, cannot weigh to-day."

CHAPTER XXI I I

Namque omnes voces, per quas jam tempore tanto
Mentimur dominis, hsec primum reperit oetas :

Addidit et fasces aquilis, et nomen inane

Imperii rapiens signavit tempora dignA

Moesta notd.' — /L?<t7?«/ " Pharsaiia.

When I said " So my story's done," I did not put away from
me the object to which the purpose of my story had been set.
I had seen " suckers " from Leslie's first plant on Darling Downs
grip the soil, and like the octopus, bring within its clingings
the food from which Darling Downs was to grow unto fullest
stature. I had seen — and felt — that the dissociated districts of
the north — east and west in more senses than one — were caught
in the web of a spider policy, which had for its function almost
wholly that of drawing life blood and nutriment from thi-
outermost circle to its innermost centre. I had seen a common
cause of disaffection combine opposing elements for the sakt;
of self-preservation, and having seen this, 1 may not leave the
ground on which was worked out in my own time, the great
result of natural progress.

Out of separation of an empire's area — an empire's harmon) .

If New South Wales be girding herself for another such
leap as that so nearly accomplished, what space may she not
clear in the next heat of a hundred years ? Marvellous as her
first stride, what limit can be assigned to it in the distance ?

Our northern colony bent forward for her first leap with the
year 1824. If the effort made retain vigour in any way commen-
surate with that with which she has sprung in her teens out
of the thraldom of infancy, who can venture to lay a hand
upon the mouth which may challenge denial of her sovereign
power of speed through Queensland's own maiden century ?

" Ccelu7n non anhnum 77iutant qui trans mare currunt.
New climates, new skies, new soil, new grafts have but brought out
varieties of new fruit from the old stock : pruned and qualified
home-ridden principles : penetrated, dug about, let air and light
into deep-rooted and rotting prejudices : engendered conditions
of freedom freshened up out of artificial fashions : eased off strain
of coercive custom ' which forms us all : our thoughts, our

428 Genesis of Queensland.

morals, our most fixed belief : the consequences of our place of
birth.' A new sun has summoned from the native loam a harvest
mature and well-flavoured enough to suit the fastidious tastes of
home arbiters. The tidal wave of old institutions propelled by
the power of parasite popular theories has recoiled from these
shores within which have been worked — but not worked out —
problems ' qusc erant facienda ' — sufficiently to carry back hence
the deposit of colonial practice to imperial apprehension.

" The flood of disestablishment and disendowment — for
weal or woe, who dare pause to think ? — has been let loose from
these southern seas to beat upon the grand old edifice of Eng-
land's Church ; and the iniquity of forcing open the floodgates
through which Great Britain's ' Dead Sea' had so long deluged
a law-abiding and loyal land — (iniquity neutralised by the stern
repulsion and rejection of the beings dead to society, whom now,
as a class, better home counsels, thanks to Antipodean stubborn-
ness, have found nerve to deal with through the higher aim of
Christian Government, by rooting ' up' crime by effort of a purer
purpose than that of merely routing ' out ' the crime-mongers
from her own borders) — has been stayed from swamping the
affections of her distant domains."

The child of a hundred years has wrought out the training
and stature of a thousand. Ccelum non aniiniini mutant^ qui
trans mare currunt. Do you question it? Look, then, upon
the lower platform of the Britisher's pride ; the cricket ground :
the river : you will find reflexion from both views. Australia,
at least, will ; and will with self-assertion.

Yet, even as the new has by the stop-watch of events on the
march "forward," so marvellously exceeded the pace of the old
world, so do some of the new colonies outrun — against time —
the elder members of their own sisterhood.

Australia in the southern, first fruit of a more skilful graft-
ing, after the sundering of Britain's great limb in the Western
Hemisphere ! The sturdy oak must stretch out its strength.
Lop off its branches on one side, the sound trunk linll force out
its arms in freedom on the other. At the moment when Boston
stood forward first, and raised her violent hand for closing the
door in Britain's face, the bold grip of James Cook was dragging
open another for her welcome. In the very month that the old
ex-Governor of Massachusetts — Pownall — was raising his voice
in warning to the House of Commons, and Lord North, Cook's,

'^^'

An Acorn of the Old Oak.

42(j

reassurance by this Soutli Land of Promise, on which he was
about to hoist his country's " Union Jack," was being logged
down in the cabin of the " Endeavour." Within seven years
after the capitulation of Lord Cornwallis, Sydney stood up,
champion of the Pacific ! One year before Washington had been *
elected first President of the United States of America, Arthur
Phillip had planted an acorn of the old oaktree on these shores,
able to vindicate the parentage of the United Kingdom, by
a growth — if the sap remain untainted — that shall overshade
even the lustre of her name and traditions.

The 4th of July, 1776, taught Great Britain a lesson to
which she and we have learned to trace the altered and more
equitable conditions under which the dispersed family of our
countrymen may remain united by interests, which, apart from
sentiment and genuine attachment, are substantial safeguards
against separation, or the desire for it, from herself as the axis
of our empire.

Exclusive of Van Dieman's Land, which became an appen-
dage to New South Wales in 1803, under pressure of penal needs
of the time. Western Australia did not stand in the same relation
to the mother colony as the districts now known as Victoria and
Queensland. The insular state of the one, and the immense
distance — by water only — of the other, were cogent reasons for
their early independence of the central government. In the
vain attempt of a speculative clique to apply the exclusive theory
of " what should be comfort in colonial life," promulgated by
Gibbon Wakefield in 1829, there was no element oi fraternite,
politically or socially, with neighbours who had settled on the
mainland under circumstances differing so much from those of
the hobby establishment of South Australia in 1831. Conse-
quently, New South Wales has had but two battles to fight in
defence of conservation of her first formed estate, which encircled
Victoria with the right, and Queensland with the left arm. Be-
tween two such diademed supporters to her shield what better
emblazonment for William Charles Wentworth's " New
Britannia of another World " than his own native land ?

I suppose that the " Genesis " of Queensland may be dated
from its " Exodus " from the borders of New South Wales. I
must not be interpretedbyany irreverent metaphor, or transposal.
I have an Egyptian gipsy, gitano love for all Australia. For
myself, I see no claim on my attachmcmts, which the mere limbs

430 Genesis of Queensland.

of her one body and frame can make. Each limb has its
function, and each has no function without a pulse. The separate
members of our empire must have a heart.

What, then, led to the withdrawal of Victoria and Queens-
land from the embrace of New South Wales ?

/ So far back as 1840 — I am not young enough now to go

further back with any assurance — the journal which most
precisely squared the claims of the colonial day, and grooved

' and bevelled by the line of common sense for the people's
pondering ; and dovetailed so handily the equity of public policy
from the Australian, with that of the Downing-street point of
view, the newspaper, rather news gatherer, clad so hardily in
the Herald^ s guise, by the honest hand of Charles Kemp, sent
forth a scare one day, which few who saw it can — where still living
witnesses — forget. 'Twas but a short leading paragraph,
" Rumoured Changes," in fact the first dissolving view of
separation, or rather subdivision independent of New South
Wales. The heat which it engendered was incompressible, the
fermentation explosive. And this first seed of a set purpose
grew like the roots of some of our gum trees, and by its growth
burst asunder the very rock from the fissures of which it
sucked its first life.

It ran as follows : — " It is rumoured that a despatch has
been received in town stating that it is in contemplation to
divide the present colony of New South Wales into three
colonies : Port Phillip, to the south ; and Moreton Bay to the
northward ; being formed into separate and independent colonies.
We cannot speak positively to the correctness of the report, but
private letters allude to something of the same sort, and in the
Bill laid before Parliament, by Lord John Russell, there is a
clause under which the division could be carried into effect.
This formation of the three colonies will be a capital Whig job :
three Governors: and three Supreme Courts, three Colonial
Secretaries: and hosts of subordinate officers will have to be
appointed, and that will be a sufficient reason for the adoption
of the measure."

It was evident from this preliminary protest that the cause
assigned for the desire on the part of the Home Government to
form several colonies out of New South Wales was that of
opening a broader field on which to gratify the lust of Home
patronage. The galling suspicion — and persuasion — even in

spectre of Separation.

43'

those dependent days, yeasted into out-spoken antagonism. On
the 5th of the next month, we find it simmering. The upset
price of land in Australia: the restrictions upon its sale had ^'
been, and yet were, and were likely, too, to provide " bones to
pick" on the school-ground of antipodean politics, but this
Damoclesian sword scared for the time all camp followers
prowling about this real battle-field of self-preservation. " We
alluded in a late number to an intention on the part of the Home
Government to divide the present colony of New South Wales
into three distinct colonies, and as the last New South Wales
bill laid before the House of Commons by Lord John Russell
contains clauses under which the division can be carried into
effect, we presume that it is the intention of the Government to
do so immediately. With respect to the separation of Port
Phillip from this colony, we are afraid it would be more injurious
to the inhabitants of that district than to the colonists generally ;
but if, as rumoured, Moreton Bay and the Big River" (the
Clarence) "are to be formed into a separate colony, it will be a
serious blow to the prosperity of New South Wales."

Again, on the gth of December: — " This matter is exciting
considerable attention, and a public meeting, to address the
Queen against the proposed division of the colony, is being got
up, and will, we understand, be held in a few days, in order that
the opinion of the colonists upon the matter may be transmitted
to England by the first mail that leaves the colony after the
proposed separation had been made public.

"The money and labour of the colonists have been expended
in giving value to those portions of land that it is now intended
to form into separate colonies, for the benefit of a parcel of land-
sharks and speculators in England, and in order to provide places
for a host of needy adventurers, the hangers on of the W^higs, by
whom this shameful job is to be effected. So far as the landing
of emigrants at the nearest possible spot to the land, the pur-
chase money of which paid their passage out to the colony under
the bounty system, we entirely agree with the proposed scheme ;
but that could have been effected without any division of the
colony. The separation of Port Phillip we have always depre-
cated, but to call all the land to the southward of the County
St. Vincent part of the district of Port Phillip is monstrous ;
whenever a division takes place it should be in the neigh*- lur-
hood of Twofold Bay,

432 Genesis of Queensland.

'' But the proposed boundary to the northward is even still
more absurd. Port Macquarie is as much part of this colony as
IMaitland; and the Hunter might as well have been fixed upon
for the line of division as the Manning. The enterprise of the
colonists has explored the country between Moreton Bay and
Port Stephens, and now it is to be taken away and conferred
upon a clique, that has been striving to injure the colony for the
last five years — the land-jobbing South Australians. If it is
determined that the colony shall be divided, the southern boundary
of New South Wales should be Twofold Bay, and the northern
about fifty miles to the northward of Moreton Bay. Let any one
who does not understand the matter, trace upon the map the
proposed division lines, and he will at once see the iniquity of
the whole scheme."

What said the Legislative Council ? On Tuesday, Dec. 8,
1840, there were present: the Governor (Sir George Gipps); the
Chief Justice (Sir James Dowling) ; the Bishop of Australia
(Dr. Broughton) ; the Commander of the Forces (Sir Maurice
O'Connell) ; the Collector of Customs (Colonel Gibbes) ; the
Auditor-General (Lithgow) ; Alexander Berry; Blaxland, and
Sir John Jamison.

After other business, the Governor said that " the next
despatch which he had to present related to those important
measures which were announced to the public in the newspapers
on Monday — that of separating New South Wales into three
distinct districts, evidently with the intention of dividing them
into separate colonies at no distant period ; and when compared
with Lord John Russell's bill, there could be no doubt that it was
intended to divide the colony at once. . . . With the
despatch" (Lord John Russell's) "there was some correspondence
between the commissioners" (of the new Land and Immigration
Board) "and the Secretary of State," which His Excellency did
not lay upon the table.

The second clause in this bill was as follows : " And
whereas the said colony of New South Wales is of great extent,
and it may be fit that territories now comprised within the said
colony should be divided into separate colonies, and provision
should be made for the temporary administration of the govern-
ment of any such newly-divided colony as, not being comprised
within the limits hereinafter mentioned, may not possess a sufficient
population for the immediate establishment therein of the form

Whi^s on the Greeji. 433

of government hereinbefore provided : Be it therefore enacted
that any thing hereinbefore contained to the contrary, notwith-
standing, it shall be lawful for Her Majesty by letters patent, to
be from time to time issued under the Great Seal of the United
Kingdom, to define, as to Her Majesty shall seem meet, the
limits of the Colony of New South Wales and to erect into a
separate colony or colonies any territories which now are, or
which hereafter may be. comprised within the said Colony of New
South Wales : Provided always that no part of the territories
comprised within the nineteen existing counties of Argyle,
Bathurst, Bligh, Brisbane, Camden, Cook, Cumberland, Durham.
Georgiana, Gloucester, Hunter, King, Murray, Northumberland,
Phillip, Roxburgh, St. Vincent, Wellington, and Westmoreland,
in the said Colony of New South Wales, shall by any such letters
patent as aforesaid, be detached from the said Colony, but that
each of the said nineteen counties shall form part of the said
Colony of New South Wales."

A leading article appeared on the nth December, headed
" Dismemberment of the Colony." A motion, of which the
Bishop had given notice, had been carried in the Legislative
Council unanimously, by which a Committee, of which the Bishop
was Chairman, Avas appointed to prepare an address to the
Queen upon the subject. "We trust," are the concluding words,
" that our fellow-colonists will second the efforts of our le^is-
lators, by calling a public meeting immediately, and get up such
a remonstrance to Her Majesty, as will make the ears of the
Whig Secretary of State tingle with shame and apprehension."

On the 12th December, after a lengthy address to the
Legislative Council, the Bishop concluded with moving the
adoption of the following resolution — " That the Council, under
a serious apprehension of the injury likely to be sustained by the
colony of New South Wales in regard to its staple produce, and
the important interests of the revenue, commerce and popu-
lation through the dismemberment of so large a portion of
territory now annexed to it as would be occasioned by the
adoption of the limits assigned by the Royal Instructions of
May 22, 1840, do present a humble and dutiful address to Her
Majesty soliciting Her Majesty's gracious re-consideration of
the same, and praying that Her Majesty will be pleased to
appoint such other limits to the colony as may best secure the
courses of the principal rivers within the territory which have been

2 E

434 Genesis of Queensland.

discovered and explored by the enterprise and at the expense of
the settlers ; and in addition to the nineteen counties of which
it is proposed that the colony shall consist, may preserve the
union of one government of those districts beyond the present
limits of location, which have not only been peopled from this
colony, and occupied by stock, the property of residents within
it, but must always continue united with it by the closest ties of
common origin and interest."

Richard Jones (afterwards member for the Stanley Boroughs)
said that " the news had come upon the colony like a thunder-
bolt. He must again lament that the colony had no one to
represent it, we are at the mercy of every wind that blows. It
is seldom that the rumour of an event is followed by the event
so soon as this was. But the first intimation that was received
of the matter in this colony, was in a private letter from
Sir Thomas Mitchell, which came, he imagined, by the same
vessel that conveyed directions to His Excellency to carry the
measure into effect. At present it would appear that the colony
is not, in future, to be governed by the Secretary of State, but
bv the Emigration Board, from whom these instructions
emanated, not with the intention of benefiting the colony, but
in order to create patronage, for had there not been something
of that sort in view the commissioners would not have
recommended the dismemberment of this fine colony into a
number of petty local governments. If the present instruc-
tions are literally carried into effect, the colony will be like a
body without arms."

" All the fine rivers which have been discovered and explored
at the expense of the colonists are to be swept away from us.
This colony is to be restricted within nineteen counties, but the
colonies to the north and southward of us may have an indefinite
number. In all views of the matter the patronage must not be
lost sight of. In the first place there is to be always a large
surveying staff, and in the next there will be two entire govern-
ments established. Where is the money to come from ? Is this
colony to be plundered to establish colonies on the very land that
belongs to us, and of which we are to be deprived ? We have
assisted Port Phillip ; we have assisted New Zealand ; and we
shall have to assist the new colony of Moreton Bay ! One thing
is evident, and that is that the expenses of the local government
must be diminished, for if our sources of prosperity are to be cut

A Report of Ruin. 435

off from us, we shall not be able to support our present establish-
ment much longer. When this colony was first formed, it was
simply and literally a penal settlement ; afterwards the govern-
ment sought out a number of respectable individuals and induced
them to come out by promising them assistance, in order that by
their influence and industry they might have an effect upon the
convict population : afterwards emigrants were induced to leave
England, simply by grants of land, which was continued for some
years ; and during all that time, people were selecting the best
lands in the colony : then the system of purchase was introduced,
but still it was by selection ; and the consequence naturally is
that nearly all the best land in the nineteen counties is gone.
Colonel Torrens, the greatest enemy that the colony ever had,
was transferred from the old South Australian Board to the new
Land and Emigration Board, and he will ruin the colony if he
can."

So Hannibal Macarthur said, that "this subject involves so
many matters of deep importance to the colony, that he could
not approach it without trembling. One honourable gentleman
had said, that the matter came upon the colony like a thunder-
bolt, he would say, rather like an earthquake, for it is probable
that it will involve the colony in one universal ruin, not only
this colony, but the colony of which Melbourne is the capital,
and that which is to be formed at Moreton Bay."

" Lord John Russell was misled by parties having sinister
views. If the instructions are to be literally carried into
effect, they will ruin the colony. There was one thing that
occurred to him as a grand inconsistency, that at the very time
the whole energies of the government were devoted to effecting
the union of the two Canadas,"^ they should be making arrange
ments for the division of this colony, which has hitherto been
doing so well."

James Macarthur said that "if the proposed measures were
persisted in, he feared they would lead to consequences which
he almost trembled to contemplate. . . He believed that the

* "Canadas." — Canada was divided into the Upper and Lower Provinces,
and a Constitution established in George the Third's reign, in 1791 ; and after the
insurrection of 1837-8, the two provinces were reunited in our Queen's reign, on
23rd July, 1840; and the confederation of these British North American provinces
was proclaimed as the " Dominion of Canada" on the 2ist May, 1867, with which
British Columbia became incorporated on April, 1871.

436 Genesis of Queensland.

party in the House of Commons called the 'Wakefieldians,'
which advocates the principles first promulgated by Edward
Gibbon Wakefield, conscientiously believe that those principles
will be most conducive to the interests of the colony." The
honourable gentleman proceeded to dissect the Wakefieldian
system, and challenged its success, descanted on the proposed
boundaries, and declared that " the colony has been explored
and surveyed at the expense of the colonists : the home
government did nothing. In 1828, when application was made
to the home government, they would not allow five thousand
pounds for the furtherance of exploring the colony, and he could
mention that at that time it was suggested that the present
Governor of Van Dieman's Land should take charge of the
expedition, which he, having been in the colony many years ago
as a midshipman, and feeling some zeal in the cause, was not
unwilling to do. Even the surveys of the coast of Australia
were carried on in a great degree by the resources of New South
Wales. Captain King.'^to whom the mercantile community and
the interests of science are so much indebted, was not even
supplied by the Admiralty with a ship, but was sent out here,
when a vessel — ' Mermaid,' cutter — was purchased for him, and
he entered upon the arduous service in a little vessel that was
totally inadequate to the service and a disgrace to the Empire,
and succeeded in his perilous enterprise in a manner that
reflected the highest credit on himself and officers. The
riyer_ Brisbane was^rst__disc£YermL_by a coasting vessel,
and afterwards explor ed b y Mr. ^xley.t Port Macquarie,
which is to Le~torn from us, was discovered by Oxley on his
return from one of his expeditions into the interior in 1818.
Soon after a penal settlement was formed there. A few years
ago it was thrown open, and is now one of the most flourishing
districts in the colony. . . . We have given great additional
value to the land beyond the boundaries of the nineteen counties
by the occupation of them by our flocks and herds. . . . One
circumstance that had been lost sight of was that if other countries
receive population and assistance, and have additional value
given to them by New South Wales, why should they not pay
' for it ? Let a debtor and creditor account be struck between
New South Wales and the new colony. Let the colony be

(■I * Son of the late Governor King, f This does not tally with other accounts.

Such Report ever Ready. 437

charged with the extreme value given to land by our colonists,
and let us receive something like compensation. Lord John
Russell wished the land to be divided into eighty-acre sections.
He (J. Macarthur) was at a loss to know what for. If it would
enable persons of small capital to buy land and settle down it
would be desirable ; but it would have no such effect. It was
the germ of the South Australian system, enabling parties to go
over a whole side of country for a few small sections."

The Governor, of course, could not approach the question,
but there were two points, on which he would say a few words.
^'In the first place, members would recollect that all great altera-
tions made respecting the disposal of land were unpalatable at
first. Members would recollect the great dissatisfaction that
existed when the free grant system was done away with, the
opinion then was that the colony was ruined ! Then the upset
price was raised from five shillings to twelve — and here he could
speak from personal knowledge — the same ruin was equally 1 /
anticipated, the same feelings indulged in." His Excellency! I
proceeded to consider the South Australian system and the
working of the land sale schemes, as yet applied in New South
Wales and Port Phillip. " He could not, however, for a moment
admit that these regulations had been framed for the purpose of
injuring New South Wales, did not himself advocate the South
Australian principle," and commented on the benefits derived by
distant parts from their contiguity and supply of stock from
New South Wales.

" With respect to the division of Port Phillip, after the
experience he had in governing it at a distance of six hundred
miles, he could only say he should be glad to be relieved of the
responsibility." ..." He was very glad when Mr. La Trobe
arrived to assist him, and since then it has been La Trobe's
administration, rather than his " (the Governor's). . . . "He \
could not doubt the right of Her Majesty's prerogative to make
new colonies, but he must say that this colony was short- coated ;
shaved very close ; but if the proposed limits were persevered
in, which, after the petition of the Council he hoped would not
be the case, he did not think it would put an end to the pros-
perity of the colony." In the course of his address Sir George
Gipps remarked that "the term squatter is hardly a proper word;
in America it signifies a person who has only twenty or thirty,
acres of land which he occupies unauthorisedly : it means

43S Genesis of Queensland.

something petty : it does not mean the occupier of ten thousand
.acres : they have no idea of such a magnificent squatter as that.
|The sons of the richest men in the colony are literally ' squatters ' :
nay ! the young men of some of the best families in England,
graduates of Oxford and Cambridge are now living in bark huts
beyond the boundaries." . . . "The separation of the
colony, it must be remembered, would only hand over the districts
to another power of the British Empire : if it was a foreign
power it would be different : but he did not see that there would
necessarily arise any evil out of the districts belonging to
another colony." ..." When he was at Demarara people
held property in the neighbouring Colony of Berbice'^ which was
under a different government, and he never heard of any evil
arising. Certainly these colonies have since been united and
now form the colony of British Guiana, and he must admit, with
the honourable member, that there was something anomalous in
the circumstance of the government choosing the very time that
they were uniting the Canadas for the dismemberment of this
colony. He would not say that he considered the measure
politic ; but if the division were persisted in he did not himself
foresee those evils which alarmed so many honourable members."

The Auditor-General preferred that " the petition of the
council was against dismemberment rather than for a re-con-
sideration of the boundaries. Much as he was interested in the
welfare and prosperity of Sydney, he would sooner see
Melbourne made the seat of government, than that the colony
should be dismembered. "t

The Bishop said that he "considered the separation as
virtually effected : and Her Majesty's right to erect a new
province not being to be disputed, all that could be done was to
ask her to be graciously pleased to alter the boundaries in such a
way as to be the least injury to the colony."

O^ g-stinn put and carried unanimously.

The prayer of the petition — as drafted was: "That your
Majesty will be pleased to take underyour gracious re-consideration

* Berbice was settled by the Dutch between 1580-1626: with Demarara,
another Dutch colony, it surrendered to the British in 1796 ; both were restored
^Q the Dutch by the treaty of Amiens in 1796, and retaken by the British in 1803,
and were ceded to England with Essequibo by the treaty of Paris, August, 181 4,
and united in 1831 as British Guiana.

t The most truly patriotic public declaration ever made under this question.

Pre-Dention, a Present Cure. 430

the instructions herein referred to by us. with a view to the\
partial modification in the particulars above expressed. We
entreat your Majesty's gracious goodness to appoint that the
northern boundary of the central Colony of New South Wales
may be a line drawn from near Cape Ho\\e to the source of the
river Hume, or Murray ; and thenceforth by the course of that
river until it reaches the 141st deg. of East Longitude ; and that
the northern boundary may be the 28th Parallel of South Latitude,
from the sea coast to the same 141st deg. of East Longitude."

It does not come within my province to reproduce, or remark
upon that part of the " Instructions" — which had been drawn up
under the influence of the Commissioners of the New Land and
Emigration Board in London, — which lays down the alteration
of the method and price, under which it was proposed in future
to sell Crown lands, at this date. The main feature therein was
but a true reflexion of the Wakefield system — tested in South
Australia, viz. : a fixed price for a selected area, instead of
eniptio ab hastd I — sale by auction, from an upset price, having
been the means hitherto ordained by the Council — the Governor's
and the Bishop's votes having carried the advisability of that pro-
cess on a by gone occasion, in the interests of New South Wales.

The Governor said he should " have much pleasure " in
transmitting this petition.

It is — to me, at least — amusing, as well as interesting and
instructive, to look back upon the past disturbing trials of our
country, and observe — with a start, I confess, of consciouness
now, that by what is carelessly called accident, trifling incidents
have so faithfully prevented — as a true and classical expression
■ — our career to its present status, and why not yet be so waiting
upon our future ? I do not, then, feel myself free to omit the
little episode in the " kneading" of separation of this land, into
which the home-baked instructions of 1840 had dropped the first
leaven. A mischievous design is apparent under the following
disclosures, which are worth considering.

In the Herald of December 19, 1840, a few words
appeared, which cast oil upon the bubbling: "Thanks to
the gentlemen who drew the attention of Sir Robert Peel to
the proposed dismemberment of the colony, it ivill not be carried
into effect at present ; or, at least, if it be, it will not be with the
authority of Parliament ; and, therefore, there are still hopes of
the colony. Ministers say that there was no intention to do

_^4o Genesis of Queensland.

more than separate New Zealand from New South Wales ; and,
as they are all 'honourable men,' we are bound to believe them.
But we must say, that if that was the original intention, there
was a strange multiplicity of words in the clauses at first intro-
duced. Notwithstanding the denial of the Ministry, we still
believe that" (the reducing of New South Wales) "was the
intention of the person who drew the bill, although he might
have misunderstood his instructions."

These words were founded upon an interesting article,
taken from the Colonial Gazette of the 5th of last August,
published in London: — "The oldest of the Australian settle-
ments, after having endured half a century, is governed by a pro-
visional authority, whose power is renewed from year to year by
an annual bill, usually designated in its title as a ' Contirv uance'
Bill. Such a state of matters has been for some years strongly
reprobated, but it was not until this session that the Secretary of
State for the Colonies had undergone sufficient of the pressure
from without, to yield a new plan of Government to the squeezing
process. At last, however, a bill appears. The New South
Wales Government is to be placed on a permanent footing ?
Not at all. The Secretary's heart misgave him at the prospect
of really passing so large a measure. The bill was withdrawn,
and another bill brought in to supply the annual exigency. The
second measure proceeded rapidly on its course ; the first bill
was withdrawn at the second reading, on the 13th of July ; the
new bill was introduced and read a first time on the 22nd, and it
was first seen in print on the 24th, and read a second time on
the same day ; it passed committee on the 25th ; it was reported
on the 27th. But here something seemed to be the matter.
Something in the bill had excited suspicion ; it was not a mere
' Continuation ' Bill. Sir Robert Peel said that he had re-
ceived a petition founded probably on a misconstruction of the
measure. Was it meant to empower government to separate
New Zealand from New South Wales ? Mr. Goulburn, too,
remarked that the bill would enable Ministers to separate New
South Wales into as many governments as they pleased ! It is
not usual for 'Continuation' Bills to contain provisions of such
a trenchant nature, and certainly the one in question possessed
a feature of sufficient novelty."

In the first bill, which bears the names of Lord John Russell
and Mr. Vernon Smith as the introducers ; in the bill which was

Duplicity by Duplicate. 441

withdrawn at the second reading, and, of course, before
discussion, there was one very equivocal looking clause. How-
ever, that bill was taken out of the way altogether, and no one
troubled himself about examining its lifeless members. Who
could have looked to a mere " Continuance " Bill for the most
doubtful clause of an undiscussed original measure ? Yet, there
it was ! The bill, then, was more than a mere " Continuance ",
Bill, it was a bill to "divide the territory of New South Wales ! "|
There was nothing dangerous in it, however, for Mr. Vernon
Smith assured Sir Robert Peel that it was only meant to separate
New Zealand from New South Wales ; and he endeavoured to
soothe Mr. Goulburn's alarm by deprecating a ''forced construc-
tion ! " It is a curious circumstance that Mr. Vernon Smith's
name is not attached to the new bill, but it bears that of Sir
George Grey instead. Well, this bill went on, it was read a third
time, and passed with amendments on the 29th. The bill is
brought next day to the Lords ; but how changed ! The measure
which Mr. Vernon Smith thought so harmless had its claws pared :
the suspicious part has been re-modelled ! We subjoin the two
clauses, that which appeared on the first bill, and was copied
into the second, and the new clause which takes its place in the
bill sent up to the Lords. This is the first clause. (It is that
embodied as the second clause in the bill cited at the meeting of
the Legislative Council, and laid upon the table by the Governor
on Tuesday, the 8th of December.)

" This is the harmless clause made safe !

" And whereas the said Colony of New South Wales is of
great extent, and it may be fit that certain dependencies of the
said colony shall be formed into separate colonies and pro-
vision should be made for the temporary administration of the
Government of any such newly-erected colony : be it therefore
enacted that it shall be lawful for Her Majesty by Letters Patent
to be from time to time issued under the Great Seal of the United
Kingdom to erect into a separate colony or colonies any islands
which now are, or which hereafter may be, comprised within the
dependencies of the Colony of New South Wales."

" By 'islands,' of course New Zealand is intended ; but why not
name the thing meant ? But straightforward language is not
always so easy as it may seem to some common honest folk : for
habit is strong. But where was the need for the change ? Lord
John Russell saw none ; or he would not have put his name to

442 Genesis of Queensland.

the original bill. Simple Mr. Vernon Smith knew nothing of
any ulterior intention which the bill was to subserve ! Yet it is
far more reasonable to suppose that some knavery was meant,
than to imagine that any official was idiot enough to think that
it would require a sufficient power to cut New South Wales to
pieces in order to sever the not-very-intimately-connected Colony
of New Zealand ! Lord John Russe!l knows nothing about it.
Mr. Vernon Smith smiles, unconscious of the fault in which he is
detected ; Sir George Grey most likely knows as little about the
drift of the bill as about the fact of his name being on it ! Who
is the knave behind, then ? Can it be other than Mr. Mother-
country ? Power was wanted to set New Zealand free : a very
proper object. Why not ask for it, then, in plain terms ? Was
it that an opportunity of smuggling an unlimited power of
jobbing, where detection was the worst failure that could be
apprehended, was too tempting to be resisted ? The power
, which was required for a legitimate purpose might covertly be
^ framed so as to serve the vicious j^vants of Mr. Mother-country
and his hungry retainers ! And so, to forestall the profligate
desires of Mr. Mother-country, a large and most important
colony is to be insulted and alarmed by a threat that it is to be
brought to the axe ! This is the way the colonies are " (were)
" governed " — forty-seven years ago !

At the public meeting held on the 8th of January, 1841, to
petition against dismemberment, the feeling of indignation was
intense, but brought out no new grounds of objection. However,
Captain O'Connell — in after years Sir Maurice, and President of
the Legislative Council of Queensland — said that " it had ever
been the persuasion of all persons connected with the colony,
either as administrator of the government or as colonists
in it, that the territory of New South Wales extended over all
that part of New Holland which is contained within the country
described in the Governor's commission, viz., " from the northern
cape or extremity of the coast, called Cape York, in the latitude
of 10 deg. 37 min. S. to the southern extremity of the said
territory of New South Wales, or Wilson's Promontory, in the
latitude of 39 deg. 12 min. S., and all the country inland to the
westward as far as the 129th degree of east longitude, except the
province of South Australia." T. Barker, J. Bowman, P. L.
Campbell, R. Campbell, jun., J. B. Darvall, G. K. Holden,
Captain King, R.N., J. Bettington, John Lord, Rev. R. Mansfield,

Remonstrance against Ruin. ^43

James Macarthur, M.C., W. Macarthur, G. McLeay, James
Mitchell, Captain O'ConncU, Sir John Jamison, and the Rev.
Hesketh, were appointed a committee to take the necessary-
steps to forward the petition to Her Majesty.

Another meeting was held on the 6th February, 1841, to I"
petition both houses of Parliament against the proposed dis-
memberment. James Macarthur spoke at length, and remarked
— " It must be remembered that had it not been for the
interposition of Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Goulburn at this very
moment, the colony would have been actually tri-sected. . . • 1
The public press of England universally concurs upon this point
with the opinions of the colonists, that it was an intention of
cutting up the colony in such a way as would give a decent share
of patronage to those concerned in the dismemberment.
He thought that he made it sufficiently clear that unless the
colonists express their sentiments upon the subject the project
of dismemberment will be revived. . . . Sir Francis Mitchell
recommended the river Boyne^for the northern boundary of New
South Wales." ^^

CHAPTER XXIV,

Language is called the garment of thought. ... I said that imagination
wove this flesh-garment, and does she not? . . . Metaphors are her stuff.
An unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek for: is not your very
attention a. stretching — to? . . . The whole external universe, and what it
holds, is but clothing ; and the essence of all science lies in the philosophy of
clothes. — Carlyle. ("Sartor Resartus.") (Prospective.)

That itchy and irritating boil — home patronage, always
dangerous, if it burst inwardly, to the Ministry of the day —
seeking less risky relief by discharge of political and patrician
"pus" into colonial channels, had for some time been endured
in a humour inflamed more and more by inert discontent.

This first abortive attempt made by Downing-street to effect
separation in so remarkable a manner, by no means smoothed
down the temper of the colonists. About this time, too. Captain
Innes, who had long been a deservedly popular and efficient
Chief Magistrate was superseded from England by Miles, and
this exercise of authority elicited tones — and groans — from the
press and public, which the design of bringing New South Wales
'' to the axe " sharpened to a very keen edge. Price of land ;
method of sale ; the separation itself were — from what I recollect
as well as gather — but cloaks over the fashion of feeling which
fed the phrases with which the despatch instructions and bill
were befouled. To be used as a convenient platform for dirty
work shot out from oz^r antipodes was intolerable ! "Separation"
of our colonies, was the cry, "shall be no matter of jobbery; if
it ever come, it shall display broad phylacteries, and wear clean
linen!"

" O that estates, degrees and offices,
Were not derived corruptly ! and that clear honour
Were purchased by the ;«<?;-// of the wearer!
How much low peasantry would then be gleaned
From the true seeds of honour! and how much honour
Picked from the chaff and ruin of the times
To be new garnished."

Ah ! when a division was made, it was on grounds very dis-
tinct from those on which it had thus far been planned. But the
parent's hand had set the game going, and the children were
sure to join in it.

A Day with the ''Separation" Pack. 445

The home pack had had their first meet on AustraHan
soil, had drawn the first cover, and made a blank day of it.
The " Hunt " was now to be on colonial ground. A
"cloudy day" of New South Wales had cheered outsiders
from a distance out of any chance of disappointment of a fine
run, few checks and a capital " finish." Port Phillip — three
parts bred — carried his rider, Leslie Foster (the kid-gloved
huntsman), with some little distress over the ploughed ground
in the first burst. Separation in full view, the " tally-ho " of
the trans-Murrayians was repeated in echoes from over
the water, and Foster, the Count Battyani of the " Melbourne
Hunt," pulled himself well together for the stiff timber which
he met with.

Somewhat apart from the rest of the field, at a corner of the
cover side, watching the throw-off and waiting for a whimper,
sat patiently the portly person of the prominent preacher and
politician. Dr. Lang, mounted upon a parti-coloured — I mean a
piebald — quadruped suggestive of a circus ; but which, however
slow over the grass, was of wonderful "bottom." The reverend
gentleman from his thorough knowledge of the country and the
line likely to betaken over it, was always well up at the death, at
which his " whoo-hoop " would out-ring and drown less practised
lungs. He, in sombre garb, but with bright eye " spotted "" them
all as they " got away " till he could make sure of no mistake in
his own cutting across " to pick 'em up" fresh, and with plenty
of " go " in his nag, when the field had " tailed off " from the one
or two who might stagger in for blooding the pack. Then there
was " Bob" Lowe, high up on a fidgetty, fretful, bony, white-
stocking'd chesnut, whose heels were a caution to any luckless
wight whose approach from behind provoked the relish of a
kick, which, if it was denied the treat, would bite its nearest
neighbour within reach, sooner than forego it, a brute which
" Bob " loved to mount, but could not ride. " Bob" could sit
the beast, but had no " hand " on its mouth ; disdained the
snaffle, preferred the "Iron Duke," and was merciless with whip
and spur. For all this the animal would go no faster : only his
own pace. And who was that looker-on so splendidly mounted,
man and horse part and parcel of each other, a thorough English
squire, I should say ; can ride straight, I'll be bound ! No
"craning" for such a man as that! Why, 'tis John Campbell on
his "Old Honesty." He'll never make for a gap, if he can jump

446 Genesis of Queensland.

what's before him, and there are'few things the old horse can't
jump — for the love of going straight.

Little fear of " Separation " going to earth again now ! The
earth-stoppers had been biding this time for a long while. There
was no rabbit-burrow in those days for the refuge of so wary a
political "varmint." In view, the whole run was "pumping "to
all but him of the " cloth." The " pull-down," glorious to all but
the " ruck " from New South Wales, who were dead-beat over
such a stone-wall country. Some old "Nimrod in Magazine" may
be found which gives the details of the "doublings," the " dodges,"
the " try-backs " on that memorable occasion ; 'tis not for me to
attempt it ; but the recollection of it among men bent on such
pursuits has since nerved them and others to similiar exploits,
over ground then untried, but over which the riding has been
found to be deceptively easy since. Right loyally was the
"brush" presented to our Queen — Victoria!

Separation-hunting and fox-hunting seem to me to go hand-
in-hand in their legitimate object. In either field it effects ex-
tinction of "vermin " which fatten on the hen-roosts out of reach
of protection, assistance and regard. So at each meet are seen
new faces set towards special service, and as the claims upon
such service extend themselves, each falls in with fresh " covers
to draw " — fresh centres of action — in which " sure finds " of the
domestic enemy — of inequitable dealing with outside public
rights, and with security of private interests will be hounded out
and pulled down in " the open," however hard the run. A jubi-
lant end to the hard day's work !

And now let us dismount and walk over the ground, to the
main features of which, that of Moreton Bay before long — and
the Home scheme had already made the entrances of the northern
and southern land — had to run her steeplechase, bore much
resemblance. Recalling the introduction of representative
^ government into New South Wales, of which Governor Sir
\ George Gipps informed Lord Stanley by a despatch dated the
1 1 8th of July, 1843, being the first parliamentary election that had
ever yet taken place in Australia, we find that Dr. Lang almost
immediately took a preliminary step in view of separation of
Port Phillip by moving that a return of the revenue and expendi-
ture of that dependency should be printed. The result was '
highly favourable to its credit. In August, 1844, ^^ moved that
a petition be drawn up to the Queen praying for its dismember-

Lang in the Lists. ,.^

ment from New South Wales. Dr. Lang was one of the six
representatives elected by the southern constituencies to repre-
sent the district of Port Phillip in the new Assembly. His
confreres at first were: Henry Condell, Charles HotsonEbden,
Thomas Walker, Charles Nicholson, and Alexander Thomson'.
Besides these there were eighteen members chosen by the
people of New South Wales and twelve nominees— six official,
being the Lieutenant-General in Command of Her Majesty's
Forces, the Colonial Secretary, the Colonial Treasurer, the
Auditor-General, the Collector of Customs, and the Colonial
Engineer ; six un-official : Richard Jones, Alexander Berry,
John Blaxland, Thomas Icely, Edward Hamilton, and Hastings
Elwin.

" In the November before, Richard Jones had, by resigna-
tion, made room for Robert Lowe — known at Oxford as ' Bob
Lowe ' — and there had been some changes among the Port
Phillip members ; for we find that of the original six but the
names of three among the 'ayes' on division. Dr. Lang's
motion being defeated by nineteen. His supporters upon the
occasion, as well as Dr. Lang, made able and brilliant appeals —
of course in vain. Lowe * hoped and believed that the time was
not remote when Great Britain would give up the idea of treating
the dependencies of the Crown as children, who were to be cast
adrift by their parent as soon as they arrived at manhood, and
substitute for it the wiser and nobler policy of knitting herself
and her colonies into one mighty confederacy, girdling the earth
in its circumference, and confident against the world in arts and
arms.' Neither could he ' agree that the separation would be
otherwise than injurious, to some extent at least, to New South
Wales. It implied the loss of a fertile and wealthy province
already paying much more into the Treasury than it drew out of
it.' And he was ' fearful also that a separation might be
attended with that animosity and ill feeling which are so apt
to prevail between neighbouring states, and that the result
might be a war of tariffs and restrictive duties, which he
held in utter horror and aversion ; but still, compelled by the
force of truth and justice, he was bound to say that these
considerations came too late ; because,' he contended, ' the
administration of the district had been, from the first, con-
ducted upon a system distinct from the rest of New South
Wales.' "

448 Genesis of Queensland,

Disruption was, in fact, a corollary to the growth of our
Australian vast, little organised, and imperfectly developed
territories.

In no wise daunted by a result so natural, Dr. Lang with his
well-known tenacity of purpose at once framed a memorial,
which, after receiving the signatures of the six members for
Port Phillip— B. Boyd, Thos. Walker, Adolphus W. Young,
Charles Nicholson, John Dunmore Lang, and John P. Robinson
— the last named being the representative of Melbourne — was
forwarded by the Governor, Sir George Gipps, to the Secretary
of State, in January, 1845. I" ^^'^ document the population
was stated to have been twenty-five thousand two years before,
and the revenue to have exceeded ;^6i,ooo. The stock being
set down as two million sheep ; one hundred and forty thousand
head of cattle ; and five thousand horses.

This memorial was re-submitted to the Governor, who was /
directed to report thereon, after laying the matter before the
Executive Council of New South Wales ; at the same time. Lord
Stanley signified his concurrence with the views held by the
southern district. In 1846 the Secretary for the Colonies was
infoi-med of the approval of such separation by the Governor
and the majority of the Executive Council, which elicited the
assurance from London, that the steps necessary to effect
such separation would be at once taken, under an act to be
obtained from the Imperial Parliament.

Change of Ministry deferred the hope of the Port Phillip-
i&ns. So sickened were they by the disappointment, year by
year, that they voluntarily disfranchised themselves, in the
intensity of disgust at having to send representatives to the
Legislative Council in Sydney : having no men, they said, who
could leave home and bread-winning-work for the sterile cam-
paign of "rejected addresses" in New South Wales: and they
would " no more on't."

The fair province asserting herself, then over the Murray,
compelled a recognition of her existence by bearding the Hon in
the Downing-street den : " You, my Lord Grey, now Right
Honourable Secretary of State shall represent ourselves and
report our sorrows to your own boudoir : you, in the fashion of
elected member of our metropolis, shall open the eyes of your
sleepy coadjutors at home to the haziness of their views and the
uncertainty of the sounds in their ears, by pleading our righteous

Separation a Scapegoat.

449

demands. Upon Leslie Foster, your rejected opponent, shall
not fall your mantle until he wear it in our own Legislative-
Chamber, which you shall unlock to our independent action ! "
Happy thought ! Hoisted between the horns of the ludicrous
dilemma, my Lord Grey could not ignore the position for fear of
being spitted on the point of one or the other: neglect of the
exercise of the high function which he had succeeded to, or the
odium ever attached to putting aside a concession made by a
previous Ministry.

As far back as 1840 the discontent had begun to sprout. A
meeting had been convened in Bourke-street, Melbourne, to
petition for separation from New South Wales. Sydney had
entered the ring and stood up against it ; henceforward
round after round, year by year, had been watched with
increasing excitement and bitterness. Eleven years of
wrestling here, and importunity at home had to wear out the
unjust judge seated in Downing-street, before Port Phillip was
avenged of her adversary. The fiat went forth at length from
the British Parliament on August 5th, 1857, ^^^ was sealed in
the year following.

To the northern districts, there were not wanting the same
broad grounds on which Port Phillip had founded her claim to
separation from New South Wales, and had built hopes not far
from fulfilment. It is needless to go over them again.

But in the case of Port Phillip there was an absence of the over-l
powering motive which initiated the movement at Moreton Bay./

In November of the year 1849, the squatters, at their wits'
end for want of hands, and hopeless of any share of the unusually
large infllux of immigrants, who had arrived and were yet
arriving, called a meeting of stockholders for the purpose of
taking an extreme step — by Petition to the Secretary of the
Colonies — towards the re-introduction of convicts, who, under
the softened description of " exile," " ticket-of-leave holders,"
might supply the need of the northern pastoralists, together with
the simultaneous landing of a proportionate number of free
labourers. The purpose was not only at variance with the wishes
of the people of the northern districts, outside squatterdom, but
in direct opposition to the general cry from the Cape of Good
Hope, and all Australia, from Cape Leeuwin to Cape York, not
excepting New Zealand, " that no more transported criminals
should be landed on their shores."

2 F

4^0 Genesis of Queensland.

Dr. Lang, with heated energy, had been and yet was trying
to enlist cotton powers, sugar powers, agricultural powers of all
and any promise, to serve as " buffers " to the impact of the
pastoral power with the advance of other more popular interests,
which were not out of the reach of the mass congregated in
towns, villages and suburban spots ; and by the prosperity and
development of avocations other than the pastoral, counter-
balance the influence so paramount in the land — that of the
stockholders : the graziers, who were spreading themselves over
such immense and distant tracts. To serve such new suggestions,
however, he had set his face against the use of any but free
European labour. The Secretary of State for the Colonies was,
at this time, in great difficulty because of the stout protests made
by the colonies of the south against the reception of any more
tvprisoners of the Crown. To the proposed memorial for the
1 resumption of transportation to Moreton Bay, the hope of
I separation from New South Wales was to be an appended
Isuggestion : a hope which was well based upon the promised
V' douceur " of relieving the Minister in his strait as to the
disposal of criminals from Home. And so the independence
coveted by all the community of the north, pastoral and urban,
was set up as a prize to be competed for on two hostile platforms.
From Port Phillip, Dr. Lang had transferred his attentions to
Brisbane, and became a prominent advocate for the severance of
Moreton Bay from the mother colony. Dr. Lang had been,
from the end of 1846, and was still in England, for purposes
explained in a letter now reproduced from the Sydney Morning
Herald of the nth of March, 1850. He had done much in a
general manner towards bending public inclination to the wish
for extending the principle of separation absolutely to the
relation of Australia to the old country. " Cutting the painter "
had become a kind of popular watchword, adopted from Dr.
Lang's doctrine. It was ingeniously devised to inoculate opinion
but failed in the intent. Perhaps the reverend gentleman had
overlooked the necessity that the unseaworthy craft must have
dropped astern of the full-rigged ship which had hitherto
been towing it towards a safe haven, in spite of foul weather.
It was even said that Dr. Lang had proposed " Cooksland "\
to be the proclaimed name of the colony to be separated : 1
yet that of " Queensland " was gladly and loyally hailed, in )
the end.

Lang and the " Lima."

451

And thus with "separation," decently cloaked under " re-
sumption of transportation," the eventful year 1850 opened
the gates of the Temple of Janus. The past and the future broke
out into strife in the districts of the north. In dctectino- the
elements of the conflict, the Herald, fairly and honestly,
I think, gives a true analysis. On the 7th January, 1850.
" Moreton Bay" (from our correspondent). " From rumours
flying about, there is every reason to believe the squatters
intend at the transportation meeting, fixed to come off on
the loth inst., 'to go the entire animal! slaves they will have,
either black or white ; Coolies or Christians, if their unholy
prayers are listened to.'" At this time the arrival of the "Nep-
tune," with convicts, at the Cape of Good Hope, was much
exciting popular feeling and indignation here and there. 8th
January. " There has never been a more successful opposition
than that with which the Cape Colonists have, on this occasion,
resisted the insidious attempts" (of Lord Grey) "to convert their
colony into a penal settlement." gth January. " In spite of the
resistance to the resumption of transportation to the colonies
the Edinburgh Review, \n July last, declares, that 'numbers of
the colonies are willing to receive England's convicts!'" Was
Moreton Bay in the eye of the writer? January 19th. Brings
out the vexed question — very vexing to Dr. Lang — of the famous
land-orders in a leading article. It is worthy of attention in con-
nection with his letter, addressed to Lord Grey, by-and-by.
"We inserted in our paper of the 17th instant, a letter from
Mr. J. Richardson, of Brisbane, in answer to one we had previously
published from Mr. Frederick Wilkinson, Surgeon Superintend-
ent of the ' Lima,' reflecting on the conduct of the Rev. Dr.
Lang as dishonest, and on that of Mr. Richardson as discourteous.
His quasi-agent, Mr. Richardson, is particularly anxious to defend
himself from the minor charge, but, while affecting to treat with
contempt the serious accusation which Dr. Wilkinson has brought
against Dr. Lang, and pointing out with an air of triumph some
importantinaccuraciesinDr. Wilkinson's statements, he has not left
the reverend gentlemen altogether unshielded, but in really a more
afflicting position than before. Magna est Veritas, et prxvalebit.

" Dr. Wilkinson said that Mr. Richardson had stated to him
that Dr. Lang had given orders on him for ;{i200, and ;{^400, and
;{^6oo, as well as for Dr. W^ilkinson's balance of salary, and no
means placed in the hands of the drawee by the drawer for

452 Genesis of Queensland.

satisfying them, but asserts that the ;^6oo was wholly imaginary.
Does this exaggeration alter the moral character of the ofTence ?
If a man draws upon a person in the knowledge that there are
no funds or effects to meet his drafts, is it of any vital importance
(except to the individual sufferers) whether the drafts be for
;^6oo or _£i,200? In the eye of the law and reason, what does it
matter whether the order be for little or mickle ? Ma^na est
Veritas, et prs;valebit.

"This piece of truth cannot now be concealed nor vindi-
cated. This much we have thought ourselves entitled to say
respecting the facts put forth by Dr. Wilkinson, because we
understand that gentleman has proceeded to England, and can-
not himself reply to Mr. Richardson's comments."
"We confess we have been not a little surprised by Mr.
Richardson's assertion that ' the passengers per ' Lima ' have
got their land.' Our advices from Moreton Bay are of quite a
different tenor. The facts we understand to be that Dr. Lang
has sent out a land order in his own favour for ;!{^8oo or ;^900,
and that he has appointed Mr. Pettigrevv his agent to select that
land in his own name and on his own behalf ; but the question
remains quite as uncertain as it was, whether the passengers
per ' Lima ' will get their portions of land : at least it seems
certain that they have no claim whatever on the Government for
them. Even Mr. Pettigrew, on whom Dr. Lang has liberally
given land orders of his own, has no power by law to dispose of
the lands selected by him on Dr. Lang's behalf. It may be that
Dr. Lang intended to give that power, but, apparently, out of
the arrogant reliance which he is ascertained to place on his
own knowledge, he has neglected to go by legal advice, and to
use the proper legal method of conveying the power.

" But whether this be the case or not in respect of the
immigrants per ' Lima,' those by the previous ships are wholly
without remedy ; even in such imperfect documents in Mr.
Pettigrew's favour, as we have mentioned, being wanting in the
earlier ships, and no land nor aught else to meet the claims."
January 23. (From our correspondent) " Moreton Bay. Meeting |
at Ipswich. The squatters mustered pretty strongly on the loth
instant, to advocate the resumption of transportation to these
northern districts. At the same time, I am happy to say, the
anti-transportationists gathered their forces in Brisbane and its
vicinity, and met them face to face in their supposed stronghold.

Exiles, " H oh son's Choice."

453

" The Ipswich people lent their willing aid to mark their
entire disapprobation upon this momentous question. The
chair was taken by Mr. Wilson, squatter (usually called Peak
Mountain Wilson), at the Court Room, Ipswich, at twelve
o'clock, when that gentleman called upon Dr. D'Orsey to move
the first resolution, Mr. R. Jones (best known in former years
as ' Dicky' Jones, of Sydney) objected to the ' resolution.' ' Here a
scene ensued that would baffle any attempt of mine to describe,
which ended, after a noisy discussion, in an adjournment of the
meeting to Mr. Thorn's billiard-room.' Upon the people
assembling, I found it had been moved and seconded ' that
Mr. Wilson take the chair.' The chairman then called on
Mr. Francis Bigge to move the resolution, who read it, and went
on to say that transportation to Moreton Bay was desirable, and
that a memorial should be adopted, soliciting the Secretary of
State for the Colonies to send out a number of exiles, accom-
panied by an equal number of free immigrants ; proceeded to
state that it was a well-known fact that the whole of these
northern districts urgently required labour, and that the flocks
and herds were so rapidly increasing that it was impossible to
get labour to keep pace with them ; read part of a report to the
Legislative Council, setting forth that seven-eighths of the pro-
ductions of New South Wales were wool, and that any reduction
in this production, or any increase in its cost would be injurious
to the colony, and as they so urgently needed labour, he, for one,
would rather have the pick of the gaols than the refuse of
workhouses. A great deal too had been said about the morality
of the proceeding, and the Brisbane people had said that the
men landed from the ' Mount Stuart Elphinstone ' were riotous
upon being landed. He recollected when the immigrants per
the ' Artemisia' arrived. He was in Brisbane at the time, and
heard a great uproar in the barracks." The speaker went into a
strain of invective against the Brisbanites, stating they (the
squatters) would shift their patronage to Cleveland Point —
Ipswich and Cleveland Point would be their townships. This
announcement was received with roars of ironical laughter.
After a few observations about dirt y Bris bane, bidding Brisbane.
" good-night," the speaker sat down.

" The proposition was seconded by Mr. Atkinson. This
p-entleman made an observation that the working classes were a
selfish race, extorting from their employers high wages for the

454 Genesis of Queensland.

purpose of spending their earnings on brandy, rum and cham-
pagne. He was met with violent outcries, groans and hisses.

" The Rev. Mr. Stewart then rose to propose as an amend-
ment that — ' As this meeting feels convinced that the resumption
of transportation would be highly injurious to the moral, social,
and political welfare of this colony, the people assembled should
memorialise the government to that effect.' The reverend
gentleman endeavoured to address the meeting relative to the
injurious effects the introduction of this class of people would
have upon our future prospects, but the meeting speedily became
a perfect bear-garden."

Patrick Leslie and McTaggart subsequently addressed the
meetingin favourof resumption. R.Jones, Langridge, Dr. Cannan,
and John Richardson opposed the motion. " During the whole
time the chair was occupied there seemed to be only one motive^
on the part of all the speakers, and that was to enlist the
sympathies of the working classes in their favour, evidently
imagining that by their vote that day the question must stand or
fall ; and as a wind up of this extraordinary meeting, the amend-
ment, upon being put by the chairman, was carried by almost
the entire body of people in the room, with the exception of the
squatters. Still, the Chairman decided that the majority of the
meeting was certainly in favour of the amendment, but that a
majority of employers of labour was in favour of resumption of
transportation."

" I cannot refrain from mentioning that there seemed to be
only one opinion about introducing Chinese or Coolie labour,
I and that was strongly against it. . . . although subsequent
' to the meeting one or two squatters broadly asserted that if they
were defeated in getting convicts they would send for Chinese.
Free immigration they evidently felt was denied them, for whilst
they heard of no less than twenty-seven vessels being advertised
in September last, as being laid on with immigrants for these
colonies, Moreton Bay did not appear in the list for a single
ship. The neglect of these districts on the part of the authorities
is, to say the least of it, very annoying. Whilst we read of
depots at Maitland, Parramatta, Goulburn, Yass, and other
places, being constantly supplied with useful free labour, we are
left without any, except the ' orphan ' girls, and a few drafts of
' exiles.' We can scarcely wonder that the squatters of these
districts have banded themselves together to get convict labour to

Baiting a Hook for Separation. 455

tend the flocks and herds when, after three years of promises
they have had their hopes deferred until their hearts are sick
and their pockets nearly empty. Give us plenty of free labour
— labour in a continuous stream, and you will hear no more of
wanting the sweepings of the hulks and gaols of England."

The high standard of address made by that early and ever-
esteemed settler at Brisbane, Robert Little, and the sensible
quiet and conciliatory tone in which he declared himself opposed
to resumption, produced but for a little time a hopeful lull in
the storm around him. A scene of indescribable confusion
followed the declaration made by the chairman, in the midst of
which he left the room, and proceeded, followed by the squatters,
to the Queen's Hotel, where the following memorial was pro-
posed by John Balfour, seconded by Dr. D'Orsey, and adopted
for transmission to the Right Honourable Earl Grey, Secretary
of State for the Colonies.

" The humble petition of the undersigned stockholders,
employers of labour, in the districts of Moreton Bay, Wide Bay,
and the Burnett river.

'' Respectfully shovveth : That your petitioners are at present
suiTering great inconvenience and loss from the want of labour;
and as they see little or no prospect of a sufficient number of
emigrants being sent to this portion of the colony, respectfully
beg that exiles — holders of tickets of leave — may be sent to
Moreton Bay, with such proportion of emigrants as Her
Majesty's Government shall see fit; and your petitioners have
less hesitation in making this request, being satisfied with the
conduct of exiles who have already arrived in this district.

" That your petitioners, seeing by the public prints that a
meeting has been held at Brisbane for the purpose of requesting
your Lordship to discontinue sending exiles to Moreton Bay, are
induced to call your Lordship's attention to the fact that some
of the speakers at that meeting, as well as a great number of
those signing the memorial, are newly arrived immigrants, who
have had little experience of the colony, and none of prisoners
or ticket-of-leave servants ; and who, from interested motives,
feel a disinclination to receive men who will compete with them-
selves in the labour market.

" That your petitioners, with the wish to enable your Lord-
ship to judge of the class they represent, have adopted the novel
method of adding to their signatures the amount of stock

_j.56 Genesis of Queenslmid.

depastured by them, with the number of servants employed in their
respective estabhshments, being well aware that memorials are
frequently signed by persons representing no property whatever.

" That your petitioners do not apprehend any diminution of
unassisted immigration to Moreton Bay on account of exiles being
sent to that port, as it is certain that in the event of your Lord-
ship acceeding to the prayer of your Brisbane memorialists, the
importation of Chinese and Coolie labour (still more objection-
able than that of English prisoners), which has already been
carried to considerable extent will be almost indefinitely increased.

"That your petitioners beg to call your Lordship's attention
to the fact, that several of your Brisbane memorialists have not
only been importers of Chinese labour, but are employers of
lately arrived exiles.

" That your petitioners do not agree in opinion with your
Brisbane memorialists that a large increase in the military and
police establishment will be required in the event of exiles being
sent to this part of the colony, it being known that many prisoners
of the Crown (in former days) who committed depredations,
or absconded from their assigned service were driven to such
courses by extreme oppression, on the part of their masters ;
whereas the exiles now sent enjoy so many of the privileges of
free men as to render such oppression impossible.

" While your petitioners, therefore, deprecate in the strongest
manner the resumption of transportation on the old assignment
system, they respectfully urge on your Lordship the necessity of
supplying annually such number of exiles holding tickets-of-leave
as may seem expedient — feeling assured that from one thousand
to fifteen hundred would be employed in these districts, and by
none more readily than your Lordship's memorialists at Brisbane.

"And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray."

The signing of the memorial was then gone through with,
when it appeared that twenty-six stockholders, employing in the
aggregate upwards of seven hundred men, had appended their
names to it, besides many gentlemen who reside in this town,
and in Brisbane.

It was resolved that the memorial should Se sent round to all
the stations in the three districts for signatures, and that a sub-
scription list should be opened to defray expenses ; the following
gentlemen have been requested to collect the same ; viz. Messrs.
Walter Gray, Thorn and Allan.

The Sore Subject.

457

After all these proceedings the squatters and others resid-
ing in or near Ipswich, held another meeting the same day, for
the purpose of taking steps towards bringing out a news-
paper, besides the Moreton Bay Courier, for the northern
districts. Walter Gray, so generally liked, as 1 can well
recollect, and admired for his blunt honesty of purpose, initiated
the matter, complained that the present paper did not meet
the views nor expectations of its country subscribers, and
thought it high time that another journal should be started.
Patrick Leslie had, in common with squatters, lost all confidence
in the Courier. He did not wish for a one-sided paper, but for
one that would not pander to persons who paid for advertise- 1
ments ; made the proposal that another besides the Courier be
established, which, having been seconded by Dr. D'Orsey, was
carried, and Sydney Lyons was requested by thirty -five of those
present to put their names down as supporters of the new
journal. Vengeance on the champion of Brisbane v. Bush !
Town and Gown !

In an angry leader of the Herald of the ist February,
1850, the following admission was made; an admission from
which the whole heat of separation has been, and will be, 11
suppose, always engendered : — " It appears from the general
tone of discussion, on both sides alike, that the Moreton Bay
district has 7iot been fairly treated by the government. There
seems to have been no just proportion between the amount
received into the land fund from its inhabitants, and the number
of immigrants forwarded to it during the present flow of immi-
gration. If this be the truth, the government are in some
measure responsible for the false step which the petitioners have
taken. To see free labour pouring into all parts of the colony,
and none, or next to none, into their's, while they have con-
tributed largely to the fund out of which the importation of
labour is provided for, is, it must be confessed, enough to rouse
very angry feelings, and to provoke the adoption of very rash
expedients. Under such circumstances we cannot wonder that
the Moreton Bay squatters use strong language, nor can we
wonder much, although we must deeply deplore, that they should
have been maddened to the desperate extremity of asking for
convicts."'

The Herald's supplement of the 4th February added to the
suspense of the time. Its " London correspondent," writing on

458 Genesis of Quee7island.

the 6th of the previous October, said, " I have heard that no
sooner had my Lord Grey come up from the north than he
decided to send convicts to Moreton Bay. I understand that
some Moreton Bay settlers now in England had addressed a
memorial to Lord Grey, suggesting that convicts might be
despatched to that quarter ; that immediately on coming to town
His Lordship sent for them, and that the result of the interview
was that Moreton Bay was to have convicts and equal supplies
of free immigrants. ... I can only assume that Moreton
Bay is going to be sliced off from the old colony." From the
same, on the 17th of October : " Well, I believe I can now tell
you that convicts are to be forthwith sent from this country to
Moreton Bay ! and that there is no intention of declaring
Moreton Bay a non-integral part of New South Wales ! . . .
It's very clear that the premonitory despatches of your Governor,
transmitted from Sydney, I imagine, in March and April, are
wholly disregarded !"

It was at this juncture — the period at which the "better
administration of government in Her Majesty's colonies" absorbed
so much attention and thought that E. Gibbon Wakefield heaped
fuel on many burning thoughts in Australia by certain letters
which he addressed to the Honourable Henry Petre of Welling-
ton, New Zealand. Their gist may be summed up in a few of his
own concluding expressions. " ' Hang the colonies ! they are a
nuisance and a plague : the sooner we get rid of them the better!'
and so say /, at length, after twenty years of striving to extend
and consolidate the Colonial Empire ; but I say it with a condi-
tion. The condition is, provided we cannot get good municipal
government — real local self-government — for the colonies as
parts of the British Empire." [Is this not the very germ of
separation and federation?] "Can we ? I am 7iot sure — I am
sure, after hoping to the contrary for twenty years, that we cannot
get a good administration of the waste lands by Downing-street;
and therefore, I have finally joined those who would hand over
to the colonies alone the entire administration of the waste lands.
But the question is not yet settled. It will probably be deter-
mined next year, and I can think of nothing else so likely to occasion
its determination in favour of the greatness of the great Empire
which we are all proud of belonging to, as a call upon this nation
by the colonies of the south to choose between free municipal
government for them, and their complete independence. Say to

Moulding for a New Cast. ^^fj

England, either let us manage our own local affairs, including
the making and altering of all local laws, and the appointment
and removal of all local officers, as used to be the case in the New
England colonies : either annex us to old England by a tie that
we should be proud and happy to preserve, or in mercy cast us
loose, to shift for ourselves as independent nations."

The air was filled with murmurs, of uncertain sound as yet,
but becoming day by day mouthed into meaning. Thrusts in
the crowd for more political elbow room for those men of Aus-
tralia, who rose head and shoulders above it. Leaders of men
able to sway their several masses of the great unwashed, and
smaller groups of those in better case. Notable among the
men of the time was Dr. Lang. Having come out in some
English newspapers, the Herald, of the nth March, reproduced
the following letter written by him on board the ship " Clifton "
lying off Gravesend. Much yeasting of opinion was consequent
upon its appearance in New South Wales. The ejaculation,
however, seemed to have too much of the Parthian character,
and missed its mark.
"To the Earl Grey. " 14th November, 1849.

" My Lord,

" It is now nearly three years since I arrived in this countr}- as
a representative of the people of New South Wales, for the furtherance
of certain objects of vast importance to my adopted country ; and as I
am on the eve of my return to Australia, with but little prospect of ever
setting foot again on English ground, I trust your lordship will excuse
me for troubling you previous to my departure with the result of my
experience and observation of the first three years of your lordship's
administration as ' Autocrat of all the Russias ' of our Colonial Empire.

" I beg, therefore, to assure your lordship, that I arrived in this
country entertaining the highest hopes as a British Colonist, from your
lordship's accession to office — an event vvhich I was simple enough to
regard as one of the happiest omens to the colonies. I am now returning
to Australia with the bitterest disappointment and disgust, cherishing
precisely the same feelings as the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Franklin did
when he left England as a British subject for the last time.

" My principal object in coming to England towards the close of
the year 1846 was to give such an impulse to emigration to Australia as
would direct to that country many families and individuals of virtuous
character and industrious habits. ... In this object, I am happy to
say that I have succeeded far beyond my own highest expectations,
although I have experienced nothing from your lordship's office but
incivility and obstruction. I had also in view to procure and to send

460 Genesis of Queensland.

forth to Australia a number of ministers of religion. ... In this
object I have also succeeded to a considerable extent, having already
sent out, in great measure at my own risk and charges, from twelve to
eighteen evangelical ministers, while I am carrying out with me in this
vessel twenty-four poor young men as candidates for the ministry. It
occurred to me, in making the necessary arrangements for such an
enterprise, that as your lordship's subordinates of the Emigration
Department were sending out Episcopalian ministers and Romish
priests at the public expense, the same indulgence might be
extended to such ministers as these referred to ; but I regret to
state that my application to this effect was most ungraciously
refused by your lordship's department. . . . My third object
was to direct a stream of British emigration of a superior character
to the Moreton Bay district of New South Wales, with a view to
the cultivation of cotton and other tropical produce by means of
European free labour, and as jNIoreton Bay is in latitude S. 27^ deg. — a
much lower latitude than any to which British emigration had previously
been directed — and as my avowed object in originating that emigration
was one of transcendent importance not only to the British Empire but
to the interests of humanity, I appeal to your lordship whether it was not
reasonable, in such an undertaking, to have anticipated the countenance
of your lordship's department. I regret, however, to be obliged to
acknowledge that I have not received the slightest assistance from the
Colonial Ofifice ; on the contrary, when I had succeeded, notwithstanding
every petty annoyance that incapacity in office could suggest, in sending
out the first ship load, consisting of about two hundred and fifty
emigrants to that remote locality, instructions were actually forwarded to
Australia from the Colonial Ofifice to prevent the local Government from
affording to those emigrants any such assistance as was indispensably
necessary for the carrying out of the great undertaking in which they
were engaged — I mean the attempt to cultivate, by means of British free
labour in Australia, the peculiar productions of the West Indies and the
slave states of North America. ]\Iy lord, I will not trust myself to
characterise such a proceeding, and will leave it to your lordship to do so.

" Notwithstanding these discouragements and obstructions, however,
I have succeeded in despatching no fewer than three ships containing
nearly six hundred emigrants to Moreton Bay ; and I beg to add that a
company for the cultivation of the sugar-cane and the manufacture of
sugar is now in process of formation at Moreton Bay, under the superin-
tendence of an experienced planter from Jamaica, whom I sent out for
this express purpose by the second of these three vessels.

" In singular contrast with the heavy blow and great discouragement
which emigration of a superior character to Moreton Bay has thus
experienced from your lordship's department, is the officious encourage-

Sansculotte Impeachinent. 461

ment and assistance afforded by that department from colonial funds for
Irish female emigration," (orphan girls from Irish workhouses). " In
the report of the commissioners for administering the laws for the relief
of the poor in Ireland, addressed to his Excellency the Earl of Claren-
don, of date July 14, 1849, I find it stated that it commenced in the spring
of 1848, that the number of these emigrants shipped from Plymouth for
Sydney and Adelaide had amounted to two thousand two hundred
and nineteen at a cost to the ' Unions ' of about ^5 per head for
outfit and conveyance to Plymouth, the remaining cost being defrayed
from the colonial funds.' Now, my lord, from the origin and
character of the influence which was notoriously brought to bear
upon your lordship and his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland, in furtherance of this measure of Irish Female Emigration,
no intelligent person, at all acquainted either with the parties who
originated that measure, or with the Australian colonies, can doubt
for a moment that the real object of those pardes at whose instance
your lordship was induced to sanction the measure in question, was
simply to supply Roman Catholic wives for the English and Scotch Protes-
tants of the humbler classes in Australia, and thereby to Romanize the
Australian colonies through the artful and thoroughly Jesuitical device of
mixed marriages. Your lordship has thus been transforming your
department, as far as Irish female emigration is concerned, into a mere
Romish Propaganda. And what right, I ask, my lord, had you to mis-
appropriate the funds of the Australian Colonies, — funds derived almost
exclusively from the capital and enterprise of English and Scotch protes-
tants — to any such purposes or any such way ? Was it because there
were ' no distressed needle-women' in England to whom a free passage
to Australia would have proved an invaluable boon ?

" Was it because there were no virtuous unmarried females struggling
with poverty in Scotland that the funds contributed in such large measure
by English and Scotdsh Protestants, should be appropriated in inun-
dating their adopted country with Irish Romanism ? I admit that neither
your lordship nor His Excellency, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, could
possibly have had any design to unprotestantise the Australian colonies.
I am well aware that in the whole matter your lordship and the Lord-
Lieutenant of Ireland were merely the dupes of an artful female Jesuit,
the able but concealed agent of the Romish Priesthood in Australia, who
had thus adroitly managed to attach both of your lordships — two
Ministers of State — to her apron-strings.

"The late Legislative Council of New South Wales, at the instance of a
Select Committee of that body, of which I had the honour of being a
member, had actually recommended to your lordship that in any future
immigration into that colony at the public expense, there -should, as
nearly as possible, be an equal number of immigrants from each of the

462 Genesis of Queensland.

three kingdoms ; and the same recommendation and request was also
pressed upon your lordship in a series of petitions which I had the
honour to submit to your lordship on my arrival in this country from
various important districts of New South Wales. But in that spirit of
haughty and contemptuous disregard both of the feelings and wishes of
British colonists and colonial legislatures, which seems to form a
leading principle in your lordship's administration, these recommend-
ations and requests have been left unheeded, and a course diametrically
opposed to the wishes and interests of the best portions of the colony
has been pursued.

" Your lordship's proceedure in the matter of resumption of trans-
portation to New South Wales has been precisely similar in its character.
Your lordship"s predecessor, the Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone,
had projected and partly formed a new penal colony on the east coast of
Australia, immediately to the northward, in which it was proposed to
carry out an improved system of convict discipline. Had this judi-
cious measure, which your lordship unceremoniously and without
examination set aside on accession to office, been pursued, your
lordship had been spared the humiliation and annoyance which your
lordship's department has recently experienced from New Zealand, from
the Cape of Good Hope, and from New South Wales. But your lord-
ship appears to be quite above both advice and warning in this matter :
for your lordship has not only determined to transform the peculiarly
interesting and promising settlement of Moreton Bay into a penal settle-
ment once more, but has actually ordered more convicts to be sent to
Sydney, in the face of the repeated remonstrances and protests of the
colonies.

" My lord, there are certain injuries and insults, especially those
offered to communities, which, for the good of society, ought neither to
be tolerated nor forgiven : and this, I conceive, is an injury and insult
of that particular kind. If your lordship, therefore, should persevere in
carrying out this measure, in direct opposition to the publicly expressed
opinion of large bodies of the colonists of New South Wales, in all parts
of the territory, the people of that colony will, in my humble opinion, be
justified in resorting to measures of self-preservation which your lordship
will scarcely anticipate, but which will effectually insure the redress of
all such grievances for the future.

" That measures of the kind I refer to have already suggested them-
selves as a matter of absolute necessity in the last resource to men of the
highest standing and influence in the Australian colonies, I beg to offer your
lordship the following proof : In the year 1844, when the late Governor
of New South Wales attempteil, under the notorious pretext of being the
Queen's bailiff, and of having, in that capacity, the exclusive adminis-
tration of the waste lands of the colony, to revive the policy of Charles the

Lang's Portly President. ^03

First, by imposing vexatious taxes upon a large portion of the principal
colonists without the consent of their representatives, certain of the
squatters gave out, in my own hearing, that they would at all events
stand to their rights, and that even if Her Majesty should send out
10,000 of her best troops to put them down, they had sheep and cattle
enough in the colony to buy them all off in a few weeks. For the
colonists have not failed to discover, from the numerous desertions that
are taking place even at present, that the temptation of a comfortable
settlement in the genial climate of New South Wales as compared with
possible results of a campaign in India — the usual destination of British
troops — in Australia would be greatly too strong for the virtue of the
soldier. Now, my lord, the sheep and cattle of the colony, in which its
wealth mainly consists, have more than doubled their number since the
year 1844, and your lordship is aware that the waste land, of which the
value is incalculable, will always be at the disposal of any gcvcrnmeni
de facto, whatever may be the origin of that government, and whatever
form it may assume. And does your lordship suppose that men of
British spirit, with such means of redress at their hands, will suffer
themselves to be treated any longer like mere children in a nursery, bv
any peer in Her Majesty's realm ? Does your lordship suppose that
there are not men of higher mark in Australia than the Irish incapables
of Dublin and Ballingarry }

" For three years past your Lordship has been promising a constitu-
tion for the Australian Colonies ; but if that constitution should not be
something very different from the miserable apology for a constitution,
which your lordship's subaltern, Mr. Hawes, presented to the House of
Commons during the last session of Parliament, and subsequently with-
drew, I will venture to predict that the colonists will endorse and return
it with the well-known post-marks ' too late ' and ' more to pay.'

"Very moderate concessions would have satisfied the colonies three
year ago, but such concessions will not satisfy them now. To use a
vulgar but expressive phrase, which I trust your lordship will excuse,
they will now ' go for the whole hog,' or nothing at all.

" For the three years of gross mismanagement, which your lordship
has permitted to subsist throughout the colonies : — misgovernment,
which it was fully in your lordship's pov.er, and was your lordship's first
duty, in accordance with your own previous professions, to have rectified,
your lordship, in my humble opinion deserves both dismissal and im-
peachment ; and if the government of this great nation were only in
such able and vigorous hands as the extreme urgency of the times
demands, both of these measures of justice would be dealt out 10 your
lordship without fail and without hesitation.

"As far as regards the Australian colonies, your lordship has, for
three years past, been knocking at the gate of futurity for the President

464 Genesis of Queensland.

of the United States of Australia ; be assured, my lord, he is getting I
readv and will shortly be out, and he will astonish the world with the
manliness of his port, and the dignity of his demeanour. As in duty
bound, he will make a profound obeisance to your lordship, in the first
instance, in grateful acknowledgement of the concern which your lord-
ship has had in his paternity ; he will then take his place in the great
family of nations, with a proud consciousness of the brilliant career upon
which his full country has entered when delivered from the baleful dom-
ination of Downing-street. He will require no soldiers to enable him to
keep his seat, like Louis Napoleon ; he will have no foul blot of slaver}-
to defile his national escutcheon like Zachaiy Taylor.

" I have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship's very humble and
most obedient servant,

" John Dunmore Lang, D.D."

The Atlas there was " at one " with the HeraldherQ, which
said on the 26th March : — " The refusal of government to
deviate from general principles and from statute laws, and to
afford the boons asked " . . . "is frequently followed b}^
unmeasured abuse which accords very ill with the previous
humility of solicitation, and true position of the parties." As an
instance illustrating this remark : " are the expectations of
Dr. Lang to be allowed payment in land for his irregular immi-
gration scheme ; and the more modest but still unwise fancy of
the people of Brisbane that the land on which the projectors of
the Sugar-growing Company had placed their minds would be
got by the latter at the minimum price of ;^i per acre, or at
least put up at that price. But it lies with Downing-street not
with our Colonial Executive, nor is the matter under the control
of the Local Legislature. We want the remedy."

And again on the 9th April : " English Extracts : The
Spectator and Dr. Lang. From The London Atlas.''

" The Spectator publishes what it calls * An Indignant Remonstrance'
from one Dr. Lang of New South Wales, whom our contemporary
characterises as a most energetic, influential, and eminent man, worthy
of all esteem and respect. As 'the indignant remonstrance' concludes
with open and explicit avowal of revolt we congratulate the Spectator on
its patriotism and good taste in adopting the principle of the Doctor's
fiery communication.

"The Doctor, it appears, is a red-hot Presbyterian of the colonial
species. Those who come into contact with such peo})le know well
what that term means. The most utter disregard of any feeling but
their own; the most profound contempt of the ordinary rules of politeness

Lang' s Labour Lost. ^55

and prudence; the most inflexible determination to hear no argu-l
ment, and bear with no opposition, are the permanent characteristics of I
these gentlemen, a race now mainly confined to our colonial hotbeds.
A man of the class coming to England with a set of pre-conceived ideas
which he is determined to enforce at all hazards, in furtherance of which
he sets at nought the plans and opinions of other people with the most
rabid recklessness, may, it will be conceived, give that kind of annoyance
to a minister which may subject him to be sent about his business with
every possible attention to ceremony and formality.

" Dr. Lang, it appears, came to the country with a furious zeal for
peopling Australia with Presbyterians. He proposed to send ship-loads
of these religionists to the colony by government assistance. Unfortu-
nately Lord Grey was then, as he is now, much more concerned to get
rid of the squalid and hungry mass of misery in catholic Ireland than to
remove the decent and well-ordered population professing Presbyterianism.
So far this was a compliment to the doctor's opinions, but as it was in
opposition to his plans, he sunk the compliment in the disappointment,
and became most furiously irate with the Colonial Office for deluging
Australia with Roman Catholics.

" This was not all ; though there would seem at present to be a
sufficiency of spots in Australia already selected for colonisation,
although population at every one else is most grievously needed ; yet the
doctor finds a pet place of his own in Moreton Bay, a district remote
from any one of those selected by the best judges for the purpose
required, and expects ' the countenance and assistance of his lordship's
department.'

" It does not appear to have struck the Doctor for a moment that
the Minister's multitudinous engagements did not permit his seizing
suddenly a plan for a new settlement, recommended by a single indi-
vidual, even though that individual is the * influential and eminent '
Dr. Lang. So Lord Grey snubbed the project, and the Doctor, satisfied the
' best interests of humanity ' were betrayed, departs in the most incon-
ceivable wrath against a government which sends to the colonies those
least able to live at home, without any reference to their religious belief,
and which does not see the transcendent claims which Moreton Bay
possesses to be formed into a colony. Moreton Bay and Presbyterianism,
the study by day and the dream by night of Dr. Lang, not to be found
amongst the first considerations of our Colonial Secretary ; and it is
enough to raise Balfour, of Burleigh, from his ashes to form a New-
Covenant in the wildest of the antipodes !

" We do not wonder that Dr. Lang, departing from our shores, as
he says, like a second Franklin, should threaten Great Britain with a
President of the Australian States, 'who is shortly to be out and to
astonish the world with the manliness of his port and the dignity of his

2 G

466 Genesis of Queensland.

demeanour.' People do not like to be snubbed, and more especially
fiery presbyterians and determined projectors. So Dr. Lang, like a
child baulked of his play-thing, squalls most lustily and threatens
the nurse's eyes with all the power its small fists can command. The
monkey on board ship, shown an orange which it can't get, endeavours
incontinently to throw itself overboard. We are not, as we said,
surprised at the antics of our monkey in a similar situation, but we are
somewhat surprised that ' Spectator ' should think it proper to pat Jacko
on the back."

Still treading on the toes of Dr. Lang's proceedings, he
having returned to Sydney, a severe article appeared in the
same month :

" On the 5th of this month, said the Herald, we put a few home
questions to the Rev, Dr. Lang, who has not yet found leisure to answer
them, few as they were. At that time we did not know what we now know
bearing upon the sixth of these questions relative to the power of disposal,
which Dr. Lang reserved to himself, over theland belonging to the immigrants
per ' Lima,' which he appointed Mr. Pettigrew to select under the land
order transmitted to this gentleman. This power, which Dr. Lang has
exercised in a manner which, extraordinary as has all his conduct
hitherto in other respects been, we were quite unprepared, and which
indeed staggers belief.

'' In June, 1 849, Dr. Lang received from several of the immigrants per
* Lima' money to the amount of p/'i,ioo, to be applied to the purchase
of colonial lands and passages to the colony per ' Lima ' on their
account, at the rate of eighty acres and a passage for every ;^ioo': issued
to these individuals his own orders for land addressed to Mr. Pettigrew,
and provided the passages agreed for ; and also purchased a land order.
No. 21, dated i6th June, in which the commissioners of colonial land
and emigration certified that Dr. Lang had paid into their hands the sum
of ^^850, and that he was entitled to a remission to the extent of that sum
in the price of lands in the Sydney district, to be purchased by him or
such person as might be appointed by him, and notified by the com-
missioners as his agent for the purchase in the names and on behalf of
the depositors.

"This land order, No. 21, together with a certificate of like or
subsequent date, acquainting the Colonial Government, that Mr. Petti-
grew had been appointed by Dr. Lang, in the usual manner, to select
land on his behalf, was presented by that gentleman at the Colonial
Treasury, and they were admitted as valid documents. Mr. Pettigrew
at the same time, requested that the Government would issue the deeds
of the lands in favour of parties to be named by him. A request which
gave rise to a legal question. In the course of consideration of this

Lang's Legerdemain. ^(^-j

question, which threatened to go very adversely to the interests of the
immigrants, Mr. Pettigrew produced a letter written to him by Dr. Lang
on the eve of the sailing of the ' Lima,' and four or five days after the
date of the Land Order 21, recognising him as surveyor to Dr. Lang's
colonisation enterprise for the Moreton Bay quarter, and specifying the
names of the emigrants per ' Lima,' who were entitled to land by virtue
of that order with the numbers of acres respectively which they were to
receive. Hereupon, it appears that the Government resolved to stretch
a point, in order to accommodate the parties who had entrusted the
management of their land claims to Dr. Lang, and instructed the proper
officer at Moreton Bay to allow them to purchase land at any of the
sales to the extent of the sums set against their several names in
Dr. Lang's letter to Mr. Pettigrew, but directed him to intimate to them
that their deeds would not be issued unless Dr. Lang should sanction
the apportionment.

" This goodnatured arrangement appeared very satisfactory ;
nobody doubted that Dr. Lang would have gladly acquiesced in it,
and, consequently, some of the parties concerned exercised their right to
purchase. Several hundred pounds' worth of land was appropriated under
this arrangement at the sales lately held in Brisbane, and most of the
immigrants who did not then see lots that suited them, considered
themselves perfectly secure at whatever time they might find it con-
venient to buy. We remember we expressed our surprise at this general
manifestation of confidence, being ignorant of the extent to which the
government had yielded, or that any grounds existed to warrant a
deviation from the strict legal tenor of Mr. Pettigrew's appointment, as
.agent for the selection of land in Dr. Lang's name and behalf.

" But we never could have contemplated what we are now to narrate.
We might have apprehended danger from other contingencies. Dr. Lang
might have died before giving his sanction to the arrangement, and
the deeds be long unissued : or his heirs, executors and administrators
might claim the entire remission for the benefit of his estate: or possibly
creditors might do the same, and in either case litigation mighi ensue ;
but the last thing, with all our alleged malice to Dr. Lang, which we
should have thought of could be — that he would dispose of Land Order
No. 2 1 to another person for money i

" This, however, incredible as it may sound. Dr. Lang has done.
Having procured a duphcate of Land Order No. 21 and a fresh certifi-
cate notifying the appointment of another agent in place of Mr. Pettigrew,
whose appointment, we presume, he was legally entitled to revoke, he
has raised the sum of five hundred and sixty pounds upon these docu-
ments which have been presented by a respectable mercantile firm in
Sydney to the Colonial Treasurer, and a demand made for their accept-
ance in the usual form.

468 Genesis of Queensland.

" Whether the Government can hold by the arrangement made by
the first claimant and carry it into effect in such a change of circum-
stances we are unable to say.

" In any event there is for one or other of the parties holding and
claiming under the order — what shall we say? — Disappointment."

Upon the uneasy spirits of those days, pent in by party, public,
personal, private prejudices and passions while the "organic cell"
— if it be allowable to use such a term — of patriotic devotion, and
political life lay, exclusively it seemed, within the souls of such
men only as William Charles Wentworth and a few of his henchmen
of calibre "Tower proof" under past trial — poured forth, as oil on
troubled streams, the Herald's trumpet voice, on the nth day of April,
1850.

" Glorious News. — His Excellency the Governor has received a
despatch from the Secretary of State, stating that Her Majesty had been
advised /o rescind the Order in Council making the colony a penal
settlement ! Before receiving the address " — -(sent home by the Legisla-
tive Council against transportation) — " the ship * Bangalore ' had been
chartered for Moreton Bay, but his lordship assures his Excellency
that no other ship would be sent out."

" 1 7th. We are so delighted that we have no disposition to scan with
too critical an eye the attempt made by his lordship in the first of these
despatches to vindicate himself from the charge of having broken faith
with the colonists. For the same reason we forbear to enlarge upon the
modest efforts made by Mr. Arthur Hodgson and his six compatriots to
induce Her Majesty's government to set at nought the declared wishes
of the Legislative Council and of the vast majority of their fellow colonists.
J\Ir. Arthur Hodgson and his friends are, we should presume, sufficiently
punished — by the account of the gladdening fact that no more convicts
will be sent to any part of New South Wales."

" ^Moreton Bay being a part of New South Wales, the Minister's
pledge, of course, applies to Brisbane. So the seven champions of
convictism have nothing to do but to — give up all hope of any suc-
cessful renewal of their felon-hunting adventures. Her Majesty's
Government have nobly refused to consult their own convenience at the
expense of the colonies. Such conduct is truly magnanimous — worthy
of a great, a free, a christian nation. It will not be unappreciated by the
people of New South Wales. It will bind our affections more closely to
our fatherland, and strengthen our loyalty to our most gracious sovereign,
and lead us to repel with a warmer indignation any treasonable attempt,
come from what quarter it may, to tamper with our allegiance to the
British throne."

On the 30th the Herald again summoned public attention
to Dr. Lang and Moreton Bay. " We have the pleasure of

Lang's League. ^^9

announcing that the questions arising out of Dr. Lang's second
assignment of the land order, on which the emigrants per ' Lima'
depended for their land, having been submitt.xl to the law
officers of the crown, they have given their opinion that Govern-
ment must carry into effect the appropriation before intimated
by Dr. Lang, as if it acknowledged the claim preferred on the
same document by the other party, it would become accessory to
a ' fraud ' " (that is the word used) " upon the immigrants who
placed the money in Dr. Lang's hands."

To have selected the very moment when Great Britain's
sense of honour and justice had been vindicated by her act of
drawing aside the veil of Australia's reproach from the fuller
view of the triumphant emblem of freed-will — her own Southern
Cross, — the very time, too, at which such serious, and as yet,
unheeded, public assaults were being made on the propriety
of the reverend gentleman's past proceedings in London, will,
perhaps, be thought strangely suicidal an attempt to stir up
excitement in the colony, having for its object separation in its
extreme sense from the mother country. Yet it was so. On
this same day a long advertisement appeared announcing that it
had been resolved, at the instance of Dr. Lang, to form the
" Australian League," for the purpose of obtaining ultimately
the complete independence of New South Wales. A meeting
had been held, and on the 4th of May we could read in the
Herald a few lines headed : " The Great Political Humbufi. —
After a good deal of hesitation as to the expediency of our com-
menting upon the recent attempt to get up a 'great political
crisis' — in other words to persuade the colonists to renounce
allegiance to the British Crown, w^e had made up our minds to
go into the subject in right good earnest. But after reading the
letter which appeared in our paper of yesterday, from one who
had taken part in the proceedings of the first meeting called by
the ' Arch- Agitator,' our intent was at once abandoned.
Now, however, having been led behind the curtain, and permitted
to see the materials of which the meeting was composed, and the
babel confusion and imbecility which characterised its proceedings
we may safely leave the ' Great Political ' Humbug to cut its own
throat."

The appearance of the Daily News of the 17th of last
January, from London, was a wet blanket, indeed, to the hopes
of the few remaining who yet stretched out a hand to cut the

470 Genesis of Queensland.

painter ! " We are given to understand," it says, " that Ministers
contemplate a bold innovation and great improvement in our
colonial policy. They have, after mature deliberation, arrived at
the conclusion that justice and expediency alike demand the
concession of entire self-government to the colonies in local
affairs. They intend to reserve to the Central Imperial Govern-
ment the exercise only of those functions which are indispensable
to unity of action in the foreign relations of the Empire."

" And it is understood that they are prepared to intimate
to the colonies the intention to withdraw the troops from every
one of them that will make the necessary arrangements, and take
upon itself the cost of its defensive establishments." And this
statement was said to have received ample confirmation in des-
patches which had reached the Governor within the past few
days. What said the Times too of February 4th last ? " The out-
lines of the scheme for our Australian colonies are already known
to the country. Short of saying 'good-bye ' to those possessions
altogether, the proposal is as liberal as can be imagined."
" The newspapers express their astonishment at the largeness
of the concession and, apparently on the strength of it,
Mr. Lowe " (now Lord Sherbrooke) , ' ' the member for Sydney and the
champion for self-government has withdrawn a long-threatened
motion of an extreme character. To us at home the most
striking feature of the measure which has just been submitted to
the judgment of the colonists is the proposed ' Federal Union '
of the Australian settlements. Grand as this idea is, we believe
it to be not less necessary : for though the time may be yet dis-
tant when federation will be required for self-defence against a
common enemy or for some other Imperial purposes, it is already
wanted for the settlement of a common tariff, without which the
colonies are likely to be brought into early and unpleasant
collision." ..." We know not why a liberal statesman
need reject from his thoughts the chance of a consummation
which so many historical precedents render not improbable : we
know not why he should shrink from a scheme equally pregnant
with benefit, whether the Australian colonies shall continue our
own or whether they are fated to become the United States of
the Southern Hemisphere." In the debate upon the second
reading of the New Constitution Bill in the House of Commons
M. Milne " rejoiced in the opportunity now afforded of thus lay-
ing the foundation of an Empire in the Southern Hemisphere

Lang's Last. ^-r,

which might in a future age rival even the glories of the American
United States."

The troubles into which Dr. Lang's emigration scheme had
plunged him at Brisbane became intensified at this time by his
arrest in Melbourne, for debt incurred in sending ofi" to that
place a ship-load which had lately arrived. In consci|u<,'nce of
this the Melbourne Argus of the 14th of May, had published a
letter from Dr. Lang, to which, said the Sydney Herald of th<-
24th, the Doctor had at length " condescended " to attempt a
vindication of his conduct in regard to his Moreton Bav land
order. That paper then reproduced the whole correspondence
on the 25th. As result, a meeting took place at Ipswich on
the 5th of June, of the holders of Dr. Lang's land orders by the
ships "Fortitude" and " Chaseley," residing in or near that
town. " Dr. Challinor took the chair " — thence wrote the
correspondent to the Moreton Bay Courier of the 6th — " after
a long debate it was moved by Mr. Welsby, seconded by Mr.
Hall, and carried unanimously — ' That while this meeting fully
appreciates the zealous, indefatigable and self-denying labours of
Dr. Lang in promoting emigration to this colony, and regrets the
obstacles that he has had to contend with in his endeavours to prose-
cute his laudable enterprise to a successful issue, they, nevertheless,
wholly disallow the principles and arguments he has published in
the Melbourne Argus on the 14th of May, in defence of the non-
fulfilment of his agreements with the parties he has sent out to
this colony, on the grounds " — which are then shown at length.

In this month of May the last of the convict shi{)s, the
"Bangalore," with two hundred and ninety men, arrived at
Moreton Bay. Cessation of transportation, and the proclamation
of the 2ist as the day appointed for her maiden assize — opened
hy Mr. Justice Therry — were events out of which sprung renewed
eagerness for a hunt for separation from New South Wales, or
what was popularly called, the " Sydney Government." It was
proposed that the people of the northern districts should be
invited to form a " league " to petition the Queen and the
Comroons of England to grant it. But there was no immediate
advance in the matter.

The aspect of the fracas, which began by the lirst hii
straight from the shoulder given by Dr. Lang — albeit one of the
non-militant order — at Lord Grey from on board the "Clifton."
and afterwards at the Government here ashore, can be of but

472 Genesis of Queensland.

indirect interest to Queenslanders of to-day. The outbreak and
its results have been so far followed, but the strife became hotter
in Sydney through the publication of a despatch from Lord Grey
to Sir Charles Fitzroy (No. 24), dated from Downing-street, 15th
December, 1849. ^^ gave a succinct reply to Dr. Lang's letter
already produced, and was laid by the Herald before the eyes of
the public on the 3rd July, 1850, together with evidence from
official sources; and on the nth Dr. Lang's "retort" appeared
in the same journal, published by the committee conducting the
" free election of Dr. Lang " for Sydney, and signed " Henry
Parkes," hon. secretary. Further despatches appeared on the
27th respecting these same land orders and Dr. Lang. But
Dr. Lang — and his committee — succeeded in their candidature.
He was returned by Sydney as a representative in the
Legislative Council ; but to that via sacra, trodden by the best
of New South Welshmen, did his late deeds by sea and by
land follow him. Dr. Lang had in vain striven to disentangle
himself from the meshes of his own net-work. Terence
Aubrey Murray had given notice that he would move
" that an address be presented to his Excellency the
Governor, requesting that he will be pleased to cause to be laid
on the table of this house a copy of all official documents con-
nected with the Land Order for £^^0, addressed to his Excellency
in favour of Dr. Lang, dated loth June, 1849," ^.nd led an attack
" ijr^ rc?/'z/7Z(^<?," upon that reverend and honourable member, on
Tuesday, 13th August. In unabashed dalliance with the worldly
onslaught. Dr. Lang " iti se ipso teres at que rotundus,
externi ne quid valeat per loeve morari,^' rolled himself over
his censor's reproaches like a ball, and possessing himself of the
wit of the Smith brothers, turned his ear with Boswell to the
prompting of Samuel Johnson's grandiloquent ghost, and half-
choked the shout of his assailant by the cry of the pious hawkers,
who perambulate the streets of Stamboul exclaiming " In the
name of the Prophet — Figs!" However, he but tacked on his
appeal to the catalogue of " Rejected Addresses."

For on the 17th following, William Charles Wentworth gave
Murray a knee on the resumption of the debate, and before the
end of the month honourable members passed on from recording
a verdict, heavily spotted witli meaning, and in no way consola-
tory to the clerical representative of Sydney, to other business of
the day — and so shall we.

CHAPTER XXV.

" Well, then," answered Sancho, " let this island be forthcoming, and it shall
go hard with me but I will be such a governor that, in spite of rogues. Heaven
will take me in. Nor is it from covetousness that I forsake my humble cottage
and aspire to greater things, but the desire I have to taste what it is to be a
governor. It is pleasant to govern, though it be but a flock of sheep."

— Cervantes. (Don Quixote.)

Returning to our special ground we find Patrick Leslie — the
first to incorporate it with, now the first to take a practical step
towards severing it from New South Wales. In July, then just
passed, a meeting had been held on Darling Downs, at which
he presided, at Drayton, formerly called the "Springs," at which
it was resolved that in the " opinion of that meeting the interests
of the northern districts of the colony did not receive that con-
sideration at the hands of the colonial government to which
they are entitled, and with a view, therefore, to the ultimate
separation of the northern districts of New South Wales proper,
it was desirable to ascertain the internal revenue collected to the
northward of the 30th degree of latitude ; and further, that as a
preliminary step towards bringing the subject before the govern-
ment, it was desirable that some member of the legislative
council be requested to move for a return of all sums collected
during the past year in those districts, distinguishing the assess-
ments on stock from the amount contributed towards the land
fund, and that contributed towards the general revenue : also
the sums expended in them, and the number of government
emigrants landed at Brisbane (being the only port to which any
had been sent) during all the same period."

" That Stuart A. Donaldson, Esq., be requested to move
in the Legislative Council for the return named."

It was also resolved that as " a very great loss was annually
occasioned to these districts from the want of direct communi-
cation with England, with a view to remedy this evil, application
be made to some respectable mercantile house to establish a
branch in Brisbane, and in the event of such application being
successful, the parties composing that meeting undertake to
give such house all the support in their power."

Also, that " great inconvenience was sustained from there
not being any bank in these districts, and that, therefore,

474 Ge7iesis of Queenslajid.

renewed application be made to one of the Sydney banks for
the establishment of a branch in Brisbane."

On Friday, the 24th of the next month, August, the return
above mentioned was moved for in compliance with the request,
and the motion carried.

On the ist of August the Moreton Bay Free Press was
introduced as the " squatter's recruit," and of course " separa-
tion " was carefully nursed in their interest. Step by step
towards the " necessity," a conscription of " wants " was
' enlisted. The cardinal points from which they were enrolled
were loyal to their polar aim. North ! the blacks were outrageous.
In the Burnett river district Blaxland had been killed close to
his own head-station hut when taking sheep to water; three
shepherds, poor fellows, in other parts. The cry was " the
Burnett and Wide Bay districts have indeed cause for praying
for separation. We squatters have regularly paid our assess-
ments and squatting licenses, and what have we got in return ?
No M.L.C., to represent us seven hundred miles away ! No
money for roads or bridges ! not a single emigrant! And worst
of all no protection ! For this immense district, six constables,
and two chiefs ! We do not want to cry out for separation,
however, because we want to have no ' truck ' with Brisbane ;
but we only want our rights."

Immediately after this wail, a shepherd of Scott's, a
squatter, was killed, and two thousand of his sheep taken by
the blacks, not far from Maryborough. Their tracks were fol-
lowed to Mount Boppol, and it was supposed that the intention
was to take them across to Fraser's Island !

South ! The valleys of the Clarence and Richmond rivers
echoed onwards Brisbane's challenge to Sydney.

East ! The broad paths bring us no fellowship of import
nor of export, but such as is franked by the usury of indirect
mercantile commission ; and bring us no fellow-men.

West ! What cares New South Wales beyond finding
some plausible occupation for her Surveyor-General, for any real
spreading of the boughs in the midst of which she has built her
nest? The sheep, and cattle, and squatters must do such work
on their own account out here: ive hatch the cuckoo's eggs ! \
After all separation, in a colonial sense, is in its essence but a
reasonable struggU; for a nearer view of the government to which
the scattered inhabitants, out of love for their country's insti-

Separation Strife. i-c

tutions, look up. Its progressive action must necessarilv 1..- a
conflict leading to a definite and sure end.

New South Wales proper was now, indeed, suffering
from separation on the brain. There had been a long and
earnest debate on a motion of John Lamb's in the legislative
council which was calculated successfully to extinguish the still
lingering hope cherished in very questionable fashion by Karl
Grey that Australia would consent in some sort to the resump-
tion of transportation to her shores. One of the most telling
arguments used by those who remained still favourable to so
unpopular a measure, under certain conditions, was that the land
fund would be exhausted by the separation of Port Phillip and
Moreton Bay, and the means of its future replenishment be
thereby so cramped that there must necessarily be an absolute
and immediate stoppage of immigration. To this it was retorted
that the injury anticipated, was imaginary, because separation
would not be territorial, but technical : in law, not in fact ; and
because the labour introduced to any part of Australia would
assuredly find its way to those places by which it was most
needed, and best paid for. Then, in the next month, Sydney
bristled up under the conviction that the squatters about
Moreton Bay were at work " under the rose " in furthering their
schemes by baiting their hook for separation with provision for
Lord Grey's hungry exiles, and so delivering his lordship from
the confinement within Avhich he himself was shackled.

The Free Press had sent forth a document praying for
separation, which was said to be going round all the pastoral
places north of Port Macquarie. It published another of similar
import which bore the name of David Forbes , and the Herald's
correspondent from the same quarter declares to Sydney that if
their " pressing wants" are still disregarded it must be no matter
of surprise that it will be sought very generally upon " terms not
creditable to us at a future time," at the same time asserting that
Richard Jones had been placed in communication with Robert
Campbell, of Sydney, as a fit and proper person to represent the
counties of Gloucester, Macquarie, and Stanley in the legislative
council, and that he, being an anti-transportationist, was likely
to have a large majority. The parties by whom casting off the
yoke of New South Wales was now preached, which had by this
time become a crusade " under two flags," began to take a very
rancourous temper. The question engrossed the general attention.

476 Genesis of Queensland.

The press in Sydney had severely taken the squatters to task for
their past action, and they in retort called upon their confreres
of the secessional persuasion to open the coming year of 1851
with a meeting to stamp more resolutely their past, but still
unwavering claims. The arrival of the official copy of the New
Constitution Act, of which the 37th section required that it
should be proclaimed within six weeks after its receipt by the
Governor, told of their effect, for in its 34th, it "enabled
Her Majesty, upon the petition of the inhabitant house-
holders of territories north of the 30th parallel of south
latitude, to detach such territories from New South Wales, and
erect them into a separate colony or colonies " — and put flesh
upon the frame which now wanted but the quickening.

This meeting came off. In Brisbane it was spoken of as
the memorable struggle of the 8th of January, 1851, of "Right"
against " Might " ; and Arthur Hodgson was well nigh stoned as
the Goliath of the Philistine camp. However, it has been the
instrument of garnering a " spicilegium " of names, more or less
bright in the Genesis of Queensland ; the early wheat-shocks
overlooked by the gleaners of the present day. For an adver-
tisement appeared, which prominently brought forward " The
Moreton Bay and Northern Districts Separation Association," of
which the Committee appointed were :

John Balfour, J.P. Patrick Leslie, J. P.

Francis Bigge, J.P. G. F. Leslie, J.P.

Henry Buckley C. J. Mackenzie, J.P.

R. J. Coley Henry Mort, J.P.

Thomas Collins M. H. Marsh, J.P.

^ K. Cannan R. R. Mackenzie, J.P.

John Dobie, R.N., J.P. Hon. T. M. Murray

Robert Davidson C. H. Marshall, J.P.

W. M. D'Orsey, J.P. Thos. L. Murray Prior, J.P.

Hon. C. H. Forbes G. F. Poole

G. K. E. Fairholme, J.P R. F. G. Phelan

Walter Gray Robert Ramsay, J.P.

James Gibbon John Rankin, J.P.

John Harris George Thorn

Hon. Louis Hope, J.P. W. H. Wilson, J.P.

Arthur Hodgson, J.P. Henry Watson

Henry Hughes, J.P. F. D. Vignolles

W. Leith Hay, J.P.
Treasurer, Henry Hughes. Secretary, J. S. Langridge.

Aj! Odd Trick. ^j-

The objects of the association— separation, with Brisbane
as the seat of Government, with exiles on terms as already set
forth— need no repitition. Of course a counter demonstration
was at once got up at Brisbane, and a trenchant hand in Sydney
fell upon " Arthur Hodgson and his tail." Yet the old-man
jackeroo did not topple over.

The wind-bag of public expectancy was spared from farther
strain for some months, when it became obvious, from what
transpired on the 5th of last March in the House of Lords, that
during the now well-known debate in the Sydney Legislative
Council on the Transportation Question, should an opinion be
expressed adverse to Lord Grey's proposals his lordship would
resort to the expedient of erecting Moreton Bay into a separate
colony, with the view of sending convicts there. But now it
became further tightened ; for it was plain that the Secretary for
the Colonies was seeking to neutralise the decision of the
Legislative Council — to which he had unreservedly submitted
his own action — by finessing through the Port Phillip trump-
cards, which had been held by the Council's hand in the first
rubber. He would await the issue of the second, when Port
Phillip was not in the game : he hoped his partner in New South
Wales would be " dummy." But, says our honest Sydney
journal, the Herald : — " Whatever may be his notions about the
meaning of national pledges, we are certain that the nation at
large understands and will faithfully abide by them."

In July of this year, 185^^ there was a dissolution of the
Legislative Council, and new writs were shot out over the
country.

Brisbane : — Stanley — county and its borough were at once
warming up towards the boiling point of alliance, quadruple but in
onesense. RichardJonesagainstHenryHughes,^for the boroughs;
John Richardson, for the county ; George Leslie and Francis
Bigge, for the squatting districts : so nominated. Alexander
Campbell had shown himself, but disappeared. And so in

* The Herald's correspondent from Brisbane, with reference to the election,
says : — '* For the Boroughs there was a sharp competition between Mr. Richard
Jones and Mr. Henry Hughes. Mr. Hughes, apart from the vexed question of
transportation, would have been in every respect the best of all the northern candi-
dates.- His manly address and gentlemanlike manners commanded the respect of
even his bitterest opponents. His tardy renunciation of exileism lost him his
election by a majority of twelve. All persons of education thoroughly regret the
loss of Mr. Henry Hughes, of Gowrie, to the new Council."

4^8 Genesis of Queensland.

October, 1851, R, Jones for the boroughs, John Richardson for
the county, and George Leslie and Francis Bigge were introduced
as the Northern representatives to the legislative council in
Sydney ; in which on November 8th, R. Jones moved " that an
address be presented to his Excellency the Governor-General
praying that his Excellency will be pleased to cause to be laid on
the table of this House — ist. A return of the revenue derived
from the sale of Crown lands, in the districts of Clarence river,
Moreton Bay, Darling Downs, Burnett, Wide Bay, and Maranoa,
respectively, from 30 June, 1850, to September 30, 185 1. 2nd.
Of the amount of revenue derived from the assessment on live
stock (in the same districts, and between the same dates).
3rd. Of the amount of revenue collected at the Custom House,
Brisbane (between same dates). 4th. Of -that derived from
depasturing licenses (in the same districts respectively, and
between same dates). 5th. Of that received from licenses to
retail spirituous liquors, for confectioners' licenses ; for licenses to
cut timber on Crown lands, and for rent of tolls and ferries (in
the same districts respectively, and between the sames dates).
6th. That of the amounts received at the Courts of Petty Sessions
for all fines and forfeitures (for the same district and between
the same dates). 7th. That of the expenses paid from the
Colonial Treasury for services of (the same district and dates).
8th. That of the number of immigrants at the expense of the
land fund landed at Brisbane (between the same datq^s). 9th.
That of the number of immigrants at the expense of the Imperial
funds landed at Brisbane (between same dates). loth. Copies of
all correspondence and of memorials addressed by residents at
Brisbane to the Colonial Secretary, the Collector of Customs at
Sydney, and the Sub-Collector of Customs at Brisbane, relative
to the Customs Department and trade of the Port, together with
copies of reports made by the Sub-Collector to the Collector at
Sydney, and correspondence in reply thereto (between the same
'dates), nth. A return of the number of vessels and their tonnage
that have entered the port of Moreton Bay during the year 1849-
1850 and to the 30th September 1851, distinguishing during the
years 1840, 1859, and to the 30th September, 1851, sailing vessels
from steamers. Seconded by John Richardson the motion was
passed.

On December 17 the Colonial Secretary laid upon the table
the returns moved for by the honourable member for the Stanley

Leslie and Laiiir, ._,,

. -^ 47'J

Boroughs — R. Jones, which showed the revenue derived from
the various sources mentioned, to be ;{;29,69o is; the expend!- i
ture to have been ;{;28,042 i is 4d. Showing a balance in favour 1
of the revenue of £1647 9s 8d— on the 19th also, returns to the
address made by the member for the Stanley Boroughs relating
to the commerce of Moreton Bay ; also returns to an address
moved by the same member as to the customs of the same port.

The opening of the year 1852 unfolded a new colour of dis-
sension. A letter appeared in the Herald o{ January the i6th,
by the staff of which it was raised.

" Gentlemen, — Perceiving that you notice Dr. Lang's recent visit to
Moreton Bay, and his abortive attempts to procure subscriptions to enable
him to visit England as a delegate from the northern districts, I beg most
distinctly, on behalf of myself and a very great proportion of the north-
ern squatters, to repudiate any right that the inhabitants of Brisbane
possess to elect delegates for the district generally. That Dr. Lang may
be their choice I do not wish to deny, but the northern squatters would
scorn such a representative. Acknowledging the universally admitted
fact that Dr. Lang is a man of talent, I contend that the squatters of this
district wish for something beyond that, and when they elect a delegate
to represent them in England, they will attempt to find one in every way
worthy of their confidence.

" Personally, Dr. Lang is unknown to me, but in common with
others I am well aware of his character and career in this country as well
as in England, and beg leave to tell the reverend republican_tliat neither
his practice nor principles will find favour with Her Majesty's loyal sub-
jects settled in these districts. I would also remark that a very large
proportion of the northern squatters do noi desire separation from the
middle district, unless accompanied by exiles and a consequent govern-
ment expenditure.

" In conclusion, I beg to say that I am, and have beenjfor many
years, a plain practical squatter, more accustomed to look after sheep
and cattle than to conduct a newspaper controversy. If, therefore, any
of the reverend agitator's friends choose to take up the cudgels in his
part, they shall have the field to themselves, as I am satisfied by having
publicly denied that Dr. Lang in any way represents the northern
squatters: a body comprising nine-tenths of the properly, education, and
respectability of these districts.

" I am, Gentlemen,

" Your obedient servant,

"Patrick Leslie.
" Goomburra, Darling Downs,
"December, 26, 185 1." ,

480 Ge7iesis of Queensland.

In the nature of things came forth on the 17th " Leslie on
Separation," in the Herald.

" Gentlemen.

" Perceiving that in a letter signed ' Patrick Leslie/ published in
your newspaper of this morning, the writer asserts what I have already
contradicted in your columns, I beg to repeat that Mr. Leslie's assertion
as to my having made ' abortive attempts to procure subscriptions at
Moreton Bay to enable me to visit England as a delegate from the
northern districts' is wholly false and unfounded. I made no such/
attempts, either directly or indirectly ; but if the people of Brisbane and
Ipswich — at least, certain of the members — thought proper of their own
accord, and without prompting of any kind from me to contribute
towards my expenses in going home, not as a delegate, but as the
bearer of a petition, which I was authorised at two public meetings in
these localities to advocate and support, what is that to Mr. Patrick
Leslie? Did any of these people attempt to interfere with him, and-
others like him, when conspiring with their pecuniary means, and other-
wise to degrade their adopted country into a mere receptacle for
English felons? As to Mr. Leslie's disdaining me as a representa-
tive of the northern districts generally, I have no wish, whatever
to represent Mr. Patrick Leslie and his friends in any way. They
may do what they please to get both convicts and Chinamen for
me, but I shall do what I can to prevent them, in a regular and consti-
tutional way. The petitions I am to carry home for separation without
convicts, but with a free immigration, speak for themselves, and they
have been numerously and respectably signed ; but what is there to
prevent Mr. Patrick Leslie and his friends from getting up a counter
petition, if they please, to be sent home and supported by their man
Friday, Mr. Arthur Hodgson? ... As to Mr. Patrick Leslie's
career in this colony, what has he ever done for the country beyond
assisting in putting up public prayers to the ' god ' Grey for more
convicts ? He does not like me, forsooth ! I should be sorry if he did.
I should be sorry to be the object of his odious predilections. If I were
only a felon, I should, doubtless, find the way to his heart at once ; for
he would then petition the ' idol ' to have me sent to Moreton Bay,
where, of course, he would do his best to reform me.
" I am, gentlemen,

" Your most obedient servant,
"Sydney, "John Dunmore Lang,

" i6lh January, 1852."

In March following, another moan over the " perfidy " of
Lord Grey, reached Sydney from the other side : " The Govern-
ment, or Lord Grey, which is the same thing," wrote the

Five to Three against " Jackeroo ! " .«,

Herald's correspondent, " will not retract an inch as regards
transportation to Van Dieman's Land, or the separation of
Moreton Bay, with the view of declaring that district a receptacle
for convicts. . . Our fears are realised, our scepticism is at
an end ; the storm has burst, and whatever might have remained
among us of reliance on the common sense, the common justice,
the common humanity of the Secretary for the Colonies has been
shivered by this bolt. . . . The authority for this dreadful
statement is the report of Mr. King, the Victoria delegate, of
what he had heard from Earl Grey's own lips. So lately as the
25th of November that gentleman had an interview with his
lordship, who then distinctly informed him ' that convicts would
still be sent to Van Dieman's Land.' and added ' that nearlv
every respectable man in the Moreton Bay district had peti-
tioned for separation.' "

In the May following, the recently formed "Northern
Districts Separation Association" made a call upon the members
to meet at Brisbane on Monday, the 17th of that month, for the
purpose, which became day by day more persistent, of adopting
an address to the Queen expressive of their unaltered views on
the subject of separation with exiles, and of thanking the Right
Honourable Earl Grey for his continuous determination to carry
out the wishes of a very large majority of the inhabitants of these
districts; and to take into consideration other matters connected
with their best interests. Patrick Leslie, Arthur Hodgson, and
Robert Ramsay made it from the committee room on Darling
Downs. The Sydney press became very bilious on hearing it :
" Messrs. Leslie, Hodgson, and Ramsay modestly setting them-
selves in array not only against that great confederation which has
bound these communities together as uncompromising opponents
to transportation, but against the Legislative Councils of New
South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Van Dieman's Land.
Three squatters against four colonies ! . . . True, this felon-
seeking triumvirate have an eye to their own district only.
All they request is that Her Majesty will be pleased to erect
Moreton Bay into a separate colony, and then employ it as a
penal settlement. . . . The inhabitants of the northern
districts have then to determine whether, for the sake of
supplying the squatters with cheap shepherds, they will thus
bring disgrace and demoralisation upon their countr)- ; and
whether, for the sake of pandering to the perverse tastes ol the

2 H

482 Genesis of Queensland.

Hodgson triumvirate, they will thank Earl Grey for breaking his
word."

The association was not cowed by the odds against it, and
the meeting was held and reported by the Moreton Bay Courier
on the igth. The larger part, perhaps, of those present has
passed away ; those who have not may yet find a peculiar
interest and much to reflect upon in the outcome of events in the
interval between then and now. I cannot put aside the details
then given in print, for the question of the day warmed up with
fresh life after that evening.

The attendance was large, and of not disreputable
character, very many of the largest proprietors of stock,
including many magistrates of the territory being present, as
well as a considerable number of the most influential inhabi-
tants of Brisbane, Ipswich, and the suburbs. On the motion of
Magnus McLeod, Esq., J. P., Mr. R. J. Coley was called to the
chair.

" The Chairman expressed his wish that some abler person than
himself had been selected. But in the meantime he willingly accepted
the office for the furtherance of what he believed to be a desirable
object. Before calling upon a gentleman to move the first resolutions
he would solicit their attention lo the results of his own experience as an
old colonist. (Hear.) In the year 1821 he visited Van Dieman's Land.
It was then but a dependency of New South Wales, and the judges
came from Sydney to hold their sittings in the same manner as they
now come to Moreton Bay. Shortly afterwards it was separted, and a
Governor and suite were established there. Free immigration took
place, accompanied by prisoners, and the colony immediately became
a flourishing one. Without that impetus it must have remained an
insignificant and small settlement such as Moreton Bay was likely to be
without such assistance. So much for the results of separation, and
free and convict labour combined in Van Dieman's Land. (Cheers.)
In the year 1822 he had visited Sydney, and at that time a person
standing in one spot might survey the whole of that now-important
city, which then exported about three hundred and forty bales of
wool annually. (Loud cheers.) When they considered the position
which Sydney has since attained, they would see the results
of free and convict labour combined there. He had also visited
:\Ielbourne, when it was not so large as Brisbane. Subsequently
financial separation was achieved for that portion of the colony,
and never was there an instance of a city having so rapidly increased in
wealth and prosperity as did Melbourne from that time. But the key of
her prosperity was her close proximity to the labour market of Van

Do'i^ ■' 483

Dieman's Land. (Cheers.) Ag:ain, he said, so much for the effects of the
joint labours of the bond and free. If they considered their position at
the present time, it must be obvious that lal)our they must have, or these
flourishing districts must again become a wilderness. (Cheers.) The
squatters, who required this labour, had been the pioneers of the country,
and without them these colonies would not have become, as they had'
the brightest gem in Her Majesty's crown. He said, then, that whatever
might be the motto of the anti-transportationists, let theirs be 'Separation"
and Great Britain for ever ! ' Before sitting down he must mention that
he had received several letters from gentlemen who were unable to
attend— these he produced. They were from— Mr. Patrick Leslie, wlio
had, unfortunately, met with an accident which precluded his attendance ;
from Messrs St. George Gore, Andrew, King, Laidley, Mort, and
Borthwick. These gentlemen apologised for their inability to attend, but
all expressed their warm approbation of the cause. (Cheers.) Me
would now call on Mr. Arthur Hodgson to move the first resolution.

V Arthur Hodgson, Esq., J. P., on rising to move the first resolution
was received with prolonged applause ; but before he commenced liis
address, a Mr. Windmell desired to know whether the meeting was a
private or a public one. Some confusion ensued, and the Chairman
having been appealed to declared that the meeting was a private one.
Mr. Windmell, however, remained, but as he several times subse-
quently interrupted, as he was smoking and drinking at the Chairman's
table, some gentlemen present insisted on his silence. ]\Ir. Hodgson,
with considerable good humour, declared his ability to proceed with
his remarks notwithstanding this opposition, but at last it became so
troublesome that ]\Ir. Windmell was forcibly ejected. Considerable
confusion and some struggling took place in the course of these
events, which we mention here for convenience, although they I
occurred from the time of Mr. Hodgson's rising till that part of his
address where he referred to the dependence of these districts on the
production of wool and tallow. The police were called in, and the chief
constable afterwards attended, and declared his intention of interfering
to repress disorder, as the meeting had been declared to be a private
one.

" Mr. Hodgson said that it was twelvp months since he last had the
honour of addressing them in that place. Many then present were
absent now, and many whom he now saw were then absent. Amongst
those absent was one whose support had been most valuable, and who.se
eloquence they had heard from the spot where he (the speaker) now-
stood. He alluded to Mr. George Leslie, of Canning Downs. (Cheers.)
He had been obliged to leave them for a time ; but, like the bird which
quitted with the autumn and returned with the summer, he trusted that
his absence also would be but short, and that they would soon hail his

484 Genesis of Q^ieensland.

return with as much joy as they now sorrowfully regretted his departure.
He regretted ]Mr. Leslie's absence both on public and private grounds —
on public grounds because his assistance would have been valuable, and
on private grounds because he highly esteemed him as a friend and a
neighbour. His allusion to Mr. Leslie was not out of place. It was
known that a vacancy was supposed to exist in the office which that
gentleman had filled as representative of the constituencies of Darling
Downs and Clarence. No blame could attach to Mr. Leslie for what
occurred in this matter. That gentlemen had on the eve of his departure
placed his resignation in the hands of a gentleman in Sydney, to be held
by his constituency if they pleased, but after due deliberation it had
been resolved not to make use of it. In the first place there was a
difficulty in finding a gentlemen competent to replace him — that was, one
entitled by local property and local interests to fill such an office so well
as Mr. Leslie — and even if such a person could be found, he would not
attend the Council next month, for which time it had been summoned,
and Mr. Leslie had promised to return and resume his seat at an early
period if his health permitted. And it had not been forgotten that
Mr. Leslie, as a member of the Legislative Council, would exercise a
much greater influence in Downing-street than plain Mr. George Leslie,,
of Canning Downs. Besides, through the high compliment which
Sir Charles Fitzroy had paid to these districts by the appointment of a
popular gentleman resident in these districts as a member of the Legis-
lative Council — he alluded, of course, to Mr. Henry Hughes. (Loud,
unanimous, and prolonged cheers.) He was glad to hear the manner
in which they had received the name of his friend I\Ir. Hughes.
In consequence of this appointment, he had been about to say, the
temporar}^ loss of a representative would be less felt, because Mr. Hughes
was well qualified to perform the duties of a representative as well as a
nominee. (Loud cheers.) They had chiefly to thank that gentleman
for the large sum which had been devoted to the repair of the roads in
these districts. The local press had passed some remarks about the
non-attendance of some of the country members at the opening of the
Council. Mr. Leslie, Mr. Bigge, and Mr, Hughes were of course
alluded to ; but he would remind the meeting that the Council was
called to assemble at a very short notice, when these gentlemen were
engaged in affairs of their own of much importance to them. But,
though absent then, they were present when most wanted, as might be
seen on reference to their votes in the printed papers. He had intended
to make some observations on the attendance of other members, but he
should forbear in consequence of some things which had come to his
knowledge since he arrived in town, and more particularly as he saw-
present a gentleman whom he was proud to observe there, although he
had been a little behind-hand. (Cheers.) But he would say that those

Log or Stofkf .^^

other members, although present at the early part of the Council's
sitting, were not present when they ought to have been. He now begged
to propose that the following resolution and memorial be adopted : -
' That the following address be presented to Her Majesty the (^ucen
expressive of the unaltered views of the inhabitant householders in the
northern districts on the subject of separation with exiles ' : —

" ' To Her Majesty the Quern in Council.

" ' May it please your Majesty: the humble petition of your ^Majesty's
dutiful and loyal subjects of the present colony of New South Wales
lying to the northward of the thirtieth parallel of latitude : — Respectfully
showeth. — I. That your peutioners have observed with great satisfaction
that the news of the gold discovery in New South Wales has produced
no change in the views of your Majesty's Government on the subject of
transportation to such portions of the Australian continent as may
express a wish for the introduction of convict labour.

2. " 'That the opinions of the inhabitants of the Middle District on
this subject having been found so diametrically opposed to the wishes,
and interests of the great majority of the northern colonists, your
petitioners were induced on a former occasion to petition your Majesty
to concede to them the boon of separation with a view to the introduction
of exiles into Moreton Bay, to be accompanied by an equal number of
free emigrants as proposed by your Majesty's Principal Secretary of
State for the Colonies.

3. '' ' That the renewed efforts of the anti-transportationists in the
Middle District to thwart the views of your Majesty's Government
render it incumbent upon your petitioners to reiterate their former
opinions ; to declare that they have undergone no modification and to
record their solemn protest against the assumed right of the Anti-
transportation League to interfere with the wishes of the inhabitants of
the proposed new colony ; and they further desire to express their utter
want of sympathy with the opinions at a late meeting held in Sydney,
condemnatory of those views of your Majesty's Government, which your
petitioners have so great a desire to see carried out.

4. " ' That the discovery of the southern gold fields is operating most
prejudicially to the interests of the stockholders and employers of labour
in the northern districts, where no auriferous wealth is found to exist,
and that the views expressed in the petition already alluded to derive
additional strength from this circumstance.

5. " ' That your petitioners look to the introduction of exiles, with
an equal number of free emigrants, as the only means of averting the
many evils with which the continued introduction of Chinese labour
threatens the colony.

6. " ' That the good conduct and faithful services of the exiles sent
to iNIoreton Bay afford the strongest evidence in their favour, and lorce

486 Genesis of Queensland.

upon your petitioners the conviction that their continued introduction
must be attended with the most beneficial results, not only to the men
themselves but to the welfare of the district.

7. " ' That your petitioners therefore humbly pray your INIajesty will
be pleased to direct that immediate steps may be taken for the severance
of the northern districts from New South Wales, and that the northern
colony may at once be declared a place to which convicts may be sent
on the terms proposed.'

" Such was the petition which he trusted would meet with their appro-
bation and receive a larger number of signatures than any document
that had before been adopted in Brisbane. It spoke plainly for itself and
needed no explanation from him. But he must not sit down without
glancing at the effects which the goldfields of Australia had had upon
these districts. They had drained the population as any person might
see. In Brisbane, for instance, they saw houses untenanted, business
unprofitable, land unsaleable. These facts told them but too plainly
the truth. But if any scepticism existed, let them look to the squatters'
stations, where they would find the plough idle, all improvements stopped,
and flocks of sheep mixed together so as to be injurious to the fleece
and to the carcass. And what had they to depend on but wool and
tallow.' It was the opinion of a practical man — Mr. Hargraves — a
name which was not only famous throughout these colonies but in all
parts of Europe through the remarkable discovery he had made — it was
the opinion of this gentleman that no gold would be found in these
districts. He was not ignorant of the extraordinary rumours that had
been circulated relative to the discover}^ of gold. The Moreton Bay
Courier which he held in his hand said : ' Indeed in these districts
gold has already been undoubtedly discovered in small quantides
in several localities, and it has been shrewdly conjectured that
more extensive deposits would have been long since brought
to light but for the discouragement thrown upon such enter-
prises by those who feared that their projects for a supply of cheap
labour might be thereby endangered.' This article of the Courier,
which he was sorry to sa}- was taken in by a few squatters in these
districts (laughter and cheers, and signs of disapprobation) : this paper,
he said, had distinctly stated an insinuation against the squatters which
was not true. Had Mr. Bigge placed any obstruction in the way of
persons wishing to seek gold near his station .' Had Mr. Leslie done so,
or did he not assi.st in promoting such a search .? (A voice : ' I paid
three pounds towards it myself. 'j Had they not all striven to the
utmost to find gold 'i (Hear, hear.) He had had the pleasure of meeting
Mr. Hargraves, and did not think he was a man likely to conceal aught
he knew, as a tracing he held in his hand would show. A letter had
been addressed to I\Ir. Hargraves, and he would read the reply. (The

Gold and no Gold. ^%-j

letter read by IMr. Hodgson stated in reply to an application, that
although Mr. Hargraves thought that the application should Imve been
addressed to the Colonial Secretary, he saw no objection to saying that
so far as his researches had gone, he did not see the slightest chance of
finding a remunerative goldfield in the northern districts, and Mr.
Hargraves enclosed a tracing of the country he had examined.) He
therefore maintained that the absurd article in the Courier was a
nonentity and a falsehood. It was not for them to follow the example
of Sydney, and be bullied and brow-beaten by the mammoth anli-
transportation league ; and he was glad to see by the multitude around
him that that was not to be submitted to. Sydney was differently situated
from Moreton Bay. Sydney commanded abundant labour, and here
none could be obtained. Mr. King, the Port Phillip delegate, whom
they must admit to be a very well-informed man, stated in a letter to the
Council of the Melbourne League that he intended to take measures for
the purpose of assisting the Government in filling emigrant ships for
Victoria. (Extract read.) Now, if such difficulty was felt in getting
persons to emigrate to a rich gold-country like Port Phillip, what
inducement could be offered for them to come to this ultima thule,
where there was no gold } He lately had the pleasure of signing his
humble name to a petition for direct immigration, but he doubted how
far that petition would be successful when it seemed that there was so
much difficulty in getting emigrants to proceed even to Port Phillip.
The difficulty of getting people to proceed here on their arrival in Sydney
bad been pointed out to him by Captain Brown, the immigration agent,
w^ho said that they would not come. If free immigration could be
procured he would willingly dispense with exiles. A gentleman of his
acquaintance had recently paid jC'/oo for land, and it had been saiil that
if the money had been paid into the Treasury a few days before it was
due, that gentleman would have been entitled to nominate fifty emigrants
to proceed hither. Some question having arisen on this point, the
Colonial Secretary was written to, and his reply, which he now produced,
stated^ in effect that if the money was paid into the Colonial Treasury
thirty days before it was due it would entitle the payer to nominate
immigrants to the extent of eighty per cent, on the amount. It appeared
to him, therefore, that a want of unanimity amongst themselves was tlic
chief cause of their want of emigration, since it could be procured in
this manner. He himself would undertake, if enabled by such means,
to introduce two ship-loads from the county where his own father's
property was situated. Want of unanimity, therefore, was another serious
reason why they should seek for the kind of labour now sought, since it
prevented the procuring of that kind which would enable them to do
without convicts. He was aware that his own motives, in acting as he
had done, were aspersed, and that it was hinted that a snug

488 Genesis of Queensland.

appointment awaited him, as soon as separation took place. (Laughter.) He

could only say, that he preferred a squattage on Darling Downs to any

berth the Government could offer him. (Cheers.) His motives were as

honest and his conduct as independent as those of any gentleman here

or elsewhere, and he had imported more labour than anybody else,

excepting Mr. Richard Jones, who brought about sixty convicts here

with his sheep. (Laughter.) He then referred to the evil of Chinese

labour, which was the only alternative if exiles were rejected, and

although these persons were distasteful to him, he would call attention

to the fact that there were on Darling Downs about three hundred of

them who were now taking care of about four hundred and fifty thousand

sheep of the value of ;^90,ooo. He said, that, although they thus filled

an important gap, it was disgraceful that they should be introduced at

this rate, while thousands in Europe were tempted to crime, through

starvation at home. (Cheers.) From his own experience of the exiles

already introduced they were earning their livelihood, by the sweat of

their brows, and he denied the assertion that any considerable number of

them had left the district. He quoted statistics to prove the reformatory

character of the system which had so immensely increased the commerce

and productions of New South Wales, and when Sydney orators talked

of the system with such disgust, it reminded him of the story of Sheridan,

who, in reply to various questions as to how he had procured a new pair

of boots, settled the question by declaring he had actually paid for them.

Thus the skilled politicians of Sydney might find a simple cause for their

own prosperity in the fact that the British Government had introduced

thirty-three thousand one hundred and fifty-five convicts at a cost of

^5,301,000. (Cheers.) He conjured the meeting to cling together,

not to suffer the knife to be put between the tree and the bark ; but on

grounds of philanthropy as well as expediency to adopt the petition.

Mr. Hodgson concluded amidst loud cheering. Mr. John Harris

seconded the resolution, which w'as put and carried.

" F. L. ]\L Prior, Esq., moved the second resolution. He reminded
them how the uncertainty that existed on the subject of separation had
unhinged their projects, and left them all in a condition unfavourable
for exertion. If that uncertainty were removed, then they might set
their shoulders to the wheel and try to improve their condition. If all
their hopes of procuring a regular supply of the only labour available
were removed, they might even then manage to import a modicum
sufficient to enable them to boil down their stock preparatory to deserting
their stations, and seeking their fortunes elsewhere. Squatting might
then become a thing of the past, and a new era commence. Whether
this would be beneficial or not he left to be decided by the worst of their
opponents. Certainly this result must follow if they did not succeed in
securing separation with exiles. In order favourably to end the present

Half a Loaf better than no Bread. 480

uncertainty, it was desirable to communicate with those who have power
and influence to exercise in their behalf. If they succeeded, they would
be able to prove that, although other colonies might revel in gold, ilicir
own was contented to pursue its own humble course, desiring only that
the other colonies would leave theirs alone, and not blight it by their
baneful influence. (Cheers.) He would now read the resolution :—
' That the unsettled state of the separation question is proving injurious
to the welfare of the northern districts, and that a letter be written to the
Secretary of State for the Colonies, urging him to expedite the accom-
plishment of the views set forth in the memorial to the Queen.'

" T. D. L. Moffat, Esq., J.P., seconded the motion. In his address
he ' urged them to dismiss all party spirit and lukewarmness, and
exercise their united efforts for the common cause. Persons in this
town have tried to disseminate ill feelings against the squatters, but
happily, without much effect. Their interests were identical, and each
class was necessary to the prosperity of the other. This would be seen
by the general ill consequences of the present state of affairs. In
Brisbane they saw houses untenanted, streets deserted, and wharves
without shipping. In the bush they saw ruin before them, sheep
without shepherds, improvements at an end, and the most gloomy
prospects in the distance. If the prayer of this memorial was granted,
there could be no doubt of their rising from their present position to one
of great prosperity, and they would have the satisfaction of knowing that
they had assisted their own recovery, and at the same time, extended
a hand to receive their erring fellow creatures.' (Cheers.) The reso-
lution was put and carried.

" Robert Ramsay, Esq., J. P., proposed the next resolution : * That
this meeting desires to record its solemn protest against the interference
of the 'Australian League' on matters solely affecting the interests of
the northern squatters.' All must agree in the principle here put forth,
namely, the right of each community to regulate its own affairs. The
leaguers might seek, as they pleased, to establish their will in Sydney,
and they of the northern districts had equally a right to carry out their
own views, and to take such steps as might conduce to their fulfilment.
(Cheers.) The Sydney and Port Phillip districts were in an advanced
and prosperous condition ; the northern districts were differently situate(i.
He would direct their attention to a remarkable fact. In these districts,
there were about three millions of sheep, and he would suppose that
these required the attendance of about three thousand shepherds ami
hut-keepers. Now, there were about twelve hundred exiles and
Chinamen employed in such services, and therefore, it would be seen
that from one-third to one-half the sheep in these districts were being
taken care of by these men. He would ask any person how these sheep
could be kept alive without the services of those exiles and Chinamen.'

490 Genesis of Queensland.

(Cheers). Farmers might neglect their land and postpone its cultivation to
a favourable time, for they would have the land at least to return to ; but
it was not so with stock, which under such circumstances must perish.
The answer of the leaguers to this would be that plenty of immigration
would result from the gold discovery ; but, judging from the result of
their previous predictions, what faith could they have in that promise !
Not manv months ago the papers on that side were filled with the wildest
accounts of the probable effects of that discovery, and from their state-
ments it appeared that the only difficulty would be in getting ships
enough to bring out the vast number of people who would want to come.
But even if those expectations had been in part fulfilled, the people
would not stay here. Mr. Hargraves had decided that there was no hope
of such discoveries here. To use his own words : ' When apples grew
on gum-trees there might be goldfields in this district.' Well, then,
they had only one resource, namely, to employ exiles or Chinamen. He
confessed that the introduction of convicts was an evil if it could be
avoided, but these Chinese were worse, and the Attorney-General, who
possessed great influence — which no doubt he was fully entitled to — had
declared himself opposed to their introduction. They were thus reduced
to exiles, and here the ' League ' opposed them. On all sides they were
surrounded by difficulties, and no path was opened to them but through
the ' League,' unless that body would adopt the wiser course of with-
drawing an opposition, which for a time might be mischievous, but could
not ultimately succeed. Sydney and Port Phillip boasted of the purity
of their morals when they had become wealthy, but he must say that he
was somewhat of Lord Grey's opinion on that point, as expressed in his
interview with Mr. King, and here he would read those two extracts.
(The speaker read an extract from Mr. Lamb's speech at a Sydney
meeting saying that the Van Dieman's Land people had denounced the
immoralities of the convict system, and an extract from the Hohaii
Town Guardian expressing an opinion that if two thousand convicts
arrived they would be engaged within twenty-four hours.) He sincerely
wished that the people here w'ere in the same position as their neighbours
of Sydney and Port Phillip ; their views on the convict question would
then be identical. But to adopt the views of those neighbours now
would be, in effect, to depopulate the finest portion of the colony, and
ruin all who inhabit it. (Applause.)

"The resolution was seconded by R. R. Mackenzie, Esq., J. P.

" G. K. E. Fairholme, Esq., J. P., had a few remarks to offer in
reference to the usual points of the question. Experience had proved
that a condition of prosperity always offered the best inducements to
good behaviour, particularly because it afforded the means of giving a
good education. (Cheers.) And it had been abundantly proved that
such a condition of prosperity here could be best attained by a supply of

Apology for Exiles. ^gi

labour. The exiles when they arrived would see many persons who had

worked their way up from a similar position into wealth, and some into
stations of respectability. (Cheers.) This would naturally induce them
to try the same means of retrieving their characters, and .surely British
law and British feeling were not so vindictive as to deny that the men
should raise themselves in this way. (Cheers.) As regarded the state-
ment that the proposed system would offer inducements to crime, he
presumed that those questions would be duly weighed l)y the Imperial
Parliament. He could say trom the examples they had witnessed that
the greater number of the exiles had entered their community with dis-
positions rather well than evil-disposed. (Loud cheers.)

"The resolution was then put and passed.

" W. M. Dorsey, Esq., J. P., begged to move the next resolution :
' That the non-discovery of gold in the northern districts up to the
present time and the consequent drainage of population to the southern
goldfields renders the introduction of exiles the more necessar}'.' He
considered that the introduction of exiles would be especially beneficial
because they would exclude Chinamen, whose presence he was by no
means favourable to. And he maintained that it was a most absurd
position, to assert that one crime should for ever exclude a man from
society. (Cheers.) He was reminded of INIr. Horton James' remark
concerning the distinctions in colonial society : . . . ' those who
had been detected and those who had not.' Now some of those whom
he had the honour of addressing had been detected and some had not.
(Laughter). Then why should they refuse to accept a few more who
had been detected. (Laughter and cheers). Why should they say
' You stole a pocket handkerchief in Cornhill at such a time, and, there-
fore, you shall not have a chance of earning ^^20 a year ' .' (Laughter
and cheers.) He had known many men in this district who came out as
prisoners, and who were now living comfortably with their wives and
children. At the Ploughed Station near Ipswich he had had opportuni-
ties of knowing many who had since attained a better position ; and
there were men there that night making hurrahs and disturbance, who
had themselves been in that condition. Again, he asked, why should
they object to their fellow-countrjmen enjoying the same privileges
which the Government had granted to them .' (Loud cheers.)

" Mr. Walter Gray felt proud to second the resolution, and could but
express his firm conviction that the sooner Eari Grey ' cut the painter '
which held them to Sydney the better. (Laughter and cheers.) The
resolution was then carried.

" Dr. Cannan proposed the next resolution : — ' That Get)rge F.
Leslie, Esq., member for the electoral district of the Clarence and
Darling Downs, in the Legislative Council, be delegated by this associ-
ation to carr}- out its views in England.' Although the bad health of

492 Genesis of Quee^island.

Mr. Leslie was deeply to be regretted it was yet fortunate that they were
enabled to secure his valuable services in England. No one knew better
than that gentleman w'hat they required, or was more likely to use active
exertions in their cause. He should only add that he hoped the Austra-
lian Leaguers would receive such a lesson as would teach them to
mind their own business.

" The resolution was seconded by Mr. William Kent, and then
carried."

The bete noire of Lord Grey's boudoir was the incarnate
crime of the United Kingdom, with the disposal of which he had
to deal under altered circumstances of the colonies. The rivet
of p.urpose was now more firmly clinched by the golden hammer
raised against a felon's darkening the gates thrown open to the
Australian, in rivalry of Californian treasure-trove. " What can
be done with the convicts ?" To his lordship such a meeting as
that just noticed must have been a peculiar picture of refuge,
and in the light under which it was placed must have been kept
on the easel of his thoughts as perspectively true in shaping a
way of escape from unceasing anxiety, annoyance, and difificulty.
"Separation there, with a clearing out of the gaols here !^'
The latter chance, so golden to him, overlaid so much doubt,
caution, and hesitation in requiting the ready service. Lord
Grey's despatch to Sir Charles Fitzroy, dated 27th December,
1 85 1, put all but the finishing touch to the scene of which the
stockholders of the north had not so long ago but drawn the
outline ; and such confidently as they of Port Phillip had neared
the horizon of their desire in 1846, so now did the pastoralists,
ultra citraqiie Brisbane, seize on the declaration of this official
document in 1852 :

"Sir, — I have to acknowledge your despatch, No. 17, of the 29th of
January last, enclosing a petition addressed to the Queen by the residents
whose names are thereunto attached, in the districts lying to the north-
ward of the 30th parallel of south latitude, in New South Wales, praying
for the immediate erection of INIoreton Bay and the surrounding districts
into a separate colony, and also that convicts might, on certain conditions,
again be sent there. 1 also received the letter which accompanied that
despatch from the Committee appointed at a public meeting held at
Armidale, in the district of New England, on the 30ih of December,
1850, enclosing resolutions then adopted, urging that that district be
included in the proposed new Colony.

"2. In accordance with the request which the same despatch
conveyed, 1 deferred the final consideration of those petitions until I

The Queen in Check. ^^^

§hould have been placed in possession of the views of your Excellencv

on the subject, together with such further information as you then
promised with respect to the resources, expenditure, and population of
the district of Moreton Bay. That furtlier information 1 received with
your despatch, No. 70, of the 4th April, 1850, together with a further
petition from others of the inhabitants of the northern liisirict, also
praying for the division of the colony, but protest against the resumption
of transportation to it in any form or upon any condition whatever.

"3. In intimating that their petitions have been presented to her
Majesty, you will acquaint the petitioners that the petitions have under-
gone the careful consideration of her Majesty's Qovernment, and that,
having consulted the law officers of the Crown on the subject, I have
been advised that the petitions would be sufficient under the terms of the
Act of Parliament to enable her Majesty to proceed at once to exercise
the power it has conferred upon her, by dividing the colony.

" 4. But upon considering the reasons urged in favour of that
measure by the petitioners, and those advanced in opposition to it in the
minute of the Executive Council, it has appeared to her Majesty's
Government that its adoption ought, at all events, to be deferred. It is
obvious that in the present condition of the northern districts with so
small a population, and so scanty a revenue, the establishment of a
separate government there would be attended with some inconvenience,
though I do 7tot doubt that means might, if necessary, be found for
meeting the expense of such a government on the very moderate scale
which would suffice in the first instance. It is thought desirable,
therefore, before such a measure |is determined upon, to ascertain
whether, since the recent separation of Victoria, and the consequent
re-constitution of the Legislative Council, by which the inhabitants of
Moreton Bay will be better represented than before in that body, they
still combine to think that their interests are not duly attended to by the
legislature meeting at Sydney. I should hope that this would not be
the case, and that the new Legislative Council will show such a proper
regard for the interests, and due deference to the wishes of the northern
colonists, as to satisfy them that there is no immediate occasion to press
for the separation of the district thev inhabit from the remainder of the
colony, a measure which, with a view to the true interests of ail parties,
I should regard as premature.

" If, however, the measures of the Legislative Council, after its
re-construction, should fail to give satisfaction to the inhabitants of the
northern districts ; if they should, in consequence, continue to entertain
a decided opinion in favour of a division of the colony, and .should make
known that opinion by another petition to the Queen, in accordance
with the Act, it would, in my judgment, be proper that their wishes
should be acceded to, for the same reasons which have lately induced

494 Genesis of Queensland.

parliament to divide the province of Victoria from New South Wales ;
and I should be prepared accordingly to advise her Majesty to exercise
the power entrusted to her for that purpose.

"6. As the resolutions agreed to at the meeting held at Armidale
proceed upon the supposition that Her Majesty would separate the
northern district from the colony of New South Wales, the course which
I have advised her to take on the present occasion renders it unnecessary
that I should advert to the recommendations they contain respecting the
boundaries proper to be assigned to the new colony, should it be
constituted at any future time.

" 7. With regard to the transportation of convicts to the northern
districts, as the division of the colony is at all events postponed, the
question does not arise at present, but I think it right to point out that
the Executive Council have put an interpretation entirely diiTerent from
what was intended, to bear on my despatch of the 20th December, 1850,
in which I stated that convicts should not be sent to the northern
districts of New South Wales without the assent of the Legislative
Council of New South Wales ; and have thus assumed the right of the
Legislative Council of New South Wales to exercise a power to which
it has no claim. That body is only entitled to express an opinion on
behalf of those whom it represents ; and if the colony should be
divided and the inhabitants of the new province should, through
their representatives, ask to be allowed the advantage of convict labour,
Her iNIajesty's Government would see no reason for refusing the request ;
though some of the conditions attached to the application for convicts in
one of the petitions now before me, would not be advisable.'"

In considering the tone of this despatch it must not be lost
sight of that Lord Grey had hoped that the Legislative Council
of New South Wales — as re-constituted after the separation of
Port Phillip — would not oppose transportation to her shores.
Between hope and doubt, language becomes muffled: the full
meaning garotted. I'inding the front door shut, his lordship
hoped that convicts might be re-admitted by the back.

In the irony of such assurances, disappointment in each case
exacerbated the tempers of the expectants. Lord Stanley had
but just signified his approval of the separation of Port Phillip,
Lord Grey of that of the northern districts from New South
Wales, and immediate steps were to be taken towards its
consummation, when by their loss of office, through change of
Ministry, the burning question on both occasions was left to
smoulder for years afterwards. Armidale had but lately prayed
to be included in the new colony, and thence, in the south, to
the farthest sheep-fold in the north, gloom spread through the bush

Stale-Mate. uy

Sir John Pakington succeeded Lord Gray in Downing-street.
Not conspicuous in the poHtical world, the Herald at once
declared "that he was put into the Colonial Office as a make-
shift to give place to a man better known in the circle of states-
men, there can be little doubt." He had been long member for
Droitwich. Son of William Russell, of Powick Court, Worcester-
shire, who married the daughter of Sir H. P. Pakington, baronet,
of Westwood, born in 1799, he had taken the name of
Pakington when he succeeded as heir to his maternal uncle, Sir
J. Pakington, baronet, in 1830. Was at Eton and Oxford. Lord
Derby was now Prime Minister ; Disraeli Chancellor of the
Exchequer.

The proceedings of the Executive Council respecting the
petitions mentioned during the August following would, conse-
quently, be laid before a new Secretary of State for the Colonies,
and the old ground examined by less accustomed eyes : all to be
gone over again ! The report of the Council, in mindfulness
of this, was perhaps, more confidently compiled, in deprecating
the measure which had commended itself to Lord Grey. His
Excellency the Governor, the honourable the Colonial Secretary,
the Attorney-General, the Colonial Treasurer adopted the
following minute after considering each petition : " Having
attentively considered the petitions and other documents laid
before them, the Council feel it their duty to recommend that
His Excellency should strongly urge the Right Honourable the
Secretary of State to advise the Queen not to exercise upon
these petitions the power reserved to Her Majesty by the thirty-
fourth section of the Act of Parliament, 13 and 14 \'ictoria, Xo.
50, of making into a separate colony such of the territories
referred to by the petitioners as lie to the northward of the
thirtieth parallel of south latitude. . . . The return of
revenue and expenditure submitted by the Auditor-General
shows sufficiently how very inadequate to the support of a
separate government is the ''general revenue' collected in the
district in question. The last year's revenue, which was the
largest received since the establishment of the district of Moreton
Bay as a free settlement in 1842, having been somewhat less
than ^{^5,500." Here follow the reasons — needless to recapitulate.
"The Council, therefore, presume that if the Moreton Bay
districts were detached from New South Wales and formed into a
separate colony, his lordship" [to whose despatch this "minute"

496 Genesis of Queensland.

was the rejoinder] "would consider that Her Majesty's govern-
ment could not, consistently with his pledge, give its sanction to
the transmission of convicts thither without the assent of the
parent colony, which, from its proximity, would necessarily
be at least as much affected by the measure as if the
separation had not taken place. ' When called upon in the year
1846, to advise the then Government as to whether His
Excellency should recommend the erection of the district of
Port Phillip into a separate colony, the council felt strongly
the objection that a compliance with the wish of the inhabitants
in that case might establish a precedent, which if it did not lead
to an actual sub-division of the colony into a number of petty
governments, might encourage district agitations similar to that
which was raised there. The council, in consequence, thought
it necessary to set forth at length the circumstances which had
long given to that district a character of distinctness from the
rest of the colony, and to state that they advised the separation
because they viewed the case as one without a parallel in New
South Wales, and as affording no precedent, so far as existing
settlements were concerned for a further dismemberment of the
colony.' ' The present position of the district of Moreton Bay
is characterised by no such distinctness as that which formed
the peculiarity in the case of Port Phillip, and while they
cheerfully give up territorial importance which the loss of the
fine province of Victoria will entail on New South Wales ; the
council must claim for themselves the liberty of stating freely
their opinion, that a great injustice would be done to this colony,
were the northern settlements which have been created by its
capital and labour to be now prematurely severed from it for no
better reason which the council can discover than the vague
impression on the part of some of the residents that great
benefits would result from the establishment of a government of
their own, and an equally vague apprehension on the part of
others that their interests will not be properly protected without
a distinct legislature.'

"Francis L. Mf.rewether,

" Clerk of the Council."
In strange contrast with, and as a not inapt comment upon
the concluding paragraph of the minute, was the rejection of a
motion made by Henry Hughes, of Darling Downs, in the .Legis-
lative Council on the T4th of the following month — September — ■

Two Entrances. — Trial Stakes. Ann

for leave to bring in a bill "for the better administration of
justice in the Moreton Bay district" by a majoritv of three-
(after a debate in which the need of such a stc^j) was not
questioned) on the plea that an addition to the schedule on the
estimates of the sum required to meet the expense attendant on
such a concession — under £i,^oo — should not be countenanced.
This matter had been committed to Hughes, because the repre-
sentative of the Stanley Boroughs, Richard Jones, was sufferino-
from illness, which ended only in his death at New I'arm, Bris-
bane, in the next November.

From trial to triumph : from start to finish the final heat was
run by Queensland much in the same time as it had been bv
Victoria. But, for the former, the course was not quite on a like-
level ; the " separation stakes " had swollen in value. For the
latter, was but the dull attraction of a crown colony : in the
former, light and sunshine whereby a people's growth to a free
self-sustaining stature might be straightway stimulated. The
aspirations of Austral Home-Rulers in all, save severance from
the Great Commonwealth, were about to be fulfilled in
Wentworth's^ " thorough " design for an yEsonian Britannia,
which should bring out of the household of her history things
new and old for the world's teaching. The scene from which,
in this fresh act of colonial drama, the curtain was rising,
already dazzled. Inter-Australian for a moment slunk behind
the stage from the presence of separation standing before the
people hand-in-hand with the willing grasp of Imperial power.
The broad principia of our "consolidation" tabled upon live-
rock, chiselled by the lion-hand of Wentworth were distracting
all thoughts : the ring of the metal failed not to reach the ears
of Brisbane.

The Derby Ministry had collapsed in England on the 6th of
December, 1852. The colonies had fallen into the hands of the
Duke of Newcastle and other leaders such as Lords Aberdeen
and John Russell. Australia had cause to be grateful to the
ejected Ministry. It had given sound pledge for the blotting
out of transportation : of its own thought surrendered Crown
prerogative by yielding the disposal of the gold mines into the
hands of representative legislators : and the assurance of Sir
John Pakington to La Trobe by a despatch of the 2nd of last

* Strafford to sight and sense.

498 Genesis of Queensland.

October, and the re-assurance bv his successor, the Duke of
Newcastle, on January 18, 1853; "That the appropriation of
the moiety of the Land-fund not reserved for immigration pur-
poses hitherto vested in the Lords of the Treasury be henceforth
vested in '' our respective executives, were strong evidences of
polite attentions which bowed to the fellowship of our just, social
equality.

By January, 1853, the "New South Wales Constitution Bill"
had been clearly read and digested at Moreton Bay. Then,
the point of the Australian Sampson's weapon was detected in
a sly thrust at the vital hope of northern deliverance. To eyes
at that distance the bill shrank bv sixty-six parts of its bulk into
two little clauses which might, under happy-go-lucky circum-
stances, have reached the discursiveness of a Committee of the
Whole House — had they met with no parrying remonstrance
during the three solid readings.

The Bill brought up by Wentvvorth "from the Select Com-
mittee of the Legislative Council, appointed on the 20th May,
1853, to prepare a constitution for this colony, and having had
the despatches relative to such constitution from Sir John
Pakington referred to them," contained the clauses which follow: —

"51. For the purpose of this Act the boundaries of the colony of
New South Wales shall not be curtailed on the north within the twenty-
sixth degree of south latitude, and they shall be on the south and south-
west a straight line drawn from Cape Howe to the nearest source of the
river INIurray, and thence by the course of that river to the eastern
boundary of the colony of South Australia ; on the east the one hundred
and sixty-second degree of east longitude ; and on the west the one
hundred and forty-first degree of east longitude, reckoning from the
meridian of Greenwich.

"52. No alteration shall take place in the boundaries of the
respective colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, or South Australia,
unless the assent 0/ the colony losing any portion of its territory hy such
alienation shall be expressed in some legislative provision of such colony."

Then there arose a commotion at Brisbane. To add to the
northern dread lest Wentworth's clutch should be too strong in
the wrestle for the best throw, the month of May gave a
"knee" to the Sydney champion and the "sponge" of a
refreshing reply to his "Grievances' Remonstrance." So be it!
was echoed to his " No !" more often than was expected. The
north was becoming more precious ; better reason to keep it.

Fencing Bout. j^g^

Thence, the quarter to the end of last March had brought
exported substance valued at £87,388 — the largest yet!
The tides of the separation springs keep on ebbing and flowing,
but the waters in the same channel still hardly mingle.
"Freedom and independence of the mother country," under the
pen of Dr. Lang, still declared the substance of the desire of our
colonists to be to get rid of British connexion ; separation of all
parts — New South Wales, Van Dieman's Land, \'ictoria. Cook's
Land, Leichhardt's and Flinder's Land — each, per sc and sui
generis, apart from our Home Land. And yet, after ten years'
struggle, our grand old man himself pointed out the feature of
our day : " Whilst everything had been conceded on the one
hand, nothing had been accepted* nor insisted upon on the
other hand by our Home Land ! Not a word had been said
about the civil or military expenditure of the colony. A civil
list had been stipulated for, sufficient for the purpose just, but
nothing more." Did not the applause of such words establish
Wentworth's footing in defence of these clauses so offensive to
northern proclivities ?

In nervous trepidation for his proteges in the County of
Stanley, did their honourable Custos Richardson (familiarly
called " Johnny ") confront the Legislative Council on Friday,
August 26th, 1853, holding a petition from Brisbane with a hand
and wrist^ en quarte et tierce. His last feint was the assurance
that " the people of the north would stick to their territory with
a feverish grasp, and would never relinguish their struggle for
independence ! " The lion's retort was but a " purr." He had
not yet been meshed by the net from which the teeth of these
little clauses were to let him go free. " But," he insisted, "it
was the manifest duty of that house to restore the old limits of
Mew South Wales.''

" The honourable member (Mr. Richardson) seemed to have
forgotten that the 26th degree was the old established boundary
of New South Wales. (Hear, hear.) Now the clause in the
Act 13 and 14 Victoria, which gave the Queen power, upon
petition of the inhabitants, to separate at the 30th degree of
south latitude, was not introduced with the view of benefiting
Moreton Bay, but merely to give Lord Grey another outlet for

* The Minister had evidently thought the proposals of the colonists, in their
desire for the new Constitution Bill, too liberal, and would not take them, as he
might, at their word.

500 Genesis of Queensland.

his convicts. (Hear, hear.) It was an insidious clause inserted
to forward sinister views. . . . He thought they had too
many separations already : the only result of this miserable
policy would be that a series of petty, paltry, insignificant states
would be created, which would necessitate the creation of a
federal government, and end inevitably in the overthrow of the
British throne ; and that was an evil which that house was
bound to oppose. (Cheers.) If he had had his way, that
brilliant province of Victoria, which was growing up so
democratic, would never have been separated at all.
It was the bounden duty of that House to restore the old limits
of New South Wales." (Cheers.)

The Attorney-General (Plunkett) added that " although this
was not the time to discuss these clauses " (having thought that
red-tape would bind them to the bill's several readings, and so
submerge them into the mud of committeeship) " he would but
allude to a letter published by one of the newspapers from one
of the honourable members from the northern districts (Mr.
Stuart Russell), in which he had stated his determination to
oppose the whole bill, and clause by clause, in committee, for the
sake of these offending sections Nos. 51 and 52.''' (Laughter.)
"He (the Attorney-General) hoped the honourable member would
see reason to let his rash vow lapse." (The honourable member
did not, and the ''offending clauses" were eventually withdrawn
by leave of the house, before proceeding to the third reading of
the Bill.)

The vexed people of the north came together in the next
November to adopt a petition, and protest to the Queen against
the efforts of the legislative council to deprive the northern
districts of the right of separation.

In marked relief to the determined aspect with which
Wentworth, the framer of this grand bill, had looked upon the
choler of the unruly separationists, was the lowered front with
which he addressed the legislative council on this subject
in the following December : " another alteration " (in the bill)
"which he intended to make had reference to the proposed
boundaries of the colony of New South Wales, (cheers.) In
the original bill it was intended to fix the northern boundary at
the twenty-seventh degree of S. latitude, but he proposed to
alter this so that the boundary should be fixed at such a limit
as the commissioners of Her Majesty should from time to time

yousting at Separation.

5"'

think fit. He was the more induced to take this course, because
the northern boundary was the only one which was not fixed by
Act of ParHarnent, and he admitted if Her Majesty should
choose to alter the present boundary, and at the desire of the
inhabitants erect the northern districts into a separate colony,
she ought to retain the power to do so." (Cheers.)

And hence, before proceeding to the third reading of this
bill, on Tuesday, December 6th, clauses 51 and 52 were at
Wentworth's request withdrawn, and on division the ayes were
thirty-five, the noes nine.

That, after the debate on its second reading in last Auo-ust
was ayes thirty-three, noes, five.

While the bill was under consideration by the Committee of
the Whole House, the Solicitor-General on the 15th December
said: "they were assembled under the Constitution Act for the
purpose of passing a Constitution for the colony : the power to
fix the boundary of the colony was reserved for the Royal pre-
rogative : and that to claim " (by clauses 51 and 52) "a power
which has been expressly reserved would be to endanger the
whole of the bill. Such a course would surely tend to prevent the
Imperial sanction from being granted to the bill."

In 1854, Gayndah and the Burnett stepped forth in
antagonism to Brisbane as the metropolis of the now confidently
awaited colony in the north. Meeting — protesting — growling —
chaffing and chattering — the dwellers within its presumed
borders already began to rebel against the assumption that
Brisbane was necessarily the future seat of Government — the
central depot for all the good things looked for. This anti-
Brisbane crusade enrolled such names as W- H. Walsh, H.
Herbert, William Forster, Bouverie, Joshua Sewell, Robert
Strathdee, H. H. Brown, William O'Grady Haly, James Mackay,
G. Sandeman, G. N. Living, Charles Archer, John Livingstone,
H. Palmer, E. B Uhr, J. D. McTaggart, Archibald M. Thomson,
Clement Lawless, W.Elliott, W. Young, &c. Brisbane's abuse of
her rivals, by letters and newspapers, enriched the very license
of language. To her everything external smacked of Galilee.
For lack of something to quarrel with during a lull, the Courier
of April affirmed "that the squatting community numbered
amongst them a few who, as their own fortunes are not perman-
ently identified with this land, think it better to secure the
support of Wentworth's party on the squatting question than to

502 Genesis of Queensland.

separate from that party for the mere purpose of saving the
northern districts from perpetual obscurity and misgovernment."
As the latter days of northern subservience to New South
Wales drew on to a close, the two antagonistic platforms from
which its emancipation had been preached, met in a struggle
for a seat in the council chamber from which both parties had
been straining for sunderance. The county of Stanley was
inquiring for a representative in the room of Richardson, who
had gone home. The consequent election became a matter of
amusement ; much excitement ; and promised an interminable
squabble. In relating it, I have in mind the influence which the
result might have, I then thought, and still believe, did have upon
the immediate or deferred grant of separation by the home
government. I have no reason to think, at this day, that I was
mistaken as I watch the signs of the times in the far North of
this present year, 1887. Five years kept us in further bondage,
after the final decision by which Dr. Lang took his seat as member
for the county of Stanley, on Tuesday, the 29th August, 1854.

I began this record with Hodgson and our " endeavour:" it
shall end with Hodgson and our "separation." Let Queensland
be but true to herself, and, through her prestige, just to her
tenderest shoots under the sun of the present day, and I may
feel secure of her indulgence to the poor scribbler of these her
nursery tales.

In April, 1854, the candidate for this vacant seat was
Dr. Lang.

To within an hour or two of the time appointed for nomin-
ation it was supposed that there would be no competitor, but
"about that time " said the Moreton Bay Free Press "it was
rumoured that another candidate was in the field, and near the
hour of nomination, H. Stuart Russell, Esq., M.L.C., drove into
Brisbane accompanied by Mr. Arthur Hodgson and several, other
gentlemen, which left no doubt on the subject." Ambrose
Eldridge proposed Dr. Lang, seconder — Robert Cribb.
Dr. Kearsey Cannan, Arthur Hodgson ; seconder — George Raff.
Arthur Hodgson, amidst loud applause, groans and hisses,
said with his usual smile of confidence : —

" That he came there, as they had been told, to solicit the suffrages
of his brother electors and townsmen, and in appearing before them he
verified the prognostications of the gentleman wlio had proposed
Dr. Lang, and rose as a ' plant,' hoping that he (Mr. I'^ldridge) might

Downs — Denunciation. co7

cultivate on his cotton farm as well-grown, flourishing plants as the
humble individual who now addressed them. (Laughter.) He
admitted tiiat he laboured under many disadvantages, but he hoped,
before resuming his seat, to clear away some. Asked for a fair and
impartial hearing, similar to that which had been granted to his reverend
opponent in the public meetings he had held in that town and Ipswich
during the week. . . . His disadvantages were— first, that he was
opposed to a man of great ability as well as energy, and he was willing
to give Dr. Lang every credit for both, but he (Arthur Hodgson) would
yield to no one in the northern districts for energy and perseverance.
(Cheers.) Secondly, his name, owing to circumstances to which it was
unnecessary to allude particularly, had not been brought before them by
the public press as a canditlate. He had no intention of coming forward
until last Saturday night, when he received a requisition accompanied
by strong promises of support, and he then gave up his passage in the
' Shamrock,' forwarded his wife and family to Sydney alone and unpro-
tected, and made up his mind to contest the election with Dr. I>ang
although so late in the field. (Cheers and hissing.) Mr. Hodgson here
read the following paragraph, which appeared in the Courier oi April 14,
and which, he had reason to believe, was intended to do him a serious
injury, in the event of his entering the lists against Dr. Lang : —
' There is too much reason to believe that, in the course of his
Excellency's ride over Darling Downs some insidious and treacherous
whispers have reached him as to the policy of withholding separation
until Mr. Wentworth's Constitution Bill becomes the law ; but we
entertain a confident hope that if there be, indeed, in our camp
traitors who would strike such a blow at the material prosperity of
the country that has made them what they are, they will earn their
reward in the ignominous rejection of their darling project amidst the
hootings and derisive laughter of the free-spirited people of England."
That paragraph, if directed against himself, was as 'false as hell.'
(Cheers.) He pledged his word and honour during the tour of his
Excellency through the district of Darling Downs, and during the time
he was in his Excellency's company under his (Mr. Hodgson's) humble
roof, not one word had been dropped by him on the subject of ' separa-
tion,' and as far as he knew none of his brother squatters hatl whispered
anything ' treacherous or insidious ' into his Excellency's ear. Further,
his Excellency had too much good sense and tact to receive such whispers
had the attempt been made. (Cheers with loud marks of disapprobation.)
Those whispers, if made at all, might have been made nearer Brisbane
than Darling Downs. (Cheers.) He wished now to explain his political
opinions on one or two points. He pledged himself to ' go the whole
hog ' for separation ; without such a pledge he knew that his return was
impossible. The feelings of the community were pledged to ' separation,'

504 Genesis of Queensland.

and if elected, he would do all in his power to bring about such a

desirable object. (Cheers.) He would take the liberty of reading a letter

which had been handed to him that morning by his esteemed friend and

relative, the honourable member for the Stanley Boroughs, who had

received it by the overland mail on Saturday last. It was a nobleman

with whose name they were all familiar, the right honourable Earl Grey.

(Shouts, cheers, hisses.) You will not hiss when you hear the contents

of the letter: <. tt • 1 ri o

" Howick, Dec. 23, 1053.

" Gentlemen, —

" I have had the honour of receiving the duplicate of your letter of
August last, enclosing a copy of one which you have addressed to the
Duke of Newcastle, urging the separation of the northern districts from
the colony of New South Wales.

" I have always, as you must be aware, been of opinion that eventually
^loreton Bay, with the territory dependent upon it, would require to be
divided from the colony of New South Wales, for the very same reasons
which rendered a similar measure necessary with respect to the Port
Phillip district, which is the Colony of Victoria. I considered it to be
only a question of time when the separation should take place. Provision
was accordingly made for this further division of the original Colony of
New South Wales in the Australian Constitution Act, which was passed
while I held the seals of the Colonial Department.

"Whether the proper time for the contemplated creation of a
distmct government of Moreton Bay may be yet come, is a question on
which I should be sorry to express a decided opinion without a fuller
knowledge than I possess of the objections which may have been urged
to it, but I have no hesitation in saying that the events of the last two
years, and the manner in which the interests of the northern part of the
colony have been dealt with by the existing legislature of New South
Wales appear from your statement to afford strong arguments in favour
of the immediate adoption of the measure.

" I have only to add that the clause which you state to have been
introduced into the Constitution Bill now before the legislature of New
South Wales, and which purports to prohibit the formation of a new
colony south of the 26th parallel of south latitude would, I apprehend,
be of no force even if it should be passed. No Colonial Legislature can
possess power to control the Imperial Parliament, or to limit that
authority to determine the boundaries of the several British colonies,
v.hich belongs to the Crown and to Parliament.

" I have the honor to be. Gentlemen, &c.,

"Grey."
" J. Richardson, Esq., INI. H. Marsh, Esq., H. Stuart Russell, Esq.,

J. Dobie, Esq., Members of the Legislative Council of New

South Wales."

Indignation and Objurgation. cqc

" Mr. Hodgson continued : He was surprised and astonished not
to see his reverend opponent within those walls: he considered it a
mark of great disrespect to the constituency. No matter how great the
Doctor's power of eloquence, he would have been glad to have mcasureil
weapons with him on this good-humoured field of battle. (Cheers, i
No doubt the Doctor would have given him many heavy broadsitles, but
like the Turks at Sinope he (Mr. H.) would have suffered extermination
before he would have surrendered. (Loud cheers and hisses). As the
Doctor had no interest here, perhaps he did not think it worth his while
to remain, remembering the ditty learned in his childhood —

" He that fights and runs away
May live to fight another day?"

And it was not improbable that the Doctor might have to fieht this battle
over again, for he (Mr. H.) was determined to go to the poll. (Loud
cheering.) He appealed to the electors if, during the fourteen rears he
had been amongst them, he had not always acted in an honest, con-
scientious, and independent manner. (Cheers.) He was no Government
toady, he sought no Government appointment, and if he could not boast
of the ability of his opponent, he could equal him, at all events, in
honesty of purpose and integrity of action. (A voice : ' Dr. Lang might
have been returned for Sydney.') Then why the devil isn't he } (Thun-
ders of applause.) Mr. H. then made allusion to the immigration
scheme of Dr. Lang, and said that as the Doctor had promised to take
four shares himself, that circumstance was sufficient to deter others from
joining, as he had never succeeded in any scheme where money and
companies were concerned. Within the last week, j^iSoo had been
deposited in the hands of the Government Resident, under the Land
and Deposit regulations of June, 1852, and this did not augur too much
confidence in Dr. Lang's scheme. By such individual exertions they
would obtain sufficient labour to relieve the pressing and imperious
necessities of this flourishing district. The Doctor had clearly expressed
an ill-feeling towards the squatters, and talked of going td the left while
they went to the right. And, instead of advocating unity, he had intro-
duced himself in the shape of the tall man in black coming down the
chimney, for the purpose of lighting up the embers of discord amongst
a happy and united people. (Loud cheers.) He, on the contrar)-,
advocated unanimity and good feeling amongst the commercial, agricul-
tural, and pastoral interests. He would remind them that now, when
the squatters were well off, the townspeople had risen with their
prosperity, and when they were poor they had equally shared in their
decline. But what we wanted now was ' Separation.' That boon obtained
they could, if necessary, fight amongst themselves. (Cheers.) How
different was the state of affairs at the time when he (Mr. H.) was selling ,
legs of mutton in the town of Brisbane ! He was proud to acknowledge

5o6 Genesis of Queensland.

it. But why did he do so ? To pay his debts. (Cheers.) In conclusion,
he (Mr. H.) stated that he was an advocate of the National system of
education as being more comprehensive, and better adapted to the wants
of such a scanty community, interspersed with so many religious sects and
opinions. But, with the exception of separation, he would give no pledge
whatever, and if, in regard to his other political opinions, no confidence
could be placed in him, he would decline entering the council chamber
at all. (Cheers.) He was now in a position to give up a considerable
portion of his time to legislative duties, and, if he had not the fortiter
in re, he was, at all events, possessed of no inconsiderable quantity of the
suaviter in modo, a quality far more conducive to their interests than the
bitter, rebellious sentiments of his reverend opponent." (Mr. Arthur
Hodgson resumed his seat amidst loud and continued cheering, mingled,
of course, with hisses.)

A hitch in the Drayton return kept all on tiptoe ! for those
from Brisbane and Ipswich gave Doctor Lang a majority of nine.
"At four o'clock on Thursday afternoon," then cried out the
Moreton Bay Courier, on the 27th May, "Major Prior the returning
officer, announced the result" from all three polling-booths to
be a tie of fifty-seven votes for each candidate. The returning
officer gave his casting vote in favour of Arthur Hodgson ;
exception was afterwards taken to one of Hodgson's supporters ;
this disturbed the equanimity of Charles Cowper in the Sydney
chamber ; discussion within its walls kept poor Hodgson outside
in the cold for an hour : upon his admission, took his seat ; barely
warmed that, for he at once withdrew. Then again, in spite of pro-
clamation by the Government Gazette of June 19, which declared
the election of Arthur Hodgson had been "valid" the chamber
again fell out, not upon the merits or otherwise of the election
itself, but those of the returning officer ; the matter being so
stirred up by petitions presented by Dr. Lang: — which having
upon Cowper's motion, been referred to the Select Com-
mittee of Elections and Qualifications, produced on the 5th
July, the conclusion that the election for the county of Stanley
was void ! By the end of the month Lang and Hodgson were
again in the ring — stripped. In August the fight began, and
ended on the loth : Hodgson had no need to stop his "crowing,"
notwithstanding his clerical opponent's heating the seat in
Macquarie street (which he himself had not had time to warm)
on Tuesday, 29th of the same month, under the broody wings of
John Campbell and Henry Parkes, set apart for a representative
of the seceding county of Stanley.

Exultation. tQ-j

Before the curtain drops : before the judge's flag is
lowered, little remained of action to New South Wales over
the course of separation of north from south. Tiu- stamp
upon it was to be dropped by a hand in the imperial
service of the people : by the will of wisdom, which had matured
beneath the discipline of its own — and colonial industry.
Petitions presented : motions brought forward to keep the north
lively under the sickness of hope deferred, by the scNtral dele-
gates whom it despatched to the Sydney chamb(,'r,sustaincd the
interest of the dwellers in both extreme parts. It was well sc«-n
that the finishing stroke could be dealt but by one instrument,
Thor's hammer wielded in Downing-street. There, in unison,
could northern voices swell the appeal for the final blow, which
should shatter and yet weld : dissolve, yet consolidate : " cut
and shut " the tire of our Colonial and Imperial wheel, that each
felloe might rest within the equal coil.

The blow was struck : the hunt was over: the northern pack
was kennelled : the staunch race run out, and the brush presented
to the fresh hand of Queensland, at her palace gates, as the sun
was setting over the grave, in which the year of grace eighteen
hundred and fifty-nine had buried the past, by that of head-whip
Sir George Fergusson Bowen.

Quo melius Pharsalicus annus

Consule notus erit.

— Lucani. (Pharsalia.)

CHAPTER XXVI

There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased :
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things,
As yet not come to life ; which in their seeds,
And weak beginnings, lye entreasured.

— Shakespeare. (Henry IV.)

Surely tbe bitterness of separation, hitherto, has passed as a
storm that has blown by : may be met now with no alarmed nor
party spirit.

Intercolonial and mother-country claims may surely
formulate a concordat between subdivisions of their own fellow
countrymen's territory. Such separations — the incorrect phrase
used for fresh junctions — are but those of the component parts of
chain cable, of which not one can be stronger than its weakest
link. Separation only in so far as the need of the strength of
union : and only strength in respect of the vigour needed by
the girth and power of each member of a united empire's
conditions.

If the branches which spread themselves far from the Anglo-
Saxon stem ever yield themselves in fixed and imperturbable
trust to being housed by a great confederation, old England will,
I dare look up and say, place the crown upon an edifice of which
these distinct proportions shall have laid the foundations, and
that upon an impregnable rock.

If by division of federal labour, this building, be ever
raised, it must have a foundation. What foundation more
solid than the experience of our British history ? The
trials and troubles of our common country from Alfred
to Victoria the Great ? Federated, the whole Empire will
be but a "re-casting" all of one piece. If a people may
be said to be truly great in proportion to the greatness and
multiplicity of the contrasts which a man truly great is said
to combine in his own person, surely the British Empire in
faithful combination may be the greatest of the great in due
time. Once effected, the preservation of the bond would be
the task of patience, justice, and wisdom, set by the love
of our race's progress. Take a look through the kaleido-

Fulfil your Mission.

509

scope shaped by the hands of her experience. They have had,
and yet have to deal with no materials displaced in, nor
foreign to, humanity's texture. Education, civilisation, christian-
ising will not change the innate characteristics of a man ;
they comfort, ameliorate, pilot: shift from one jjosition to
another. Appearances may present varied and fantastic shapes,
but the particles have not been removed ; the changes are to the
eye, not in fact. We have accepted for our foundation stone
that on which Great Britain's people have stepped their libertv,
bedded in the principle — identical, however malleable — of the
constitution by which she stands. Glance through that focus at
the numberless gatherings together in her name on the earth.
That one mainspring of their action — Freedom — ever wound up
to meet the strain of social order, individual and general rights,
points the hand of almost every hour to many a prismatic,
fantastic, and may be, capricious image of what should be the
standard of contented and prosperous citizenship : such imacres
of whatever form, do not lose symmetry : they assume but
freshly evolved shapes in which hope for country and kindred
clads herself.

Not by Portuguese, not by Dutch, nor Spaniards, nor
French, was Australia's passport sealed to the world towards
which she was travelling. She would have withered by the way
and lain in half-caste waste beneath the mighty selfishness
which blighted the pretensions of any such European power.
The isolated grandeur of political centralisation such as that of
Rome of old girded her with the Nessian tunic ; and so she was
consumed by the poison of her corrupt individualism. The
severally-willed distinctions of the united members of a greater —
the British — empire will, it may be hoped, yet set each govern-
ing power striving in glorious emulation after the development
of its own inherent manifold faculties, towards an unreached
supremacy.

Great Britain has not crossed the line which de-marks thi-
prime of life : nor has she in her course to look back upon the
meridian of that point on the arch of time whence completion
insensibly droops into the stoop of declining doubt. That point
is still far a-head : it is the keystone on which that arch rests :
the pledge of her earthly irrefragabiiity : imperial union.

Christianised civilisation as the ultimate object : subdivision
as a safeguard from exhaustion : governmental vigour of which

eio Genesis of Queensland.

the mechanism may not be too bulky for smooth, secure, and
accurate action, clearing the path to the glorious goal : purity of
public purpose and counsel, the threshold to be stepped on and
crossed before consecrating the course of so exalted a political
existence, which shall reach out to fellowship with the peoples
of the earth — and war, the deluge of blood and iron, shall sink
awav into the distance of tradition, sepulchred beneath the
rainbow of peace — the archway over the entrance to the road
beyond.

Aye ! In our history the occasions of a people's general
jubilee have been scant: not for lack of tumultuous triumphs
and events in the variety of which a people's character has
passed through fire to refinement, but scant in the elements from
which the quality of a people's sovereign weal are indurated and
chiselled. But in this our year of rejoicing — rejoicing? why ? —
for the advance, however halting, towards that threshold to
which loyalty to the sister-crowned symbol of their race's
power, whose throne they bear upon pillars carved by the
disciplined hand of unerring principle, and principle-pillowed
public opinion — impels us, in just recognition of Her
purity of purpose, and counsel : of Her loyalty Heavenwards
and earthwards.

Beyond ? Aye ! even in this Helot day of doubt. Beyond !
Look back : we surrender to Time in its advancing and passing,
and then past present, the truth of its service fulfilling Promise by
Wisdom to this sandstone world, to which we are but clinging
limpets : to Time trained to striking the hour of its own passing
away : " Sweep away," cries Carlyle " the illusion of Time ;
glance, if thou have eyes, from the near-moving cause to its
far distant mover ;" and what see we? Types — for human sense
— of an end: types but parables for lessoning: shadows of things
intervening: light above. Typical only by the more excellent
virtue of antitype. Reflection from the real : hope embraced
by fruition.

A highway shall be levelled to that path beyond on which I
may not step : and " to it shall the Gentiles seek," " and it shall
come to pass in that day that" the "Hand" shall again "be"
set the second time to recover the remnant of His people and
from the islands of the sea.

Had Israel no meaning ? Had the Gentiles no lot to stand
upon in the design of Universe? We name creation "universe": is

Mission fulfilled in Man's Royalty.

51'

it not a turning-into one? The to Hdv of those men of old

straining in darkness who comprehended not the light ?

But why stand still, gazing inexpressiunlcss ? All men
think limitable thoughts ever "stretching to" the illimitablr.
Advance Australia ! is her conscious heart's cry : the world, old
and "new" Britannia in a wider and yet wider significance:
separate but in humanity's Babel-bricks, awaiting the cement of
no " untempered mortar " : advance to what? The question is
uneasy in expectation : no sigh of expectation to men believing
in the path beyond.

But the poor lark ivill soar : though his place is still on the
soil humblest under the sun !

Is it the destiny of this strange Anglo-Saxon race
sprung from the union of so many separate tribes, to act out
faithfully such a part in the great drama? If imagination be not
cowed out of the exercise of its special function, property, and
prerogative, may it not be permitted me to conjure up a concrete
form, in which an abstract idea can be so vestured ? May I not
be suffered to indulge myself — in love and admiration of our
common and yet many palaced-home — in a reverie in which the
contemplation of such an image fascinates irresistibly thoughts
so possessed and preoccupied ? A certain man — eminent in the
crowed of his exalted race — the people chosen of old, not
long ago was gathered to his fathers. Of his lone, ancient,
theocratic nation, the first descendant over whose shoulder
the sceptre of honour was extended by the hand of a
British sovereign — a girl-queen, yet uncrowned — to lay
thereon a first pledge of dignity, as an earnest of true British
citizenship ; the years of that one man's life bridged a
span over which the goddess-steps of Australia have not
yet ^\diQ.A pari passu. That one man's days on earth began
and went ahead of the tens of thousands of lives which
have committed themselves to this great South land since
the leverage of her first centenary has raised her out of
the deep, and who have found their graves here. Australia
has not stridden yet over the ground of that one weak
human creature's pilgrimage. Yet look around ! See what
she can lay claim to under the testimony of but one. If
then what she is, who dare say what she may not be in the
fullness of her own days? A mere dreamer will not way-lay
ridicule —

512 Gejiesis of Queensland.

" Do what he will, he cannot realise
Half he conceives — the glorious vision flies.
Go where he may, he cannot hope to find
The Truth, the beauty pictured in his mind."

My Black Swan has fluttered out its feeble flight from
beneath the never-folded wings of our Australian Clio. Its
dying strain shall be : " Ah ! that the separate elements of
British Ocean Empire may be travailing with a pcean of
united jubilee shouts, proclaiming the ideal yet legitimate
Genesis of a Queensland isle — sceptred one, and mighty to

THE END."

APPENDIX A.

Which are the greatest minds? and to which do we owe the prentr>f
reverence? Who have rendered that certain which before was problematicjil, safr
which was dangerous, and subservient which was unmanageable ?

Seneca predicted another hemisphere, but Columbus presented us with it.

— Cotton.

To myself it does not seem reasonable to present subordinate occur-
rences in a drama, without rehearsal of preceding action conspicuous
and authoritative in its original conception Galvanised by earlier
history and tradition, energies of a like character in the present may
transmit similar vitality to the future through the battery of emulation,
as occasion may hail them. Whatever the wandering /Eneas may have
done in consecrating the soil of Ausonia, Australia had more faithful
heralding to the world through the epic of James Cook. He first lent a
hand to drawing up the curtain from Queensland's sun-shelf. It is
pleasant yet to look upon the scene which he disclosed with such
marvellous and well-tested accuracy.

Extracts from Cook's Journal.

Overhauling his journal:* "Monday, 14th ^Nlay, 1770. As we
advanced to the northward from Botany Bay the land gradually increased
in height, so that in this latitude 30 deg. 22 min. S. it may be called a
hilly country.

" 15th May. At noon our latitude by observation was 28 deg.
39 min. S., and longitude f 206 deg. 27 min. W., a high point of
land, which I named Cape Byron, bore N.W. by N. at the distance of
three miles. .It lies in latitude 28 deg. 37 min. 30 sec. S.. longitude
206 deg. 30 min. W., and may be known by a remarkable sharp-])eaked
mountain, which lies inland, and bears from it N.W. by W. From this
point the land trends N. 13 W,

" i6th. We made sail, and at daylight were greatly surprised to
find ourselves further to the southward than we had been the evening
before, though the wind had been southerly and blown fresh all night.
We now saw the breakers again within us, and passed them at a distance
of one league. They lie in latitude 28 deg. 8 min. S., stretching off
east two leagues from a point of land under which is a small island.
Their situation may always be known by the peaked mountain which
has been just mentioned, and which l)ears from tlieni S.W. by W. For
this reason I have named it Mount Warning.

* From papers compiled by John Hawkesworth, L.L.D., and printed for

W. Strahan and T. Cadell, in the Strand, London: 1773.
t Longitude computed west of Greenwich.

2 K

£514 Genesis of Queensland.

"The land about it is high and hilly, but it is of itself sufficiently con-
spicuous to be at once distinguished from every other object. The point
off which these shoals lie I have named Point Danger. ... At sun-
set, the northernmost land bore N. byW., breakers N.W. by W., distance
four miles, and the northernmost land set at noon, which formed a point,
and to which I gave the name of Point Look Out, W., distance five or
six miles in the latitude of twenty-seven degrees six minutes. On the
north side of this point the shore forms a wide open bay, w'hich I called
Moreton's Bay, in the bottom of which the land is so low that I could
but just see it from the topmast head.

"Thursday, 17 May. The land that was farthest to the north the
night before now bore S.S.W,, distance six leagues, and I gave it the
name of Cape Moreton, it being the north point of Moreton's Bay. Its
latitude is twenty-six degrees tifty-six minutes, and its longitude two
hundred and six degrees twenty-eight minutes. From Cape Moreton the
land trends away west, farther than can be seen, for there is a small space
where at this time no land is visible, and some on board having also observed
that the sea looked paler than usual, were of opinion that the bottom of
Moreton Bay opened into a river : we had here thirty-four fathom
water and a fine sandy bottom : this alone would have produced the
change that had been observed in the colour of the water ; and it was by
no means necessary to suppose a river to account for the land at the bot-
tom of the Bay not being visible, for supposing the land there to be as
low as we knew it to be in a hundred other parts of the coast, it would
have been impossible to see it from the station of the ship ;\ however, if
any future navigator should be disposed to determine the question,
whether there is or is not a river in this place, which the wind would not
permit us to do, the situation may be always found by three hills, which
lie to the northward of it, in the latitude of twenty-six degrees fifty-three
minutes. These hills lie but a little way inland, and not far from each
other : they are remarkable for the singular form of their elevation, which
very much resembles a glass house, and for which reason I called them
the Glass Houses : the northernmost of the three is the highest and
largest ; there are also several other peaked hills inland to the northward
of these, but they are not nearly so remarkable. At noon, our latitude
was, by observation, 26 degrees 28 minutes south, which was ten miles to
the northward of the log, a circumstance which had never before
happened upon this coast.

"Friday, May 18. The point we had set the night before bore, at
daylight, S.W. by W., distance between three and four leagues- It lies
in latitude twenty-five degrees fifty-eight minutes, longitude two hundred
and six degrees forty-eight minutes west. The land within it is of a
moderate and equal height, but the point itself is so unequal that it looks
like two small islands lying under the land, for which reason I gave it

Cook's Log. — Cape Byron Northwards.

5».S

the name of Double Island Point ; it may also be known by the white
cliffs on the north side of it. Two water snakes swam by the ship : they
were beautifully spotted, and in every respect like land snakes, except
that their tails were broad and flat, probably to serve them instead of fins
in swimming,

" Saturday, May 19. At one o'clock, being still four miles distance
from the shore, but having seventeen fathom water, we passed a black
bluff head, or point of land, upon which a great number of the natives
were assembled, and which therefore I called Indian Head, it lies in
latitude twenty-five degrees three minutes.

" Sunday, May 20. At daybreak, the northernmost land bore from
us W.S.W., and seemed to end in a point, from which we discovered a
reef running out to the northward as far as we could see. We had
hauled our wind to the westward before it was light, and continued the
course till we saw the breakers upon our lee bow. . . . This point I
named Sandy Cape, from two very large patches of white sand which
lay upon it. . . . The direction of the shoal is nearest N.N.W. and
S.S.E. It is remarkable that when on board the ship we had six fathom,
the boat, which was scarcely a quarter of a mile to the southward had
little more than five, and that immediately after six fathom we had
thirteen, and then twenty, as fast as the man could cast the lead : from
these circumstances I conjectured that the west side of the shoal was
steep. This shoal I called the Break Sea Spit, because we had now
smooth water, and to the southward of it we had always a high sea from the S.E.

" Monday, 21st May, noon. Our latitude at this time was 24 deg.
28 min. S. For a few days past we had seen several of the sea birds
called boobies, not having met with any of them before ; last night a
small flock of them passed the ship and went away to the N.W., and in
the morning from about half-an-hour before sunrise, to half-an-hour
after, flights of them were continually corning from the N.N.W., and
flying to the S.S.E. , nor was one of them seen to fly in any other
direction : we therefore conjectured that there was a lagoon, river, or
inlet of shallow water in the bottom of the deep bay to the southward of
us, whither these birds resorted to feed in the day, and that not far to
the northward there were some islands to which they repaired in the
night. To this bay I gave the name of Hervey's Bay, in honor of
Captain Hervey. In the afternoon, we stood in for the land, steering
S.W., with a gentle breeze at S.E., till 4 o'clock, when being in latitude
24 deg. 36 min., about two leagues from the shore, and having nine
fathom water, we bore away along the coast N.W. by X., and at the
same time could see land extending to the S.S.E. about eight leagues.
While we were running along the shore, we shallowed our water
from nine to seven fathom, and at one time we had but six, which
determined us to anchor for the night.

5i6 Genesis of Queensland.

"Tuesday, 22nd May. At six in the morning we weighed, with a
gentle breeze from the southward, and steered N.W. \ W. edging in for
the land till we got within two miles of it, with water from seven to eleven
fathom ; we then steered N.N.W., as the land lay, and at noon our
latitude was 24 deg. 19 min. We continued in the same course, at the
same distance, with from twelve to seven fathom, till five in the evening,
when we were abreast of the south point of a large open bay, in which I
intended to anchor.

"Wednesday 23rd May. Early the next morning I went ashore
with a party of men, in order to examine the country, accompanied by
^Ir. Banks, Dr. Solander, the other gentlemen, and Tupia. . . We
landed a little within the south point of the bay, where we found a
channel leading into a large lagoon ; this channel I proceeded to examine
and found three fathom till I got about a mile up it, where I met with a
shoal, upon which there was little more than one fathom, but having
passed over it, I had three fathom again. The entrance of this channel
lies close to the south point of the bay, being formed by the shore on
the east, and on the west by a large spit of sand, it is about a quarter of
a mile broad, and lies in S. by W. In this place there is room for a few
ships to lie in great security, and a small stream of fresh water ; I would
have rowed into the lagoon, but was prevented by shallows. We found
several bogs and swamps of salt water, upon which and by the sides of
the lagoon, grows the true mangrove, such as is found in the West Indies
and the first of the kind that we had met with. In the branches of these
mangroves, there were many nests of a remarkable kind of ant, that was
as green as grass : when the branches were disturbed they came out in
great numbers, and punished the offender by a much sharper bite than
ever we had felt from the same kind of animal before. Upon these
mangroves also we saw small green caterpillars in great numbers. Their
bodies were thick set with hairs, and they were ranged upon the
leaves side by side like a file of soldiers, to the number of twenty or
thirty together. When we touched them we found that the hair on
their bodies had the quality of a nettle, and gave us a more much acute
though less durable pain. . . Upon the shore we saw a species of the
bustard, one of which we shot, it was as large as a turkey, and weighed
seventeen pounds and a half. We all agreed that this was the best bird
we had eaten since we left England, and in honour of it we called this
inlet Bustard Bay. It lies in latitude 24 deg. 4 min., longitude 208 deg.
18 min. The sea seemed to abound with fish, but unhappily we tore
our seine all to pieces at the first haul. Upon the mud-banks, under the
mangroves, we found innumerable oysters of various kinds; among others
the hammer oyster, and a large proportion of small pearl oysters ; if in
deeper water there is equal plenty of such oysters at their full growth, a
pearl fishery might certainly be established here to very great advantage.

From Bustard Bay to Cape Toivnsheml. 517

" Thursday, 24th May. At four in the morning we weighed, and
with a gentle breeze at south made sail out of tlic bay. In standing out
our soundings were from five to fifteen fathom, and at davlight, when
we were in the greatest depth and abreast of the north head of the bay,
we discovered breakers stretching out from it N.N.E., between two or
three miles, with a rock at the outermost point of them just above the
water. . . . Till five in the afternoon it was calm, but afterwards
we steered before the wind N.W. as the land lay till ten at night, and
then brought to, having had all along fourteen and fifteen fathom.

" Friday, 25th May. At five in the morning we made sail, and at
daylight the northernmost point of the main bore N. 70 W. Soon
after we saw more land, making like islands, and bearing N.W. by N.
At nine we were abreast of the point, at the distance of one mile, with
fourteen fathom water. This point I found to lie directly under the
Tropic of Capricorn, and for that reason I called it Cape Capricorn.
Its longitude is 208 deg. 58 min. W. It is of considerable height, looks
white and barren, and may be known by some islands which lie at the
N.W. of it, and some small rocks at the distance of about a league S.E.

" Sunday, 27th May. At noon we were about two leagues distant
from the main, and by observation in latitude 22 deg. 53 min. S. The
northernmost point of land in sight now bore N.N.W., distant ten miles.
To this point I gave the name of Cape Manifold, from the number of
high hills which appeared over it. It lies in latitude 22 deg. 43 min. S,,
and distant about seventeen miles from Cape Capricorn, in the direction
of N. 26 W. Between these capes the shore forms a large bay, which I
called Keppel Bay, and I also distinguished the islands by the name of
Keppel's Islands. ... At three in the afternoon we passed Cape
INIanifold, from which the land trends N.N.W. The land of the cape is
high, rising in hills directly from the sea, and may be known by three
islands which lie off it, one of them near the shore, and the other two
eight miles out at sea. One of these islands is low and flat, and the
other high and round.

" ^Monday, 28th May. At nine o'clock in the forenoon we were
abreast of the point, which I called Cape Townshend. It lies in
latitude 22 deg. 15 min., longitude 209 deg. 43 mi"- The land is high
and level, and rather naked than v.-oody. Several islands lie to the
northward of it, at the distance of four or five miles out at sea. Three
or four leagues to the S.E. the shore forms a bay, in the bottom of
which there appeared to be an inlet or harbour. To the westward of
the cape the land trends to S.W. .^ S., and there form a very large bay,
which turns to the eastward, and probably communicates with the inlet,
and makes the land of the cape an island. As soon as we got round
this cape we hauled our wind to the westward, in order to get within the
islands which lie scattered in the bay in great numbers, and extend out

5i8 Genesis of Queensland.

to sea as far as the eye could reach, even from the masthead. These
islands vary both in height and cnxuit from each other, so that,
although they are very numerous, no two of them are alike. We had
not stood long upon a wind before we came into shoal water, and
were obliged to tack at once to avoid it. Having sent a boat ahead, I
bore away W. by N., many small islands, rocks, and shoals lying
between us and the main, and many of a larger extent without us. Our
soundings until near noon were from fourteen to seventeen fathom,
when the boat made the signal for meeting with shoal water. Upon
this we hauled close upon a wind to the eastward, but suddenly fell into
three fathom and a quarter. We immediately dropped an anchor,
which brought the ship up with all her sails standing. When the ship
was brought up we had four fathom, with a coarse sandy bottom, and
found a strong tide setting to the N.W. by W. |- W., at the rate of nearly
three miles an hour, by which we were suddenly carried upon the
shoal. Our latitude, by observations, was 22 deg. 8 min. S. Cape
Townshend bore E. 16 S., distant thirteen miles, and _the westernmost
part of the main in sight W. \ N. At this time a great number of
islands lay all around us.

" In the afternoon, having sounded round the ship, and found that
there was water sufficient to carry her over the shoal, we weighed, and
about three o'clock made sail and stood to the westward, as the land
lay, having sent a boat ahead to sound. At six in the evening we anchored
in ten fathom, with a sandy bottom, at about two miles distant from the
main ; the westernmost part of which bore W.N.W. and a great number
of islands, lying a long way without us, were still in sight.

"Tuesday, 29th May, At five o'clock the next morning, I sent
away the master with two boats to sound the entrance of an inlet which
bore from us west, at about the distance of a league, into which I
intended to go with the ship, that I might wait a few days till the moon
should increase, and in the meantime examine the country. As soon as
the ship could be got under sail, the boats made the signal for anchorage;
upon which we stood in, and anchored in five fathom water, about a
league within the entrance of the inlet ; which, as I observed a tide to
flow and ebb considerably, I judged to be a river that ran up the country
to a considerable distance. In this place I had thought of laying the
ship ashore, and cleaning her bottom ; I therefore landed with the
master in search of a convenient place for that purpose, and was
accompanied by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander. We found walking here
excessively troublesome, for the ground was covered with a kind of
grass, the seeds of which were very sharp and bearded backwards ; so
that whenever they stuck into our clothes, which indeed was at every
step, they worked forwards by means of the beard, till they got at the
flesh ; and at the same time we were surrounded by a cloud of mos-

Thirsty SoinnL

5»0

quitos, which incessantly tormented us with their stings. We soon met
with several places where the ship might conveniently be laid ashore;
but to our great disappointment we could find no fresh water. We
proceeded, however, up the country, where we found gum trees like
those that we had seen before, and observed that here, also, the gum was
in very small quantities. Upon the branches of these trees and some
others, we found ants' nests, made of clay, as big as a bushel, some-
thing like those described in Sir Hans Sloan's ' Natural History of
Jamaica' (vol. 2, p. 221, tab. 258), but not so smooth : the ants which
inhabited these nests were small and thin bodies — white. Hut upon
another species of the tree we found a small black ant, which perforated
all the twigs, and having worked out the pith, occupied the pipe which
had contained it : yet the parts in which these insects had thus formed a
lodgement, and in which they swarmed in amazing numbers, bore leaves
and flowers, and appeared to be in as flourishing a state as those that
were sound. We found also an incredible number of butterflies, so that
for the space of three or four acres the air was so crowded with ihem
that millions were to be seen in every direction, at the same time that
every branch or twig was covered with others that were not upon the
wing. We found here also a small fish of a singular kind : it was
about the size of a minnow, and had two very strong breast fins. We
found it in places that were quite dry, where we supposed it might
have been left by the tide ; but it did not seem to have become
languid for the want of water, for upon our approach it leaped away,
by help of the breast fins, as nimbly as a frog ; neither, indeed, did
it seem to prefer water to land, for when we found it in the water it
frequently leaped out and pursued its way upon dry ground. We also
observed that when it was in places where small stones were standing
above the surface of the water, at a little distance from each other, it
chose rather to leap from stone to stone than to pass through the water,
and we saw several of them pass entirely over a puddle in tliis manner
till they came to dry ground, and then leap away. In the afternoon
we renewed our search after fresh water, but without success, and
therefore I determined to make my stay here but short. However.
having observed from an eminence that the inlet penetrated a
considerable wav into the country, T determined to trace it in the
morning.

" Wednesday, 30th May. At sunrise I went ashore, and. climbing
a considerable hill, I took a view of the coast and the islands that lie off
it, with their bearings, having an azimuth compass with me for that
purpose, but I observed that the needle differed very considerably in its
position, even to thirty degrees — in some places more, in others less ;
and once I found it differ from itself no less than two points in the
distance of fourteen feet. I took up some of the loose stones that lay

520 Genesis of Queensland.

upon the ground and applied them to the needle, but they produced no
effect, and I therefore concluded that there was iron ore in the hills, of
which I had remarked other indications both here and in the neighbouring
parts. After I had made my observations upon the hill, I proceeded,
with Dr. Solander, up the inlet. I set out with the first of the flood, and
long before high water I had advanced above eight leagues. Its breadth
thus far was from two to five miles, upon a S.W. by S. direction ; but
here it opened every way, and formed a large lake, which to the N.W.
communicated with the sea, and I not only saw the sea in this direction,
but found the tide of flood coming strongly in from that point. I also
observed an arm of this lake extending to the eastward, and it is not
improbable that it may communicate with the sea in the bottom of the
bay which lies to the westward of Cape Townshend. . . . The inlet
in which the ship lay I called Thirsty Sound, because it afforded us no
fresh water. It lies in latitude 22 deg. 10 min. S., and longitude
210 deg. 18 min. W. . . . Over each of the points that form the
entrance is a high round hill, which, on the north-west, is a peninsula
that at high water is surrounded by the sea. They are bold to both the
shores, and the distance between them is about two miles. In this inlet
is good anchorage in seven, six, five and four fathoms ; and places very
convenient for laying a ship down, where, at spring-tides, the water does
not rise less than sixteen or eighteen feet.

" Thursday, 31st May. At noon, the west point of Thirsty Sound,
which I have called Pier Head, bore S. 36 E., distant five leagues. The
east point of the other inlet which communicates with the Sound bore
S. by W., distant two leagues. Our latitude, by observation, was
21 deg. 53 min.

"Friday, ist June. The western inlet, which in the chart is dis-
tinguished by the name of Broad Sound, we had now all open. At the
entrance it is at least nine or ten leagues wide. In it, and before it, lie
several islands and probably shoals also, for our surroundings were very
irregular, varying suddenly from ten to four fathoms. At noon our
latitude, by observation, was 21 deg. 29 min. S., a point of land which
forms the north-west entrance into Broad Sound, and which, I have
named Cape Palmerston, lying in latitude 21 deg. 30 min., longitude
210 deg. 54 min. W. by N., distant three leagues. Our latitude was
21 deg. 27 min., our longitude 210 deg. 57 min. Between this cape
and Cape Townshend lies the bay which I have called the Bay of Inlets.

*' Saturday, 2nd June. From what we had observed of the tide
during the night, it is plain that the flood came from the N.W., whereas
the preceding day and several days before it came from the S.E. Nor
was this the first, or even the second time, that we had remarked the
same thing. ... At noon we were about two leagues from the
main, and four from the islands without us. Our latitude, by ob.servation,

Capes Cowway and Gloucester. — IVhitsiiitddv

5-2 1

was 20 deg. 56 min., and a high promontory, which I named Cap.
Hillsborough, bore W. ^ N., distant seven miles.

'• Sunday, 3rd June. At eight o'clock in the morning we diseovcrcd
low land quite across what we took for an opening, which i)roveil to be
a bay, five or six leagues deep. Upon this we hauled our wind to the
eastward, round the north point of the bay, which at this time bore from
us N.E. by N., distant four leagues. From this point we found the land
trend away N. by W. \ W., and a strait or passage between it and a
large island, or islands, lying parallel to it. Having the tide of ebb in
our favour we stood for this passage, and at noon were just within the
entrance. Our latitude by observation was 20 (.\q^. 26 min. S. Cape
Hillsborough bore S. by E., distant ten leagues, and the north point of
the bay S. 19 W., distant four miles. This point, which I named Cape
Conway, lies in latitude 20 deg. 36 min. S., longitude 211 (.\q^. 28 min.
W., and the bay whicli lies between this cape and Cape Hill.simrough
I called Repulse Bay. . . . Among the many islands that lie upon this
coast, there is one more remarkable than the rest ; it is of a small circuit.
very high and peaked, and lies E. by S. ten miles from Cape Conway, at .
the south end of the passage. In the afternoon we steered through this pas-
sage, which we found to be from three to seven miles broad, and eight or
nine miles in length, N. by W. \ W,, S. by E. i E. It is formed by the
main on the west, and by the islands on the east, one of which is
at least five leagues in length ; our depth of water in running through
was from twenty to five and twenty fathom, with good anchorage every-
where, and the whole passage may be considered as one safe harbour,
exclusive of the small bays and coves which abound on each side, where
ships may lie as in a basin. The land both upon the main and islands
is high, and diversified by hill and valley, wood and lawn, with a green
and pleasant appearance. As this passage was discovered on Whit-
sunday, I called it Whitsunday's Passage, and I called the islan.is that
form it, Cumberland Islands, in honour of his Royal Highness the Duke.
We kept under an easy sail, with the lead going all night, being at the
distance of three leagues from the shore, and having from twenty-one to
twenty-three fathom water.

"Monday, 4th June. At daybreak we were abreast of the point.
which had been the farthest in sight to the north-west the evening before.
which I named Cape Gloucester. It is a lofty promontory, in latitude
19 deg. 59 min. S., longitude 211 deg. 49 min. W., and may be known
by an island which lies out at sea N. by W. \ W. at the distance of five
or six leagues from it, and which I called Holborne Island ; there are
also islands lying under the land between Holborne Island and Whit-
sunday's Passage. On the west side of Cape Gloucester the lantl trends
away S.W. and S.S.W., and forms a deep bay, the bottom I could but
just see from the mast-head ; it is very low, and a continuation of the

522 Genesis of Queensland.

low land which we had seen at the bottom of Repulse Bay. This Bay I
called Edgecumbe Bay, but without staying to look at it, we continued
our course to the westward, for the farthest land we could see in that
direction, which bore N. by W. \ \V., and appeared very high. At six
in the evening we were abreast of the westernmost point just mentioned
at about three miles distance, and because it rises abruptly from the
low lands which surround it, I called it Cape Upstart. It lies in lati-
tude 19 deg. 39 min. S., longitude 212 deg. 32 min. W., fourteen
leagues W.N.W. from Cape Gloucester, and is of a height sufficient
to be seen at the distance of twelve leagues.

"Wednesday, 6th June. We continuecf to steer N.N.W., as the
land lay, with twelve or fourteen fathom water, till noon on the 6th,
when our latitude by observation was 19 deg. i min. S., and we had
the mouth of a bay all open, extending from S. f E. to S.W. ^ S.,
distant two leagues. This bay, which I named Cleveland Bay,
appeared to be about five or six miles in extent every way ; the east
point I named Cape Cleveland, and the west, which had the appearance
of an island, Magnetical Isle, as we perceived that the compass did
not traverse well when we were near it.

"Thursday, 7th June. We stood away N. by W. for the northern-
most land in sight, of which we were abreast Friday, 8th June, at three
o'clock in the morning, having passed all the islands three or four hours
before. This land, on account of its figure, I named Point Hillock ; it
is of a considerable height, and may be known by a round hillock, or
rock, which joins to the point, but appears to be detached from it.
Between this Cape and Magnetical Isle the shore forms a large bay,
which I called Halifax Bay. Before it lay the group of islands which
has just been mentioned, and some others at a less distance from the
shore. By these islands the bay is sheltered from all winds, and it
affords good anchorage. . Having passed Point Hillock, we continued
standing to the N.N.W. as the land trended, having the advantage of a
light moon. At six we were abreast of a point of land which lies N. by
W. \ W., distant eleven miles from Point Hillock, which I named Cape
Sandwich. . . . From Cape Sandwich the land trends west, and
afterwards north, forming a fine large bay, which 1 called Rockingham
Bay. ... At noon our latitude, by observation, was 17 deg. 59 min.,
and we were abreast of the north point of Rockingham Bay, which bore
from us west at the distance of about two miles. This boundary of the
bay is formed by an island of considerable height, which in the chart is
distinguished by the name of Dunk Isle, and which lies so near the
shore as not to be easily distinguished from it. Our longitude was 213 deg.
57 min. W. Cape Sandwich bore S. by E. i E.. distant nineteen miles,
and the northernmost land in sight N. i W. Our depth of water for the
last ten hours had not been more than sixteen, nor less than seven fathom.

Cape Grafton to Cape Tribulation. 523

" Saturday, June 9. At six o'clock in the morning, we were abreast
of some small islands, which we called Frankland's Isles. . . . The
most distant point in sight to the northward bore N. by W. half \V., and
we thought it was part of the main, but afterwards found it to be an island
of considerable height, and about four miles in circuit. IJctween this
island and a point on the main, from which it is distant about two miles,
I passed with the ship. . . . The point on the main, of which we
were now abreast, I called Cape Grafton : its latitude is sixteen degrees
fifty-seven minutes south, and longitude two hundred and fourteen
degrees six minutes west. . . . Having hauled round Cape Grafton,
we found the land trend away N.W. by W., and three miles to the west-
ward of the Cape we found a bay, in which we anchored, about two
miles from the shore in four fathom water, with an ouzey bottom. The
east point of the bay bore S. 74 E., the west point S. 83 W., and a low,
green, woody island, which lies in the offing N. 35 E. This island.
v.'hich lies N. by E. \ E., distant three or four leagues from Cape.
Grafton, is called in the chart Green Island.

" Sunday, loth June. At four in the morning the l)reeze freshened
at S. by E., and the weather became fair. We continued steering
N.N.W. \ W. as the land lay, at about three leagues distance, with ten,
twelve, and fourteen fathom water. At ten we hauled off north, in order
to get without a small, low island which lay at about two leagues
distance from the main, and great part of which at this time, it being
high-water, was overflowed. About three leagues to the north-west of
this island, close under the main land, is another island, the land of
which rises to a greater height, and which at noon bore from us
N. 55 W., distant seven or eight miles. At this time our latitude was
16 deg. 20 min. S. Cape Grafton bore S. 29 E., distant forty miles,
and the northernmost point of land in sight N. 20 W.; our depth of
water was fifteen fathom. Between this point and Cape Grafton the
shore forms a large but not a very deep bay, which, being discovered on
Trinity Sunday, I called Trinity Bay.

" Hitherto we had safely navigated this dangerous coast, where the
sea in all parts conceals shoals which suddenly project from the shore,
and rocks that rise abruptly, like a pyramid, from the bottom, for an
extent of two-and-twenty degrees of latitude — more than one thousand
three hundred miles — and, therefore, hitherto none of the names which
distinguish the several parts of the country that we saw are memorials of
distress ; but here we became acquainted with misfortune, and we
therefore called the point which we had just seen farthest to the north-
ward Cape Tribulation. This cape lies in 16 deg. 6 min. S.. and
longitude 214 deg. 39 min W. We steered along the shore N. by W. at
the distance of between three and four leagues, having from fourteen to
twelve and ten fathom water. In the offing we saw two islands, which

524 Genesis of Queensland.

lie in latitude 16 deg. S., and about six or seven leagues from the main.
At six in the evening the northernmost land in sight bore N. by W. ^ W,,
and two low, woody islands, which some of us took to be rocks above
water, bore N. \ W. At this time we shortened sail, and hauled off
shore E.N.E. and N.E. by E., close upon a wind, for it was my design
to stretch out all night, as well to avoid the danger we saw ahead as to
see whether any island lay in the offing, especially as we were now near
the latitude assigned to the islands discovered by Quiros, and which
some geographers, for what reasons I know not, have thought fit to join
to this land. We had the advantage of a fine breeze and a clear moonlight
night, and in standing off from six till near nine o'clock we deepened our
water from fourteen to twenty-one fathom, but while we were at supper it
suddenly shoaled, and we fell into twelve, ten, and eight fathom within
the space of a few minutes. I immediately ordered everybody to their
station, and all was ready to put about and come to an anchor, but meeting
at the next cast of the lead with deep water again, we concluded that we
had gone over the tail of the shoal which we had seen at sunset, and
that all danger was past. Before ten we had twenty-and-one and twenty
fathom, and this depth continuing the gentlemen left the deck in great
tranquillity and went to bed ; but a few minutes before eleven the water
shallowed at once from twenty to seventeen fathom, and before the lead
could be cast again the ship struck and became immoveable, except by
the heaving of the surge that beat against the craggs of the rock upon
which she lay. . . . We had too much reason to conclude that we
were upon a rock of coral, which is more fatal than any other, because
the points of it are sharp, and every part of the surface so rough as to
grind away whatever is rubbed against it, even with the gentlest motion.
"Monday, nth June. Day broke upon us, and we saw the land
at about eight leagues distance, without any island in the intermediate
space. . . . The wind gradually died away, and early in the forenoon
it was a dead calm. If it had blown hard the ship must inevitably have
been destroyed. At eleven in the forenoon we expected high water, and
anchors were got out, and everything made ready for another effort to
heave her off if she should float, but to our inexpressible surprise and
concern, she did not float by a foot and a half, though we had lightened
her near fifty ton, so much did the day tide fall short of that in the night.
We now proceeded to lighten her still more, and threw overboard
everything that it was possible for us to spare. Hitherto she had not
admitted much water, but as the tide fell it rushed in so fast that two
pumps, incessantly worked, could scarcely keep her free. At two o'clock
she lay heeling two or three streaks to starboard, and the pinnace, which lay
under her bows, touched the ground. We had now no hope but from
the tide at midnight, and to prepare for it we carried out our two bower
anchors, one on the starboard quarter, and the other right astern, got the

Coral Stricken. C2c

blocks and tackle which were to give us a purchase upon the cables in
order, and brought the falls, or ends, of them in abaft, straining them
tight, that the next effort might operate upon the ship, and by shortening
the length of the cable between that and the anchors, draw her off the
ledge upon which she rested, towards the deep water. About five o'clock
in the afternoon we observed the tide begin to rise, but we observed at
the same time that the leak increased to an almost alarming degree, so that
two more pumps were manned, but, unhappily, only one of them would
work. Three of the pumps, however, were kept going, ami at nine
o'clock the ship righted, but the leak had gained upon us so considerably
that it was imagined she must go to the bottom as soon as she ceased to
be supported by the rock. This was a dreadful circumstance, so that
we anticipated the floating of the ship not as an earnest of deliverance,
but as an event that would probably precipitate our destruction. . . .
To those only who have waited in a state of such suspense death has
approached in all its terrors. And as the dreadful moment that was to
determine our fate came on, every one saw his own sensations pictured
in the countenances of his companions. However, the capstan and
windlass were manned with as manv hands as could be spared from the
pumps, and, the ship floating about twenty minutes after ten o'clock, the
effort was made, and she was heaved into deep water. It was some
comfort to find that she did not now admit more water than she had
done upon the rock ; and though, by the gaining of the leak upon the
pumps, there was no less than three feet nine inches of water in the hold,
yet the men did not relinquish their labour, and we held the water, as it
were, at bay . . . till an accident was very near puttmg an end to
their efforts at once. The planking which lines the inside of the ship's
bottom is called the ceiling, and between this and the outside planking
there is a space of about eighteen inches. The man who till this time
had attended the well to take the depth of water, had taken it only to the
ceiling, and gave the measure accordingly ; but he being now relieveil,
the person who came in his stead reckoned the depth to the outside
planking, by which it appeared in a few minutes to have gained upon the
pumps eighteen inches, the difference between the planking without and
within. Upon this, even the bravest was upon the point of giving up
his labour with his hope, and in a few minutes everything would have
been involved in all the confusion of despair. But this accident,
however dreadful in its first consequences, was eventually the cause of
our preservation. The mistake was soon detected, and the sudilen joy
which eveiy man felt upon finding his situation better than ,his fears had
suggested, operated like a charm, and seemed to possess him with a
strong belief that scarcely any real danger remained. New confidence
and new hope, however founded, inspired new vigour, and though our
state was the same as when the men fir.st began to slacken in their labour,

526 Genesis of Queensland.

through weariness and despondency, they now renewed their efforts with
such alacrity and spirit, that before eight o'clock in the morning the leak
was so far from having gained upon the pumps, that the pumps had
gained considerably upon the leak. ... It was, however, impossible
long to continue the labour by which the pumps had been made to gain
upon the leak, and as the exact situation of it could not be discovered,
we had no hope of stopping it within.

" In this situation Mr. Monkhouse, one of my midshipmen, came to
me and proposed an expedient that he had once seen used on board a
merchant ship, which sprung a leak that admitted above four feet of
water an hour, and which by this expedient was brought safely from
Virginia to London ; the master having such confidence in it, that he
took her out of harbour, knowing her condition, and did not think it
worth while to wait till the leak could be otherwise stopped. To this
man, therefore, the care of the expedient, which is called fothering the
ship, was immediately committed, four or five of the people being
appointed to assist him. . . . When the sail was thus prepared, it
was hauled under the ship's bottom by ropes, which kept it extended,
and when it came under the leak the suction which carried in the water
carried in with it the oakum and wool from the surface of the sail, which
in other parts the water was not sufficiently agitated to wash off. By the
success of this expedient our leak was so far reduced, that instead of
gaining upon three pumps, it was easily kept .under with one.
Upon this occasion I must observe, both in justice and gratitude to the
ship's company and the gentlemen onboard, that although in the midst of
our distress every one seemed to have a just sense of his danger, yet no
passionate exclamations, or frantic gestures were to be heard, or seen ;
every one appeared to have the perfect possession of his mind, and every
one exerted himself to the uttermost, with a quiet and patient persever-
ance, equally distant from the tumultuous violence of terror, and the
gloomy inactivity of despair. . . . While we lay at anchor for the
night ; we found that the ship made about fifteen inches of water an
hour, from which no immediate danger was apprehended, and at six in
the morning — Wednesday, 13th June — we weighed and stood to the
N.W. still edging in for the land with a gentler breeze at S.S.E. At
nine we passed close without two small islands that lie in latitude 15
deg. 41 min. S., and about four leagues from the main : to reach these
islands had, in the height of our distress, been the object of our hope,
or perhaps rather of our wishes, and therefore I called them Hope Islands.
At noon we were about three leagues from the land, and in latitude 15
deg. 37 min. S. ; the northernmost part of the main in sight bore N.
30 W.; and Hope Islands extended from S. 30 E. to S. 40 E. . . The
pinnace was still out with one of the mates ; but at nine o'clock she
returned, and rei)orled that about two leagues to leeward she had

A Haven of Refuge. 527

discoveredjustsuchaharbour as we wanted, in which there was a suflicient
rise of water, and every other convenience that could be desired, cither
for laying the ship ashore or heaving her down. In consequence of this
information I weighed at six o'clock in the morning.

" Thursday, 14th June. Having sent t\ro boats ahead to lie upon
the shoals that we saw in our way, we ran down to the place ; but not-
withstanding our precaution, we were once in three fathom water. As
soon as these shoals were passed, I sent the boats to lie in the channel
that led to the harbour, for by this time it began to blow. It was
happy for us that a place of refuge was at hand, ... I therefore
anchored in four fathom, about a mile from the shore, and then made
the signal for the boats to come on board. When this was done I went
myself and buoyed the channel, which I found very narrow ; the harbour
also I found smaller than I expected, but most excellently adajjted to
our purpose ; and it is remarkable, that in the whole course of our voyage
we had seen no place which, in our present circumstances' could have
afforded us the same relief. At noon our latitude was 15 deg. 26 min.
S. During all the rest of this day, and the whole night, it blew too fresh

for us to venture from our anchor and run into the harbour

The gale continuing, we kept our station all the 15th — Friday. On the
i6th— Saturday — it was somewhat more moderate; and about six o'clock
in the morning, we hove the cable short, with a design to get under sail,
but we were obliged to desist, and veer it out again. It is remarkable
that the sea breeze which blew fresh when we anchored, continued to do
so almost every day while we stayed here ; it was calm only while we
were upon the rock, except once, and even the gale that afterwards
wafted us ashore, would then certainly have beaten us to pieces.
The scurvy now began to make its appearance among us, with many
formidable symptoms.

"Sunday, 17th June. In the morning of the 17th, though the wintl
was still fresh, we ventured to weigh, and push in for the harbour ; but
in doing this we twice ran the ship aground, the first time she went off
without any trouble, but the second time she stuck fast. . . . The
tide was happily rising, and about one o'clock in the afternoon, she
floated. We soon warped her into harbour, and having moored her
alongside of a steep beach to the south, we got the anchors, cables, and
all the hawsers on shore before night.

" Monday, i8th June. In the morning of Monday the iSth, a stage
was made from the ship to the shore, which was so bold that she floated
at twenty feet distance, two tents were also set up, one for the sick and
the other for store and provisions, which were landed in the course of
the day ... In the mean time, I climbed one of the highest hills
among those that overlooked the harbour, which afforded by no means a
comfortable prospect \ the low land near the river is wholly overrun with

C2 8 Genesis of Queensland.

mangroves, among which the salt water flows every tide, and the high
land appeared to be everywhere stoneyand barren.

"Tuesday, 19th June. This day Mr, Banks crossed the river to
take a view of the country on the other side : he found it consist
principally of sand hills, where he saw some Indian houses, which
appeared to have been very lately inhabited. In his walk he met with
vast flocks of pigeons and crows, of the pigeons, which were exceedingly
beautiful, he shot several ; but the crows, which were exactly like those in
England, were so shy that he could not get within reach of them.

" Wednesday 20th June. This evening, ]\Ir. Banks observed that
in many parts of the inlet there were large quantities of pumice stones,
which lay at a considerable distance above high water mark.

"Thursday, 21st June. The next morning we went early to work,
and by four o'clock in the afternoon had got out all the coals, cast the
moorings loose, and warped the ship a little, higher up the harbour to a
place which I thought most convenient for laying her ashore in order to
stop the leak.

" Friday, 22nd June. At two o'clock in the morning of the 22nd,
the tide left her, and gave us an opportunity to examine the leak, which
we found to be at her floor heads, a little before the starboard fore
chains. In this place the rocks had made their way through four planks,
and even into the timbers ; three more planks were very much damaged,
and the appearance of these breaches was very extraordinary, there was
not a splinter to be seen, but all was smooth as if the whole had been
cut awav by an instrument. The timbers in this place were very close,
and if thev had not been, it would have been absolutely impossible to save
the ship. But after all, her preservation depended upon a circumstance
still more remarkable, one of the holes, which was big enough to have
sunk us, if we had had eight pumps instead of four, and been able to
keep them incessantly going, was in great measure plugged up by a
fragment of the rock, which after having made the wound, was left
sticking in it. . . . In the meantime, some of the people were sent
on the other side of the water to shoot pigeons for the sick, who at their
return reported that they had seen an animal as large as a greyhound of
a slender make, a mouse colour, and extremely swift : they discovered
also many Indian houses, and a fine stream of fresh water.

" Saturday, 23rd June. This day nearly everybody had seen the
animal which the pigeon-shooters had brought an account of the day
before ; and one of the seamen, who had been rambling in the woods,
told us at his return, that he verily believed he had seen the devil : we
naturally enquired in what form he had appeared, and his answer was in
so singular a style, that I shall set down his own words. ' He was ' says
John, * as large as a one-gallon keg, and very like it ; he had horns
and wings, and yet he crept so slowly through the grass that if I hadn't

A Devil of a Bat. ^

been afeared, I might have touched him.' This formidable apparition
we afterwards discovered to have been a bat : and the bats here must I)c
acknowledged to have a frightful appearance, for they are nearly black
and full as large as a partridge ; they have no horns, but the fancy of a
man who thought he saw the devil might easily supply that defect. '

'' Sunday, 24th June. Early on the 24th the carpenters began to
repair the sheathing on the larboard bow, where we found two planks
cut about half through ; and in the meantime I sent a party of men
under the direction of Mr. Gore, in search of refreshments for the sick ;
this party returned about noon with a few palm cabbages, and a bunch'
or two of wild plantains. The plantains were the smallest I had ever
seen, and the pulp, though it was well tasted, was full of small stones.
As I was walking this morning at a little distance from the ship, I saw
myself one of the animals which had been so often described ; it was of
a light mouse colour, and in size and shape very much resemblino- a
greyhound. It had a long tail also, which it carried like a greyhound,
and I should have taken it for a wild dog, if, instead of running, it had
not leapt like a hare or deer; its legs were said to be very slender, and
the print of its foot to be like that of a goat, but when 1 saw it the grass
was so high that the legs were concealed, and the ground was too hard
to receive the track. Mr. Banks also had an imperfect view of this
animal, and was of opinion that its species was hitherto unknown.

" Tuesday, 26th June. This day, some of our gentlemen, who had
made an excursion into the woods, brought home the leaves of a plant.
which was thought to be the same that in the West Indies is called
cocos, but upon trial the roots proved too acrid to be eaten ; the leaves,
however, were little inferior to spinnage. , . . Another fruit was
also found about the size of a small golden pippin, but flatter, and of a
deep purple colour ; when first gathered from the tree it was very hard
and disagreable, but after being kept a few days became soft, and tasted
very much like an indifferent damasene.

" Friday, 29th June. At two o'clock in the morning of the 29th, I
observed, in conjunction with Mr. Green, an emersion of Jupiter's first
satellite; the time here was 2 hrs. 18 min. 53 sec, which gave the
longitude of this place 214 deg. 42 min. 30 sec. W. ; its latitude is I^
deg. 26 min S. . . . One of my midshipmen, an American,
who was this day abroad with his gun, reported that he had seen a wolf
exactly like those which he had been used to see in his own country.

" Sunday, ist July. This day the thermometer in the shade rose to
87^, which was higher than it had been on any day since we came u{X)n
this coast.

"Tuesday, 3rd July. The master returned, and reported that he
had found a passage out to sea between the shoals, and described its
situation. The shoals, he said, consisted of coral rocks, man\- of which

2 L

530 Genesis of Queensland.

were dry at low water, and upon one of which he had been ashore. He
found here some cockles of so enormous a size that one of them was
more than two men could eat, and a great variety of other shell fish, of
which he brought us a plentiful supply. . . . This day an alli-
gator was seen to swim about the ship for some time.

" Friday, 6th July. Mr. Banks, with Lieutenant Gore and three
men, set out in a small boat up the river, with a view to spend two or
three days in an excursion, to examine the country, and kill some of the
animals which had been so often seen at a distance.

" Sunday, 8th July. About four o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Banks
and his party returned and gave us an account of their expedition.
Having proceeded about three leagues among swamps and mangroves,
they went up into the country, which they found to differ but little from
what they had seen before. They pursued their course, therefore, up
the river, which at length was contracted into a narrow channel, and was
bounded not by swamps and mangroves but by steep banks that were
covered with trees of a most beautiful verdure, among which was that
which in the West Indies is called Mohoe, or the bark tree (the hibiscus
iiliaceus'). . . . With the first dawn they set out in search of game,
and in a walk of many miles they saw four animals of the same kind,
two of which Mr. Banks' greyhound fairly chased, but they threw him
out at a great distance by leaping over the long grass, which prevented
his running. This animal was observed not to run upon four legs, but
to bound or hop forward upon two, like the Jerbua, or Mus jaculus.
. . . Soon after the arrival of this party the master also returned,
having been seven leagues out to sea, and he was of opinion that there
was no getting out where before he thought there had been a passage.
His expedition was, however, by no means without its advantages, for
having been a second time upon the rock where he had seen the large
cockles, he had met with a great number of turtle, three of which he
caught, that together weighed seven hundred and ninety-one pounds,
though he had no better instrument than a boat-hook.

"Wednesday, nth July. We had another visit from four of the
natives ; three of them had been with us before, but the fourth was a
stranger, whose name, as we learnt from his companions who introduced
him, was Yaparico.

"Thursday, i2th July. One of these strangers had a necklace of
shells, very prettily made, and a bracelet upon his arm formed of several
strings, so as to resemble what in England is called gymp : both of
them had a piece of bark tied over the forehead, and were disfigured by
the bone in the nose.

" Saturday, 14th July. The next morning two of the Indians came
on board, -but after a short stay, went along the shore, and employed
themselves with great diligence in sticking fish. Mr. Gore, who went

Kanguroo and Turtle Steaks. 33,

out this day with his gun, had the good fortune to kill one of the animals
which had been so much the subject of our speculation. . . . This
individual was a young one, much under its full growth, weighing only
thirty-eight pounds. The head, neck, and shoulders are very small in
proportion to the other parts of the body ; the tail is nearly as long as
the body, thick near the rump, and tapering towards the end ; the fore-
legs of this individual were only eight inches long, and the hind legs
two and twenty ; its progress is by successive leaps or hops of a great
length, in an erect posture ; the fore-legs are kept close to the breast,
and seem to be of use only for digging ; the skin is covered with a short
fur of a dark mouse or grey colour, excepting the head and ears, which
bear a slight resemblance to those of a hare. This animal is called by
the natives Kanguroo.

"Sunday, 15th July. The next day our kanguroo was dressed
for dinner, and proved most excellent meat ; we might now be said
to fare sumptuously every day for we had turtle in great plenty, and
we all agreed that they were much better than any we had tasted
in England, which we imputed to their being eaten fresh from the
sea. . . . Most of those that we caught here were of the kind
called green turtle, and weighed from two to three hundred weight,
and when these were killed they were always found to be full of turde
grass. . . . Two of them were loggerheads, the flesh of which
was much less delicious, and in their stomachs nothing was to be found
but shells.

"Monday, i6th July. This evening we observed an emersion of
Jupiter's first satellite, which gave 215 deg. 55 min. 47 sec. of longitude.
The observation which was made on the 29th June, gave 214 deg.
42 min. 39 sec; the mean is 214 deg. 48 min. 7^ sec, the longitude of
this place west of Greenwich.

" Friday, 20th July. At low water I went and sounded and buoyed
the bar, the ship being now ready for sea. We saw no Indians this day,
but all the hills round us for many miles were on fire, which at night
made a most striking and beautiful appearance.

" Sunday, 22nd July. We killed a turtle for the day's provision,
upon opening which we found a wooden harpoon, or turtle peg, about as
thick as a man's finger, near fifteen inches long, and bearded at the end,
such as we had seen among the natives, sticking through both shoulders.
It appeared to have been stuck a long time, for the wound had perfectly
healed up over the weapon.

" Thursday, 26th July. As Mr. Banks was again gleaning the
country for his natural history, he had the good fortune to take an animal
of the opossum tribe. It was found much to resemble the remarkable
animal of the kind, which M. de Buffon has described in his natural
history by the name of phalanga, but it was not the same.

532 Genesis of Queensland.

"Friday, 3rd August — Saturday, 4th. At six o'clock in the morning-
of Friday, the 3rd, we made another unsuccessful attempt to warp the
ship out of the harbour, but at five o'clock in the morning of the 4th our
efforts succeeded, and about seven we got once more under sail, with a light
air from the land, which soon died away, and was followed by the sea
breezes from S.E. by S., with which we stood off to sea E. by N., having
the pinnace ahead, which was ordered to keep sounding continually.
When we were at anchor the harbour from which we sailed
bore S. 70 W., distant about five leagues. The northernmost point of the
main in sight, which I named Cape Bedford, and which lies in latitude
15 deg. 16 min. S., longitude 214 deg. 45 min. W., bore N. 20 deg. W.,
distant three leagues and a half.

" Saturday, 4th August. To the harbour we had now left I gave
the name of Endeavour river. It is only a small bar harbour, or creek,
which runs in a winding channel three or four leagues inland, and at the
head of which there is a small brook of fresh water. There is not depth
of water for the shipping above a mile within the bar, and at this distance
only on the north side, where the bank is so steep for near a quarter of a
mile that a ship may lie afloat at low water, so near the shore as to reach
it with a stage, and the situation is extremely convenient for heaving
down ; but at low water, the depth upon the bar is not more than nine
or ten feet, nor more than seventeen or eighteen at the height of the tide,
the difference between high and low water at spring tides being about
nine feet. At the new and full of the moon it is high water between
nine and ten o'clock : it must also be remembered, that this part of the
coast is so barricaded with shoals, as to make the harbour still more
difficult of access ; the safest approach is from the southward, keeping
the main land close upon the board all the way. Its situation may
always be found by the latitude which has been very accurately laid
down. Over the south point is some high land, but the north point is
formed by a low sandy beach, which extends about three miles to the
northward, where the land begins again to be high.

" August, Wednesday, 8th. The gale continued with but little
remission.

"Thursday, 9th. We rode till seven o'clock on the morning of
Friday the loth, when, it being more moderate, we weighed and stood
in for the land, having at length determined to seek a passage along the
shore to the northward, still keeping the boats ahead : during our run in
we had from nineteen to twelve fathom : after standing in about an hour,
we edged away for three small islands that lay N.N.E. \ E., three
leagues from Cape Bedford. ... At noon . . . our latitude
by observation was 14 deg. 51 min. ^^'e now thought we saw a clear
opening before us, and hojicd that we were once more out of danger;
in this hope, however, we soon found ourselves disappointed, and for

A Hazy Look-out. ^-j^

that reason I called the headland Cape Flattery. It lies in latitude
14 deg. 56 min. S.. longitude 214 deg. 43 min. \V., and is a lofty
promontory, making next the sea in two hills, which have a third behind
them, with low sandy ground on each side. . . . We steered along
the shore N.W. by W. till one o'clock, for what we thought the o[)en
channel, when the petty officer at the mast-head cried out that he saw
land ahead, extending quite round to the islands that lay without us, and
a large reef between us and them. . . In this dilemma we hauled upon
a wind in for the land . . and soon after we came loan anchor under
a point of the main, in somewhat less tlian five fathom, and at about the
distance of a mile from the shore. Cape Flattery now bore S.E., distant
three leagues and a half. As soon as the ship was at anchor I went
ashore upon the point, which is high, and afforded me a good view of
the sea-coast. . . . Except the point I was now upon, which I
called Point Look-out, and Cape Flattery, the mainland to the north-
ward of Cape Bedford is low, and chequered with white sand and green
bushes, for ten or twelve miles inland, beyond which it rises to a
considerable height. To the northward of Point Look-out the coast
appeared to be shoal and flat for a considerable distance, which did not
encourage the hope that the channel we had hitherto found in with the
land would continue. Upon this point, which was narrow, and consisted
of the finest white sand we had ever seen, we discovered the footsteps of
people. ... In the evening I returned to the ship, and resolved the
next morning to visit one of the high islands in the offing, from the top
of which, as they lay five leagues out at sea, I hoped to discover more
distinctly the situation of the shoals, and the channel between them.

" Saturday, nth August. In the morning, therefore, of the nth, I
set out in the pinnace, accompanied by Mr. Banks, whose fortitude and
curiosity made him a party in every expedition. . . . About one
o'clock we reached the island, and immediately ascended the highest
hill, with a mixture of hope and fear, proportioned to the importance of
our business and the uncertainty of the event. ... I continued
upon this hill till sunset, but the weather was so hazy during the whole
time that 1 came down much disappointed. ... I determined to
stay upon the island all night . . . and at three in the morning. . .

"Sunday, 12th August. I climbed the hill a second time, but, to
my great disappointment, found the weather much more hazy than it had
been the day before. ... We found the island, which is visible at
twelve leagues distance, to be about eight leagues in circumference, and
in general very rocky and barren. ... We found also fresh water
in two places; one was a running stream, but that was a little brackish
when I tasted it, which was close to the sea ; the other was a standing
pool close behind the sandy beach, and this was perfectly sweet and
o-ood. Notwithstanding the distance of this island from the main, wc

534 Geriesis of Queensland.

saw, to our great surprise, that it was sometimes visited by the natives.
, . . We observed that all these huts were built upon eminences, and
entirely exposed to the S.E., contrary to those which we had seen upon
the main. . . . From these huts and their situation we con-
cluded that at some seasons of the year the weather here is invariably
calm and fine, for the inhabitants have no boat which can navigate the
sea to so great a distance in such weather as we had from the time of
our first coming upon the coast. As we saw no animals upon this place
but lizards, I called it Lizard Island. ... At two in the afternoon,
there being no hope of clear weather, we set out from Lizard Island to
return to the ship, and in our way landed upon the low, sandy island
with trees upon it which we had remarked on our going out. Upon this
island we saw an incredible number of birds, chiefly sea-fowl ; we found
also the nest of an eagle with young ones, which we killed, and the nest
of some other bird, we knew not what, of a most enormous size ; it was
built with sticks upon the ground, and was no less than six and twenty feet
in circumference and two feet eight inches high. . . . To this spot
we gave the name of Eagle Island. ... It was unanimously agreed
that the best thing we could do would be to quit the coast altogether till
we could approach it with less danger.

" IMonday, 13th August. In the morning, therefore, at break of
day, we got under sail, and stood out N.E. for the north-west end of
Lizard Island, leaving Eagle Island to windward. ... At noon the
north-west end of Lizard Island bore E.S.E., distant one mile ; our lati-
tude by observation was 14 deg. 38 min. . . We had a strong gale
from S.E., and by two o'clock we just fetched to windward of one of the
channels or openings in the outer reef which I had seen from the island.
We now tacked and made a short trip to the S.W., while the master in
the pinnace examined the channel. He soon made the signal for the
ship to follow, and in a short time she got safe out. As soon as we had
got without the breakers, we had no ground with one hundred and fifty
fathom, and found a large sea rolling in from the S.E., a certain sign
that neither lands nor shoals were near us in that direction. . . Our
change of situation was now visible in every countenance, for it was
most sensibly felt in every breast. We had been little less than three
months entangled among shoals and rocks that every moment threatened
us with destruction, frequentl}' passing our nights at anchor within
hearing of the surge that broke over them, sometimes driving towards
them even while our anchors were out, and knowing that if by any
accident, to which an almost continued tempest exposed us, they should
not hold, we must in a few minutes inevitably perish. But now, after
having sailed no less than three hundred and sixty leagues, without once
having a man out of the chains heaving the lead even for a minute,
which, perhaps, never happened to any other vessel, we fijund ourselves

A Dreary Time. cy

in an open sea with deep water. . . . The passage or channel
through which we passed into the open sea beyond the reef lies in lati-
tude 14 deg. 32 min. S., and may always be known by the three islands
within it, which I have called the Islands of Direction, because by these
a stranger may find a safe passage through the reef quite to the main.
The channel lies from Lizard Island N.E. .^r N., distant three leagues, and
is about one-third of a mile broad and not more in length. Lizard Island,
which is, as I have before observed, the largest and the northernmost of
the three, affords safe anchorage under the north-west siile, fresh water
and wood for fuel. The low islands and shoals also which lie between
it and the main channel with turtle and fish, which may probably be
caught in all seasons of the year, e.xcept when the weather is ver>'
tempestuous : so that all things considered, there is not, perhaps, a
better place for ships to refresh at upon the whole coast than this island.

" Tuesday, 14th August. In the morning, at daybreak, Lizard
Island bore S. 15 E., distant ten leagues, and we then made sail and
stood away N.N.W i W. . . . At si.x in the evening we
shortened sail, and brought the ship to, with her head to the N.E.

"Wednesday, 15th August. At six in the morning made sail and
steered west, in order to get within sight of the land, that I might be
sure not to overshoot the passage, if a passage* there was, between
this land and New Guinea. At noon our latitude by observation was
13 deg. 2 min. S., longitude 216 deg. W. . . . We had
sounded several times during the night, but had no bottom with one
hundred and forty fathom, neither had we any ground nov.- with the
same length of line.

"Thursday, i6th August. Yet, about four in the morning, we
plainly heard the roaring of the surf, and at break of day saw it foaming
to a vast height, at not more than a mile's distance. Our distress now
returned upon us with double force ; the waves which rolled in upon the
reef carried us towards it very fast ; we could reach no ground with an
anchor, and had not a breath of wind for the sails. In this dreadful
situation no resource was left us but the boats, and to aggravate our
misfortune, the pinnace was under repair ; the long-boat and yawl, how-
ever, were put into the water, and sent ahead to tow, which, by the help
of our sweeps abaft, got the ship's head round to the northward, which,
if it could not prevent our destruction, might, at least, delay it. But it
was six o'clock before this was efTected, and we were not then a hundred
yards from the rock upon which the same billow which washed the side
of the ship broke to a tremendous height the very next time it rose ; so
that between us and destruction there was only a dreary valley, no wider
than the base of one wave, and even now the sea under us was unfathom-
able — at least no bottom was to be found with one hundred and twenty
fathom. During this scene of distress the carpenter ha.i found nie.ms to

536 Genesis of Queensland.

patch up the pinnace : so that she was hoisted out, and sent ahead in aid
of the other boats to tow. But all our efforts would have been ineffectual
if, just at this crisis of our fate, a light air of wind had not sprung up —
so light that at any other time we would not have observed it, but which
was enough to turn the scale in our favour, and, in conjunction with the
assistance afforded us by the boats, to give the ship a perceptible motion
obliquely from the reef. Our hopes now revived, but in less than ten
minutes it was again a dead calm, and the ship was again driven towards
the breakers, which were not now more than two hundred yards distant.
"The same light breeze, however, returned before we had lost all the
ground it had enabled us to gain, and lasted about ten minutes more.
During this time we discovered a small opening in the reef at about the
distance of a quarter of a mile : I immediately sent one of the mates to
examine it, who reported that its breadth was not more than the length of
the ship, but that within it there was smooth water; this discovery seemed
to render our escape possible, and that was all, by pushing the ship
through the opening, which was immediately attempted. It was
uncertain, indeed, whether we could reach it, but if we should succeed
thus far we made no doubt of being able to get through ; in this, how-
ever we were disappointed, for having reached it by the joint assistance
of our boats and the breeze, we found that in the meantime it had
become high water, and to our great surprise we met the tide of ebb
rushing out of it like a mill stream. We gained, however, some
advantage, though in a manner directly contrary to our expectations ; we
found it impossible to go through the opening, but the stream that
prevented us carried us out about a quarter of a mile : it was too
narrow for us in it longer ; yet this tide of ebb so much assisted the
boats that by noon we had got an offing of near two miles. We had,
however, reason to despair of deliverance even if the breeze, which had
now died away, should revive, for we were still embayed in the reef,
if the tide of ebb being spent, the tide of flood, notwithstanding our
utmost efforts, would again drive the ship into the bight. About this time,
however, we saw another opening, near a mile to the westward, which I
immediately sent the first lieutenant, Mr. Hicks, in the small boat to
examine ; in the meantime we struggled hard with the flood, sometimes
gaining a little, and sometimes losing ; but every man still did his duty
with as much calmness and regularity as if no danger were near. About
two o'clock, Mr. Hicks returned with an account that the opening was
narrow and dangerous, but that it might be passed : the possibility of pass-
ing it was sufficient encouragement to make the attempt, for all danger was
less imminent than that of our present situation. A light breeze sprung
up at E.N.E., with which, by the help of our boats, and the very tide of
flood that without an opening would have been our destruction, we
entered it, and hurried through with amazing rapidity, by a torrent that

A Ship Shooting a Rapid. 53^

kept us from driving against either side of the channel, which was not
more than a quarter of a mile in breadth. Wiiile we were shooting this
gulph, our soundings were from thirty to seven fathom, very irregular,
and the ground at bottom very foul.

" As soon as we had got within the reef we anchored in nineteen
fathom, over a bottom of coral and shells. . . The danger of navigating
unknown parts of this ocean was now greatly increased by our having a
crazy ship, and being short of provisions and ever}' other necessary : yei
the distinction of first discoverers made us cheerfully encounter every
danger, and submit to every inconvenience. . . . Having now
congratulated ourselves upon getting within the reef, notwithstanding wc
had so lately congratulated ourselves upon getting without it, I resolved
to keep the main land on board in my future route to the northward,
whatever the consequence might be ; for if we had now gone without the
reef again, it might have carried us so far from the coast as to prevent
my being able to determine whether this country did, or did not, join to
New Guinea ; a question which I was determined to resolve from my
first coming within sight of land. However, as I had experienced the
disadvantage of having a boat under repair, at a time when it was
possible I might want to use her, 1 determined to remain fast at anchor,
till the pinnace was perfectly refitted. As I had no employment for the-
other boats, I sent them out.

"Friday, 17th August. In the morning to the reef to see what
refreshments could be procured. In this situation I found the variation
by amplitude and azimuth to be 4 deg. 9 min. E., and at noon our
latitude, by observation, was 12 deg. 38 min. S., and our longitude
216 deg. 45 min. W. The mainland extended from N. 66 W. to S.W.
by S., and the nearest part of it was distant about nine leagues. The
opening through which we had passed I called Providential Channel,
and this bore E.N.E, distant ten or twelve miles. On the mainland
within us was a lofty promontory which I called Cape Weymouth, on
the north side of which is a bay, which I called Weymouth Bay. They
lie in latitude 12 deg. 42 min. S.; longitude, 217 deg. 15 min. W. At
four o'clock in the afternoon the boats returned with about two hundred
and forty pounds of the meat of shell-fish, chiefly of cockles, some of
which were as much as two men could move, and contained twenty
pounds of good meat.

"Saturday, i8th August. At six o'clock in the morning we got
under sail and stood away to the N.W., having two boats ahead 10 direct
us. . . . At noon our latitude was 12 deg. 28 min., and our distance
from the main about four leagues : it extended from S. by W. to X. 71 W.,
and some small islands from N. 40 W. to 54 W. . . . At half-an-
hour after six we anchored in thirteen fathom. The northernmost of the
small islands seen at noon bore W. \ S., distant three miles. These

538 Genesis of Queensland.

islands are distinguished in the chart by the name of Forbes Islands,
and lie about five leagues from the main, which here forms a high point
that we called Bolt Head.

" Sunday, 19th August. At six in the morning we got again under
sail, and I steered for an island which lay at a small distance from the
main, and at this time bore from us N. 40 W,, distant about five leagues.
. . . This island is about a league in circuit, and we saw upon it
five of the natives. . . . To the N.W. of it are several low islands
and quays, which lie not far from the main, and to the northward and
eastward are several other islands and shoals, so that we were now
encompassed on every side. . . . The mainland within the islands
that have just been mentioned forms a point, which I called
Cape Granville. It lies in latitude 11 deg. 58 min., longitude
217 deg. 38 min., and between it and Bolt Head is a bay, which

I called Temple Bay. At the distance of nine leagues from
Cape Grenville, in the direction of E. \ N., lie some high islands,
which I called Sir Charles Hardy's Islands, and those which lie off
the Cape I called Cockburn's Isles. ... At four o'clock we
discovered some low islands and rocks, bearing W.N.W., and stood
directly for them. At half-an-hour after six we anchored on the north-
east side of the northernmost of them, at one mile distance, and in
sixteen fathom. These islands lie N.W., four leagues from Cape
Grenville, and, from the number of birds that I saw upon them, I called
them Bird Isles.

" INI on day, 24th August. At six o'clock in the morning we got
again under sail, with a fresher breeze at E., and stood away N.N.W.
for some low islands in that direction. ... At noon we were about
four leagues from the main, which we saw extending to the northward as
far as N.W. by N., all flat and sandy. Our latitude, by observation, was

II deg 23 sec. 8., and our longitude 217 deg. 46 min. W.

"Tuesday, 21st August. Early in the morning we made sail
again, and steered N.N.W. , by compass, for the northernmost land in
sight. ... At eight o'clock we discovered shoals ahead and on
our larboard l)0\v, and saw that the northernmost land, which we had
taken for the main, was detached from it, and that we might pass
between them by running to leeward of the shoals on our larboard bow,
which were now near us. . . . At eleven o'clock we were nearly
the length of the land detached from the main, and there appeared to be
no obstruction in the passage. ... As soon as the boats were
ahead we stood after them, and by noon got through the passage. Our
latitude, by observation, was then 10 deg. 36 min., and the nearest part
of the main, which we soon after found to be the northernmost, bore
W. 2 S., distant between three or four miles. We found the land,
which was detached from the main, to be a single island, extending

In the wake of Torres. — York Cape. 53Q

from N. to N. 75 E., distant between two and three miles. The

point of the main which forms the side of the channel ihrou^'li which wc
had passed, opposite to the island, is the northern jjromontory of the
country, and I called it York Cape. Its longitude is 218 deg. 24 min.
W.; the latitude of the north point is 10 deg. 37 min., and of the cast
point 10 deg. 42 min. S. ... To the southward of the cape the
shore forms a large open bay, which I called Newcastle Bay. .
Close to the eastern point of the cape are three small islands, from one
of which a small ledge of rocks runs out into the sea. There is also an
island close to the northern point. The island that forms the strait or
channel through which we had passed lies about four miles without
these, which, except two, are very small ; the southernmost is the largest,
and much higher than any part of the main land. . . . These
islands are distinguished in the chart by the name of York Isles.
We stood along the shore to the westward, with a gentle breeze at
S.E. by S., and when we advanced between three and four miles we
discovered the land ahead, which, when we first saw it, we took for the
main, to be islands detached from it by several channels. Upon this we
sent away the boats, with proper instructions, to lead us through that
channel which was next the main, but, soon after, discovering rocks and
shoals in this channel, I made a sign for the boats to go through the
next channel to the northward. ... At four o'clock in the afternoon
we anchored, being about a mile and a half or two miles within the
entrance. . . . The main land stretched away to the S.\V.; the
farthest point in view bore S. 48 W., and the southernmost point of the
island, on the north-west side of the passage, bore S. 76 W. Between
these two points we could see no land, so that we conceived hopes
of having at last found a passage to the Indian Sea. How-
ever, that I might be able to determine with more certainty, I resolved
to land upon the island which lies at the south-west point of the
passage. . . . When I went into the boat with a party of men,
accompanied by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, in order to go ashore,
we saw ten [of the inhabitants] upon a hill. Nine of them were
armed with such lances as we had been used to see, and the tenth had
a bow and a bundle of arrows, which we had never seen in the
possession of the natives of this country before. We also ob.ser\-ed that
two of them had large ornaments of mother-of-pearl hanging round their
necks. . . We immediately climbed the highest hill, which
was not more than three times as high as the mast-head and the most
barren of any we had seen. From this hill no land could be seen
between the S.W. and W.S.W., so that I had no doubt of iindini: a
passage through.

" As I was soon about to quit the eastern coast of New Holland,
which I had coasted from latitude 38 to this place, and which I am

540 Genesis of Queensland.

confident no European had ever seen before,* I once more hoisted
English colours, and though I had already taken possession of several
particular parts, I now took possession of the whole eastern coast, from
latitude 38 deg. to this place, latitude 10^ deg. S., in right of His
Majesty King George the Third, by the name of New South Wales, with
all the bays, harbours, rivers, and islands situated upon it. We then
fired three volleys of small arms, which were answered by the same
number from the ship. Having performed this ceremony upon the
island, which we called Possession Island, we re-embarked in our boat,
but a rapid ebb tide setting N.E. made our return to the vessel very
difficult and tedious.

'• Wednesday, 22nd August. At noon Possession Island bore
N. 53 deg. E., distant four leagues. . . . The south-west point of
the largest island on the north-west side of the passage bore N. 71 deg. W.,
distant eight miles, and this point I called Cape Cornwall. It lies in
latitude 10 deg. 43 min. S., longitude 219 deg. W. ; and some low lands
that lie about the middle of the passage, which I called Wallis Isles,
bore W. by S. \ S., distant about two leagues. Our latitude, by obser-
vation, was 10 deg. 46 min. S. . . . Came to an anchor in somewhat
less than seven fathom, sandy ground. ... A small island, which
was first in sight, bore N.W. h W.

" Thursdav, 23rd August. We weighed, with a light breeze at
S.S.E., and steered N.W. by W. for the small island which was just in

* On the 2 1 St of August, 1770, Captain Cook's journal — Havvkesworth — says :
" As I was about to quit the eastern coast of New Holland, which I had coasted
from latitude 38 S. to this place (Possession Island and Cape York), and which I
am confident no European had ever seen before," &c.

Now, Matthew Flinders, in his introduction to Terra Australis in the
" Investigator," published in 1814, says: " It cannot be doubted that the very large
islands seen by Torres at the nth degree of latitude south, were the hills of Cape
York; or that his ' two months' voyage of intricate navigation ' were employed in
passing the strait which divided Terra Australis from New Guinea. But the
account of this and other discoveries which Torres himself addressed to the King
of Spain was so kept from the world that the existence of such a strait was
generally unknown until 1770, when it was again discovered and passed by our
great circumnavigator, Captain Cook. Torres, it would appear, took the pre-
caution to lodge a copy of his letter (to Phillip, King of Spain) in the Archives of
Manila, for after that city had been taken by the British force in 1762, Mr.
Dalrymple (hydrographer to the Admiralty) found out and drew from oblivion this
interesting document of early discovery, and as a tribute due to the enterprising
Spanish navigator, he named 'Torres Straits,' and the appellation now prevails."

Captain Cook did not start in the "Endeavour" until eight years after
Dalrymple's discovery of this document. His journal was not published by
Hawkesworth until 1773. How then, except from an unaccountable neglect in
supplying Cook with information so important, has such an exf)ression come to be
made use of here : " I am confident no European had ever seen before ? "

Possession aftd Booby Islands.

54'

sight. . . . which we reached by noon, wlicn it bore S., distant
about half a mile. . . . Our latitude, by observation, was lo de^'.
33 min. S., and our longitude 219 deg. 22 min. W. In iliis situation no
part of the main was in sight. As we were now near the island, and had
but little wind, Mr. Banks and I landed upon it, and found it, except a
few patches of wood, to be a barren rock, the haunt of birds, which had
frequented it in such numbers as to make the surface almost uniformlv
white with their dung. Of these birds, the greater part seemed to be
boobies, and I therefore called the place Booby Island. After a short
stay we returned to the ship, and in the meantime the wind had got to
the S.W. It was but a gentle breeze, yet it was accompanied by a swell
from the same quarter, which, with other circumstances, confirmed my
opinion that we were got to the westward of the Gulph of Carpentaria, or
the northern extremity of New Holland, and had now an open sea to the
westward, which gave me great satisfaction, not only because the dangers
and fatigues of the voyage were drawing to an end, but because it would
no longer be a doubt whether New Holland and New Guinea were two
separate islands or different parts of the same.

" The north-east entrance of this passage, or strait, lies in the
latitude of 10 deg. 39 min. S., and in the longitude of 218 deg.
36 min. W.

" It is formed by the main, or the northern extremity of New
Holland, and on the S.E. by a congeries of islands, which I called the
Prince of Wales Islands, to the N.W., and it is probable that these
islands extend quite to New Guinea. They differ very much both in
height and circuit, and many of them seemed to be well clothed with
herbage and wood. Upon most, if not all of them, we saw smoke. . .
To this channel or passage 1 have given the name of the ship, and called
Endeavour Straits. Its length, from N.E. to S.W., is ten leagues, and it
is about five leagues broad, except at the north-east entrance, where it is
sometimes less than two miles, being contracted by the islands which lie
there. That which I called Possession Island is of moderate height and
circuit, and this we left between us and the main, passing between it anil
two small round islands which lie about two miles to the north-west of it.
The two small islands, which I called Wallis Islands, lie in the middle
of the south entrance, and these we left to the soutliward." On this day
Captain Cook, leaving Booby Island, stood away north-westerly for the
coast of New Guinea, upon which he landed, and then visited Timor.
&c., and thence to Balavia to re-fit, in December, 1770.

After losing, from disease engendered at that place, seven of his
people, and twenty-three more from the same cause, and leaving it on
Thursday, the 27th of December, Cook arrived at the Cape of Good Hope
on Friday, the 15th March, 1 771, at about ten o'clock in the morning.
Leaves the Cape of Good Hope on Thursday, the 25th of April, called

542 Genesis of Queensland.

at St. Helena from the ist to the 4th of May, and at noon on Wednesday,
the 1 2th of June, came to anchor in the Downs, and "went ashore at
Deal." *

• Since making the remarks above on the incorrectness of Cook's expression
that " no European had seen," &c., I have met with an explanation in the fifth
chapter of Macgillivray's " narrative " of the cruise of H.M.S. '' Rattlesnake " —
Captain Owen Stanley. He says that " Bougainville (1768) was not aware of
the discovery of the passage which afterwards bore the name of Torres, a discovery
(only brought to light by means of the copy of Torres' letter in the Archives of
Manila when taken in 1762 by the British) which indeed was not published to the
world until after our illustrious navigator Cook, in August, 1770, had confirmed the
existence of such a strait by passing from east to west between the shores of
Australia and New Guinea."

APPENDI X B

Captain Matthkw Flindkrs' Journal.

James Cook had broken through the red, rugged ranks, coral-clad in
their uniform front, challenging and defying with face eastwards, as
its rear guard of the Barrier Range presented its front westwards, to
the knights in quest of the dungeoned " Faerie Queenc." Having
been the first, the pages of his grateful country's history worthily
illuminate his name. But no one man's life-energy was suflicient to
unravel the skein which Cook had laid his hand upon in so strange
a tangle of the secrets of the deep sea. Yet one more ! no less daring,
brave, skilful, self-sacrificing, enthusiastic cultivator of the ocean fallow
fields stepped out of the ranks of men at once to catch the mantle
falling from the prostrate form of his sea-scourer father.

On no less worthy and noble shoulders than those of Matthew
Flinders did that mantle display its brightest colours : fly out in the
storms, or wave its folds faithfully to the soft breezes of Australia's
shores, until riven, and rent, and threadbare in that unrequited service !
Cook in native love of justice would have loved to stand hand-in-
hand with his son of the sea, who taught the world how mucii the
father had left yet uncompleted.

Have we in Australia thought reverently enough of Flinders ? The
man who housed this garden-continent within the economy of a British
domain, with a hand which charted his labour of life and love : lost in
the gloom of a prison, to which French jealousy of his service to us con-
signed him ? The man who lay almost forgotten for years therein
without one helping hand, one sympathetic voice among his far-away
countrymen, has passed away, it seems, from our memory as he has from
our eyes; absorbed, perhaps, by that — questionably attitudinised —
memorial ofhis precursor in the " Quest," standingin Sydney Ilydc Park,
with his hand stretched seawards — where the New South Land did nol lie !

A tribute of gratitude to Matthew Flinders need not be the less
because that earned bv Cook is so great.

Extracts from IMatthew Flinders' "Introduction to a Voyage to
Terra Australis, undertaken for the purpose of completing the discover)'
of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years iSoi, 1802, and 1803.
in His Majesty's ship the ' Investigator," in two volumes, 1814."

" Flinders' voyage was undertaken by command of His Majesty, in
the year 1801, in a ship of 334 tons, which received the appropriate
name of the * Investigator.'

544 Genesis of Queensland.

" The vast regions to which this voyage was principally directed
comprehend in the western part the early discoveries of the Dutch,
under the name of ' New Holland ' ; and in the east, the coasts explored
by British Navigators, and named ' New South Wales.' It has not,
however, been unusual to apply the first appellation to both regions. . .
The original name, used by the Dutch until some time after Tasman's,
second voyage, in 1644, was * Terra Australis, or ' Great South Land ' ;
and when it was displaced by ' New Holland,' the term was applied only
to the parts lying westward of a meridian line, passing through Arnheim's
Land on the north, and near the Isles of St. Francis and St. Peter on
the south : all to the eastward, including the Gulf of Carpentaria, still
remained as ' Terra Australis.' This appears from a chart published by
Thevenot, in 1663 ; which, he says, ' was originally taken from that done
in inlaid work, upon the pavement of the new Stadt-house at Amsterdam.'*
The same thing is inferred from the notes of Burgomaster Witsen, in 1765.

"It is necessary, however, to geographical precision, that so soon as
New Holland and New South Wales were known to form one land,
there should be a general name applicable to the whole, and this essential
point having been ascertained in the present voyage with a degree of
certainty sufficient to authorise the measure, I have, with the con-
currence of opinions entitled to deference, ventured upon the re-adoption
of the original ' Terra Australis '; and of this term I shall hereafter make
use, when speaking of New Holland and New South Wales in a
collective sense.

" In dividing New South Wales from New Holland, I have been
guided by the British patent to the first Governor of the new colony, at
Port Jackson. In this patent, a meridian, nearly corresponding to
to the ancient line of separation between New Holland and Terra
Australis, has been made the western limit of New South Wales : and is
fixed at the longitude of one hundred and thirty five degrees east of the
meridian of Greenwich.

" The various discoveries which had been made on the west of
Terra Australis, antecedently to the present voyages, are of dates as
widely distant, as are the degrees of confidence to which they are
respectively entitled ; the accounts, also are scattered through various
books in different languages ; and many are still in manuscript. It has,
therefore, been judged that a succinct history of these discoveries would
be acceptable to the public.

" Within these few years, two curious manuscript charts have been
brought to light ; which have favoured an opinion that Terra Australis
had been visited by Europeans, nearly a century before any authentic
accounts speak of its discovery. One of these charts is French, without

* "Relations de divers Voyages Curieux."

From Myth to Fact.

— — — -^ JH J

date ; and from its almost exact similitude, is probablv cither the original
or a copy of the other, which is English ; and bears with the date i-.'-
a dedication to the King of England.* In it an extensive country is
marked to the southward of the Moluccas, under the name of Great Java-
which agrees nearer with the position and extent of Terra Australis. than
with any other land, and the direction given to some parts of the coast
approaches too near to the truth for the whole to have been marked from
conjecture alone. But combining this with the exaggerated extent of
Great Java in a southern direction, and the animals and houses painted
upon the shores, such as have not been seen anywhere else in Terra
Australis, it should appear partly to have been formed from vague
information collected, probably, by the early Portugese navigators, from
the eastern nations ; and that conjecture has done the rest. It mav, at
the same time, be admitted that a part of the west and north-west coasts,
might have been seen by the Portuguese themselves, before the year i ^40,
in their voyages to and from India.

" But quitting those claims to original discovery, in which conjecture
bears so large a share, we come to such as are supported by undeniable
documents.

" Thelatehydrographerto the Admiralty, Alexander Dalrymple, Esq.,
in his curious ' Collection Concerning Papua,' published with a transla-
tion, a paper which furnishes more regular and authentic accounts of
the early Dutch discoveries in the east than anything with which the
public was before acquainted. This interesting paper was procured bv
the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, and is a copy of the instructions to
Commodore Abel Jans Tasman for his second voyage of discovery. It
is dated January 29, 1644, from the Castle of Batavia. and signed bv
the Governor-General, Antonio Van Dieman, and by Vander Lyn,
Maatsuyker, Schouten, and Sweers, members of the Council. The
instructions are prefaced with a recital, in chronological order, of the
previous discoveries of the Dutch, whether made from accident or design,
in Nova Guinea and the Great South Land ; and from this account,
combined with a passage from Saris,t it appears that, on the iSth of
November, 1605, the Dutch yacht, the ' Duyphen,' was despatched from
Bantam to explore the islands of New Guinea, and that she saileil along
what was thought to be the west side of that country to 134 deg. of south
latitude. ' This extensive country was found for the greater part a
desert, but in some places inhabited by wild, cruel, black savages, by
whom some of the crew were murdered, for which reason they could not
learn anything of the land or waters, as had been desired of them, and

* A more particular account of these charts, now in the British Museum, will
be found in Captain Burney's " History of Discoveries in the South Seas." Vol I..

P-P- 379—383-

t " Purchas." Vol. I., p. 385.

2 M

546 Genesis of Queensland.

from want of provisions and other necessaries they were obHged to leave
the discovery unfinished. The furthest point of the land in their map
was called ' Cape Keer-Weer,' or ' Turn Again.'

"The course of the ' Duyphen " from New Guinea was southward,
along the islands on the west side of Torres Straits, to that part of Terra
Australis a little to the west and south of Cape York ; but all these lands
were thought to be connected, and to form the west coast of New
Guinea. Thus, without being conscious of it, the commander of the
' Duyphen" made the first authenticated discovery of any part of the Great
South Land, about the month of jNIarch, 1606; for it appears that he
had returned to Banda in or before the beginning of June of that year,

" Torres, 1606. Luis Vaes de Torres, a Spanish navigator, was the
next person who saw Terra Australis; and it is remarkable that it was
near the same place, and in the same year, and that he had as little
knowledge of the nature of his discovery as had the 'Duyphen.'

" Torres was second in command to Pedro Fernandez de Quires
when he sailed with three vessels from the port of Callao, in Peru, in the
year 1605. One of the purposes of the expedition was to search for the
Tierra Austral, a continent which was supposed to occupy a considerable
portion of that part of the southern hemisphere lying westward of
America.

" After the discovery of several islands, Quiros came to a land
which he named 'Australia del Espiritu Santo,' supposing it to be part of
the Great Southern Continent; but this, on his separation from the
Admiral, Torres found could be no other than an island ; and then
continued his course w-estward, in prosecution of the researches.

" About the month of August, 1606, and in latitude 11^ deg. S.,he
fell in with a coast which he calls ' the beginning of New Guinea,'
and which appears to have been the south-eastern part of the land
afterwards named Louisiade, by AL de Bougainville, and now known to
be a chain of islands. Unable to pass to windward of this land, Torres
bore away along its south side, and gives, himself, the following account
of his subsequent proceedings :

" ' We went along three hundred leagues of this coast, as I have
mentioned, and diminished the latitude 2\ deg., which brought us into
9 deg. From hence we fell in with a bank of from three to nine fathoms,
which extends along the coast above one hundred and eighty leagues.
We went over it along the coast to 7^ deg. S. latitude, and the end of it
is in 5 deg. We could not go further on for the many shoals and great
currents, so we were obliged to sail S.W. in that depth to 1 1 deg. S.
latitude. There is all over it an archipelago of islands without number,
by which we passed, and at the end of the nth degree the bank became
shoaler. Here were very large islands, and there appeared more to the
southward. They were inhabited by black people, very corpulent, and

Spanish and Dutch Searches. 5,7

naked. Their arms were lances, arrows, and clubs of stone, ill-fashloncd.
... We were upon this bank two months, at the end of which time
we found ourselves in 25 fathoms, and in 5 deg. S. latitude, and 10 leagues
from the coast. And having gone four hundred and eighty leagues,
here the coast goes to the N.E., I did not reach it, for the bank bccini c
very shallow. So we stood to the north.'" *

" It cannot be doubted that the • very large islands' seen by TorrcT"
at the nth degree of south latitude were the hills of Cape York, or thai
his two months of intricate navigation were employed in passing the
strait which divides Terra Australis and New Guinea. But the account
of this and other discoveries, which Torres himself addressed to the
King of Spain, were so kept from the world that the existence of such a
strait was generally unknown until 1770, when it was again discovered
and passed by our great circumnavigator Captain Cook. Torres, it
would appear, took the precaution to lodge a copy of his letters in the
Archives of Manila, for after that city was taken by the British forces in
1762, Mr. Dalrymple found out, and drew from oblivion this interesting
document of early discovery, and, as a tribute due to the enterprising
Spanish navigator, he named the passage Torres Straits, and the appel-
lation now generally prevails. "^

" Zeachen (1618) is said to have discovered the Land of Arnheim
and the northern Van Dieman's Land in 16 18, and he is supposed,
from the first name, to have been a native of Arnheim, in Holland, and
that the second was given in honour of the Governor-General of the
Indies. t But there are two important objections to the truth of this vague
account. First, no mention is made of Zeachen in the recital of dis-
coveries which preface the instructions to Tasman, nor is there any of the
north coast having been visited by the Dutch in that year. Secondly, it
appears from Valentyn's ' Lives of the Governors of Batavia," that
Van Dieman was not Governor-General until January i, 1636.

" Carstens, 1623. The second expedition, mentioned in the Dutch
recital, for the discovery of the Great South Land, ' was undertaken in a
yacht, in the year 1619, with little success'; and the journal and
remarks were not to be found. In January, 1623, the yachts ' Pera' and
' Arnheim,' under the command of Jan Carstens, were despatched from
Amboina, by order of His Excellency. Jan Pieterz Coen-Carstens, with
eight of the 'Arnheim's' crew, was treacherously murdered by the natives
of New Guinea ; but the vessels prosecuted the voyage, and discovered

* See the letter of Torres, dated Manila, July 12, 1607, in Vol. II., appendix
No. I to Burney's " History of Discoveries in the South Sea."

f " Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Aust." : by President De Brosses.
Tome I, p. 432. In the old chart a river Spult is marked in the western part of
Arnheim's Land, and it seems probable that the land in its vicinity is here meant
by " The Spult."

548 Genesis of Queensland.

'the great islands of Araheim and Spult.' They were 'untimely
separated,' and the ' Arnheim ' returned to Amboina. The ' Pera ' per-
sisted, and sailed along the south coast of New Guinea to a flat cone ,
situate in 10 deg. south latitude; and ran along the west coast of this
land to Cape Keer-Weer; from thence discovered the coast further
southward as far as 17 deg. to Staten river. From this place what
more of the land could be discovered seemed to stretch westwaid. The
' Pera ' then returned to Amboina.

" Gerrit Tomaz Pool was sent in April, 1636, from Banda, with the
yachts 'Klyn Amsterdam,' and ' Wezel,' upon the same expedition as
Carstens, and at the same place, on the coast of New Guinea, he met
with the same fate. Nevertheless, the voyage was assiduously continued
under the charge of ihe supra cargo Pieterz Pietersen ; and the islands
Key Jarrouw visited. By reason of very strong easterly winds they could
not reach the west coast of New Guinea (Carpentaria) ; but shaping
their course ver\' near south, discovered the coast of Arnheim, or Van
Dieman's Land, in 11 deg. S. latitude; and sailed along the shore for
one hundred and twenty miles (thirty miglen) without seeing any people,
but many signs of smoke.

" This is all that appears to have been known of the north coast,
when Abel Jansz Tasman sailed upon his second voyage in 1644 ; for
the instructions to him say that after quitting Point Ture, or False Cape,
situate in 8 deg. on the south coast of New Guinea: ' You are to continue
eastward, along the coast, to 9 deg. south latitude ; crossing prudently
the cove at that place. Looking about the high islands or Speult's
river, with the yachts, for a harbour ; despatching the tender, De Braak,
for two or three days into cove, in order to discover whether, within the
Great Inlet, there be not to be found an entrance into the South Sea.*
From this place you are to coast along the west coast of New Guinea
(Carpentaria) to the furthest discoveries in 17 deg. south latitude ;
following the coast further, as it may run, west or southward, But it is
to be feared you will meet, in these parts, with the south-east trade
winds ; from which it will be difficult to keep the coast on board, if
stretching to the south-east ; but, notwithstanding this, endeavour by all
means to proceed ; that we may be sure whether this land is divided
from the Great Known South Continent or not.'

* The great Inlet or Cove, where the passage was to besought, in the north-
west part of Torres Strait. It is evident that a suspicion was entertained in 1644
of such a Strait ; but then the Dutch were ignorant of its having been passed
The " high islands " are those which lie in latitude 10 degrees on the west side of
the Strait. Speult's river appears to be the opening betwixt Prince of Wales
Islands and Cape York : Through which Captain Cook afterwards passed, and
entered " Endeavour Straits." This Speult's river cannot, I conceive, be the same
with what was before-mentioned under the name of the " Spuit."

Tasman and Maria. r.g

" The Dutch had by this time acquired some knowledge of a pari of
the south coast of Terra AustraHs ; of the west coast ; and a part of the
north-west ; and these are the lands meant by ' the Great Known South
Continent; Arnheim's and the northern Van Dieman's Land on the
north coast, are not included in the expression ; for Tasman was directed
from De Witt's Land ( on the north-west coast) to run across, very near
eastward, to complete the discovery of Arnheim's and Van Dieman's
Lands, and to ascertain perfectly, whether these lands are not one and
the same island.

"It is a great obstacle to tracing correctly the progress of early
discovery in Terra Australis that no account of this voyage of Tasman
has ever been published ; nor is any such known to exist. But it seems
to have been the general opinion that he sailed round the Guph of
Carpentaria, and then westward along Arnheim's and the northern
Van Dieman's Lands, and the form of these coasts in the charts of most
geographers, even up to the end of the eighteenth century, is supposed
to have resulted from this voyage. This opinion is strengthened by
finding the name of Tasman, and of the Governor-General and two
of the Council, who signed his instructions, applied to places at the
head of the Guph ; as is also Maria, the daughter of the Governor, to
whom our navigator was attached. In the notes also of Burgomaster
Witsen, concerning the inhabitants of Nova Guinea and liollandia
Nova, as extracted by I\Ir. Dalrymple, Tasman is mentioned among
those from whom his information was drawn.

"The President De Brosses* gives from the miscellaneous tracts of
Nicholas Struyck, printed at Amsterdam, 1753, the following account of
another, and last voyage of the Dutch, for the discovery of the north coast.

" ' March i, 1765. Three Dutch vessels were sent from Timor
v\ith orders to explore the north coast of New Holland, better than it had
been done before. They carefully examined the coasts, sand-banks,
and reefs. In their route to it, they did not meet with any land, but only
some rocks above water in 11 deg. 52 min. south latitude: (probably the
south part of the great Sahul Bank, which, according to Captain
Peter Heywood, who saw it 1801, lies in 11 deg. 40 min.) They
saw the west coast of New Holland 4 deg. to the eastward of the
last point of Timor.

" ' From thence they continued their route towards the north, and
passed a point off which lies a bank of sand above water ; in length,
more than five German miles of fifteen to a degree. After which, they
made sail to the east, along the coast of New Holland, observing ever)--
thing with care, until they came to a gulph, the head of which they did
not quite reach. I (Struyck) have seen a chart made of these parts.'

* " Hist, des Navigations aux Terres Aust." Tome I, p. 437-

550 Genesis of Queensland.

"What is now called the west must have been the north-west
coast, which the vessels appear to have made somewhat to the south of
Cape Van Dieman. The point which they passed was probablv this
same cape itself, and in a chart published by ^Ir. Dalrymple, August
27, 1783, from a Dutch manuscript (possibly a copy of that which
Struyck had seen), a shoal of thirty geographic miles in length is marked
as running off from it ; but incorrectly, according to Mr. McCiuer.
The gulph here mentioned was probably a deep bay in Arnheim's Land, for
had it been the Gulph of Carpentaria, some particular mention of the great
change in the direction of the coast, would doubtless have been made.

" From this imperfect account of the voyage of these three vessels
very little satisfactory information is obtained, and this, with some few
exceptions, is the case with all the accounts of the early Dutch dis-
coveries, and has usually been attributed to the monopolising spirit of
their East India Company, which induced it to keep secret or to destroy
the journals.

" The north coast of Terra Australis does not appear to have been
seen by any succeeding navigator until the year 1770, when our cele-
brated Captain James Cook passed through Endeavour Straits, between
Cape York and the Prince of Wales Islands ; and besides clearing up
the doubt which till then existed of the actual separation of Terra
Australis from New Guinea, his more accurate observations enabled
geographers to assign something like a true place to the former dis-
coveries of the Dutch in these parts. Captain Cook did not land upon the
main, but at Possession Island. He saw ten natives. ' Nine of them
were armed with such lances as we had been accustomed to see, and the
tenth had a bow and a bundle of arrows, which we had never seen in
the possession of the natives of this country before.'*

" 1791. At the end of this year. Lieutenant J. McCluer, of the
' Bombay INIarine,' in returning from the examination of the west side of
New Guinea, made the land of Arnheim in longitude 1357 E. of
Greenwich. He then sailed westward along the shore to 129 deg.
55 min., when the coast was found to make a southern direction. The
point of turning is placed in 11 deg. 15 min. S. latitude, and is,
doubtless, the Cape Van Dieman of the old charts, and the west extremity
of the north coast of Terra Australis. . . . Lieut. McCluer is the
last person who can strictly be said to have added to our knowledge of
the north coast of Terra Australis previously to the time in which the
voyage of the 'Investigator' was planned, but several navigators had
followed Captain Cook through Torres Straits. Thus in —

" 1789. After the mutineers of the ' Bounty ' had forced the Com-
mander, Lieut, (now Rear-Admiral) William Bligh to embark in the

* " Hawkesworth's Voyages." Vol. Ill, page 11.

Last of H. M.S. "Pandora." 35,

launch, near the island of Tofoa, he steered for Coepang. a Dulch
settlement on the south-west end of Timor. In the way he made the
east coast of New South Wales, in about 12;. de.t,'rces S. latitude; and
sailing northward, passed round Cape York and ilie Prince of Wales
Islands. As Captain Bligh passed to the north of those islands, whereas
Captain Cook had passed to the ioiilh, his account made an useful
addition to what little was known of Torres Straits.*

"1791. Capt. (now Admiral) Edward Edwards of 11. .M. frigate
' Pandora,' on his return from the island ' Taheiiy," made the reefs of
Torres Straits, on August 25, at about latitude 10 degress south, and
2 degrees of longitude to the east of Cape York. From thence, steering
westward, he fell in with the islands rather high, which he named
Murray's, lying in latitude 9 deg. 57 min. south, and longitude
143 deg. 42 min. east ; and some canoes with two masts, were seen
running within side of the reef, which lay between the island and the
ship. The reef was of considerable extent, and during the whole of
August 26, Captain Edwards ran along it to the southward without
finding any passage through. On the 27th, the search was continued,
without success; but on the 28th, a boat was despatched to examine an
opening in the reef ; and the ship stood off and on, waiting the result.
At five in the evening, the boat made a signal for a passage being found,
but fearing to venture through, so near sunset, Captain Edwards called
the boat on board. In the meantime, a current or tide, set the ' Pandora"
upon the reef ; and after beating there till ten o'clock, she went over it
into deep water, and sank in fifteen fathoms, at daylight, on the 29th.

" A dry sand-bank was perceived within the opening, at the distance
of four miles, and thither the boats repaired with the remaining ofTicers
and people ; thirty-nine men having lost their lives in this disaster. This
opening was found to lie in latitude 10 deg. 24 min., and longitude
143 deg. 38 min., and is represented as very practicable for ships.

" Not being able to save anything from the wreck. Captain Edwards,
being short of provisions and water, set sail on August 30 with his
squadron of eight boats, and steered for the north-east part of Terra
Australis.

" September 2. In the afternoon Captain Edwards jiassed out to
the northward, from amongst the Prince of Wales Islands, and the same
evening, by steering westward, cleared all the islands and reefs of Torres
Straits. On the 14th he reached Timor.

"Bligh and Portlock, 1792. Neither the great extent of the reef
to the eastward of Cape York, nor the loss of the ' Pandora ' were known
in 1792, when Captain William Bligh came a second time to Torres
Straits, with His Majesty's ship ' Providence,' and the brig ' Assistant '—

* " Bligh's Voyage to the South Seas in H.M. Ship ' Bounty.' " p.p. 2ifi— 221.

552 Genesis of Queensland.

commanded by Lieutenant (now captain) P. Nathaniel Portlock. The
objects of his mission were to transport the bread-fruit from Taheity to
the West Indies ; and on his way, to explore a new passage through
the strait ; in both of which he was successful. (See Introduction.)

" Brampton and Holt, 1793. The last passage known to have
been made through Torres' Straits previous to the sailing of the ' Investi-
gator,' was by Messieurs William Bampton and Matthew B. Alt, Com-
manders of the ships ' Hormuzeer ' and ' Chesterfield.' Their
discoveries were made public in two charts by Mr. Dalrymple, in 1798
and 1799; and from them and Captain Bampton's manuscript journal,
the south Coast of New Guinea and most of the reefs and islands near
it are laid down. . . . The journal was obtained through the kind-
ness of Mr. Arrowsmith. (Abridgment of journal given in ' Introduction '
wherein is mentioned that the Union Jack was hoisted on Darnley's
Island, and New Guinea and the neighbouring islands were taken
possession of in the name of His Majesty on July 10, after the murder
by the natives of Captain Hill, of the New South Wales corps — a passen-
ger by the * Chesterfield,' and four seamen : Messieurs Shaw (chief
mate) and Carter, of the same party, in a whale boat, severely wounded,
together with the remaining seaman ; Ascott, having got back into the boat,
cut the grapnel rope and escaped. It being impossible to reach the ships
which were five leagues to windward, they bore away to the west,
through the strait, and on the tenth day, without provisions or compass,
reached Timor coast, obtained some relief, and went on to an
island called by the natives, Sarrett; when Mr. Carter died,
]Mr. Shaw and Ascott sailed in a prow for Banda, in the April following.*

" This passage of the ' Hormuzeer ' and ' Chesterfield ' in seventy-
two days, with that made in nineteen by the Captains Bligh and Portlock
displayed the extraordinary dangers of the Strait, and appear to have
deterred all other commanders from following them, up to the time
of the ' Investigator.' Their accounts confirm the truth of Torres having
passed through it, by showing the correctness of the sketch contained in
his letter to the King of Spain.

" The account of the discoveries which resulted from the establish-
ment of the colony in New South Wales, closes with this expedition,
and it remains only to point out what was wanted to be done in these
parts of Terra Australis.

" On the east coast of New South Wales, from Bass's Strait to
Bustard Bay, in latitude 24 deg., the shore might be said to be well
explored ; but from thence northward to Cape York, there were several
portions which had either been passed by Captain Cook in the night, or
at such a distance in the daytime as to render their formation doubtful.

* See Collins' account of the " English Colony in New South Wales." Vol. I. p. 464.

IVhat Flinders had to do. cc>

" The following openings or bigiiis li;ui been seen and luuned by
Captain Cook, but were yet unexamined : Keppel and Shoahvaier Hays,
Broadsound, Repulse, lulgecumbe, Cleveland, Halifax, Rockingham*.
and Weary Bays. 'Xo the northward of these were Weymouth, Temple.
Shelburne, and Newcasde Bays, and perhaps many others which distance
did not permit our first navigator to notice. There was also a numerous
list of islands, of which a few only had been examined, and several were
merely indicated from a distant view.

"From 1 6 degrees northward to Cape York, an extensive chain ol
reefs had been found to lie at a considerable distance from the coast.
without side of the islands, and two vessels from Port Jackson had mei
with others further south, extending nearly from 21 deg. to 23 deg. It
was of importance to ascertain the limits of these vast bodies of coral,
were it only on account of ships emi)loyed in the whale fisherv ; but in
view to future settlements within the tropics, it was necessary to be
known whether these reefs might form such a barrier to the coast as to
render it inaccessible from the eastward ; if not, then the open parts
were to be ascertained.

" On the arrival of His Majesty's ship * Reliance ' in England, ai
the latter end of 1800, the charts of the new discoveries were published,
and a plan was proposed to the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks for
completing the investigation of the coasts of Terra Australis. The plan
was approved by that distinguished patron of science and useful enter-
prise ; it was laid before Earl Spencer, then First Lord Commissioner of
the Admiralty, and finally received the sanction of His Majesty, who was
graciously pleased to direct that the voyage should be undertaken, and
I had the honour of being appointed to the command.

"The sole remaining information relative to the north coast of Terr.:
Australis, was contained in a note transcribed by Mr. Dalrymple from a
work of Burgomaster Witsen upon the " Migration of IMankind." The
place of which the Burgomaster speaks is evidently on the coast ol
Carpentaria, near the head of the Gulph ; but it is called New Ciuinea ;
and he wrote in 1705. The note is as follows, but upon whose
authority it was given does not appear.

" 'In 16 deg. 10 min. south longitude, 159 deg. 17 min. (east of
Teneriffe, or between 142 deg. and 143 deg. east of Greenwich), the
people swam on board of a Dutch ship, and when they received a present
of a piece of linen, they laid it on their head in token of gratitude :
everywhere thereabout all the people are malicious. They use bows and
arrows of such a length that one end rests on the ground when shooting."

" On summing up the whole of the knowledge which had been
acquired of the North Coast, it will appear that natural history, geo-
graphy, and navigation had still much to learn of this part of the world :
and more particularly that they required the accomplishment of the

554 Genesis of Queensland.

following objects: ist. A general survey of Torres Strait. The navi-
gation from the Pacific, or Great Ocean, to all parts of India, and to the
Cape of Good Hope would be greatly facilitated if a passage through
the Strait, moderately free from danger, could be discovered, since five
or six weeks of the usual route, by the north of New Guinea, or the more
eastern island would thereby be saved.

" Notwithstanding the great obstacles which navigators had
encountered in some parts of the strait, there was still room to hope,
that an examination of the whole, made with care and perseverance,
would bring such a passage to light. A surve}' of it was, therefore, an
object much to be desired, not only for the merchants and seamen
trading to these parts, but also from the benefits which would certainly
accrue therefrom to general navigation and geography.

" 2nd. An examination of the shores of the Gulph of Carpentaria.
The real form of the Gulph remained in as great doubt with geographers
as were the manner how, and time when, it acquired its name. I am
aware that the President De. Brosses says, 'this same year (1628)
Carpentaria was thus named by P. Carpenter, who discovered it when a
general in service of the Dutch company. He returned from India to
Europe in the month of June, 1628, with five ships richly laden.' 'Hist,
des Nav. aux Terres Aust.' But the President here seems to
give either his own, or the Abbe Provost's conjectures, for matters of
fact. We have seen that the coast called Carpentaria was discovered
long before 1628 ; and it is, besides, little probable that Carpenter should
have been making discoveries with five ships richly laden, and homeward
bound. This name of Carpentaria does not once appear in Tasman's
Instructions, dated 1644, but is found in Thevenot's Chart of 1663.

" The east side of the Gulph had been explored to the latitude of
17 deg., and many rivers were thus marked and named ; but how far the
representation given of it by the Dutch was faithful, what were the produc-
tions, and what its inhabitants, were, in a great measure, uncertain. Or
rather it was certain that those early navigators did not possess the means
of fixing the positions and forms of lands with anything like the accuracy
of modern science ; and that they could have known very little of the
productions or inhabitants. So that conjecture being at liberty to appro-
priate the Gulph of Carpentaria to itself, had made it the entrance to a
vast arm of the sea. dividing Terra Australis into two or more islands.

"3rd. A more exact investigation of the bays, shoals, islands, and
coasts of Arnhcim"s and the northern Van Dieman's lands. The
information upon these was attended with uncertainty : first, because the
state of navigation was very low at the time of their discovery, and,
again, from want of details and authorities upon which they had been
laid down. Of the river Spult and other large streams represented to
intersect the coast the existence even was doubtful. Thus, whatever

Our Two First Governors. .^rc

could bear the name of exact, whether in natural histon-. geography, or
navigation, was yet to be learned of a country possessing five hun'd'red
leagues of sea coast, and placed in a climate and neighbourhood where
the richest productions of both the vegetable and mineral kingdom were
known to exist. A voyage which should have hail no other view ilian
the survey of Torres Straits, and the thorough investigation of the north
coast of Terra Australis, couUl not have been accused of wanting an
object worthy of national consideration.

"1788. East Coast. The year 1788 will ever be a memorable
epoch in the history of Terra Australis. (Jn January 18, Captain (now
Vice-Admiral) Arthur Phillip arrived in Botany Bay, with His Majesty's
ship 'Supply,' and was followed by the ' Sirius,' Captain John Hunter,
six sail of transports, and three store ships. The ])urpose of this
armament was to establish a colony in New South Wales, over which
extensive country Captain Phillip was appointed Governor and Captain-
General. Botany Bay proved to be an unfavourable situation for the
new colony ; it was, therefore, abandoned in favour of Port Jackson,
which lies three leagues to the northward, and was found to be one of
the finest harbours in the world.

" In the beginning of 1795, Captain (now Admiral) Hunter sailed a
second time for New South Wales, to succeed Captain Phillip in the
government of the new colony. He took with him His Majesty's armed
vessels ' Reliance' and 'Supply'; and the author of this account, who was
then a midshipman,* and had not long before returned from a voyage to
the South Seas, was led by his passion for exploring new countries to
embrace the opportunity of going out upon a station which, of all others,
presented the most ample field for his favourite pursuit.

"To the Straits, which in the years 1798 and 1799 had been the
great object of research, and whose discover}- by Messrs. Flinders and
Bass was then completed, Governor Hunter gave, by my recom-
mendation, the name of Bass Straits. This was no more than a just
tribute to my worthy friend and companion for the extreme dangers and
fatigues he had undergone in first entering it in a whale-boat, and to the
correct judgment he had formed from various indications of the existence _
of a wide opening between Van Dieman's Land and New South Wales.
His success favoured my views of further discovery, and the ' Reliance'
not being immediately wanted for service, his Excellencv accepted a
proposition to explore Glasshouse and Hervey's Bays — two large openings
to the northward, of which the entrances only were known. I had hopes
of finding a considerable river discharging itself at one of these
openings, and of being also by its means to penetrate furtiier into the
interior of the country than had hitherto been effected.

* In the " Reliance."

556 Genesis of Queenslaiid.

" The sloop, ' Norfolk ' was again allotted to me, and I was
accompanied by ]\Ir. S. W. Flinders, midshipman of the ' Reliance,'
and by Bongaree, a native. Of the assistance of my friend Bass I was,
however, deprived, he ha\ing quitted the station to return to England.
The time of my absence was limited to six weeks, some arrivals being
then e.xf)ected which might call the ' Reliance ' into active service. We
sailed out of Port Jackson J»uly 8th, 1799, and next morning came in
with a part of the coast north of Port Stephens, which Captain Cook had
passed in the night. Off a projection, which 1 called Sugar Loaf Point,
in latitude 32 deg. 29 min., lie two rocks to the south-eastward. We
passed between these rocks and the point, and kept close in with the
shore as far to the north as the hills called ' Three Brothers,' by Captain
Cook. On the i ith we sailed amongst the Solitary Isles, of which five
were added to the number before seen ; I continued to keep close in
with the coast. In latitude 29 deg. 43 min., we discovered a small
opening like a river, with an islet lying in the entrance ; and at sunset
entered a larger, to which I gave the name of Shoal Bay, an appellation
which it but too well merited. Shoal Bay is difficult to be found
except by its latitude, which is 29 deg. 26^ min. Cape Byron, in
latitude 28 deg. 38 min., and the coast for twelve miles to the north,
were passed on the 13th, but no particular additions or corrections could
be made to Captain Cook's chart. At Moreton Bay, further on, the
navigator had left it in doubt whether there were any opening, and
therefore we closed in again with the land at Point Look-out.

" At noon the point bore S. 2 deg., E. three or four miles, and a
small flat islet E. 3 deg., N. three or four miles : the opening in Moreton
Bay was then evident, and boreW.N.W. It is small, and formed by two
sandy points, beyond which a large extent of border was visible. Our
latitude at this time was 27 deg. 24 min., giving that of Point Look-out
to be 27 deg. 27 min. S. Captain Cook says it is in latitude 27 (Xo.^. 6 min.,
a difference which probably arose from his having allowed for a strong
northern current, during the run of four or five hours from the
preceding noon, whereas, in reality, none existed.

" We stood on to within two miles of the opening in IMoreton Bay,
but seeing it blocked up by many shoals of sand, and the depth having
diminished, the course was altered for Cape IMoreton. At eight in the
evening the anchor was dropped in seven fathoms, at the entrance of
Glasshouse Bay, Cape Moreton bearing E.S.E. two or three miles.
But little progress was made up the Bay on the 15th, owing to the many 1
shoals and a foul wind. At noon the latitude of Cape IMoreton was
ascertained to be 27 deg. |- south, and the longitude, corrected by
the observations at Greenwich, was 153 deg. 25 min. east, being 43 min.
south, and 7 min. west of its position by Captain Cook. In the evening,
the sloop was at anchor within two miles of a low projection, which an

The Glass Houses. t^cy

unfortunate occurrence afterwards caused to be named Point Skirmish.
On the i6th, whilst beating up amongst the shoals, an opening was
perceived round the point, and being much in want of a place to lay the
sloop on shore, on account of a leak, I trie 1 to enter ; but not finding it
accessible from the south, was obliged to make the examination with tlm
boat, whilst the sloop lay at anchor five miles off.

"There was a party of natives on the point, and our communication
was at first friendly ; but after receiving presents they made an attack.
and one of them was wounded by our fire. Proceeding up the opening,
I found it to be more than a mile in width, and from the quantity of
pumice stone on the borders it was called Pumice Stone river. It led
towards the remarkable peaks called the Glass Houses, which were now
suspected to be volcanic, and excited my curiosity. The leak being
partly repaired, I left the Glass Houses and the river for a future
examination, and proceeded up the bay with the afternoon's flood. On
the 1 8th, at noon, we had passed two low islands surrounded with shoals,
and anchored abreast of a third. Next day we beat up against a
southern wind to a sixth island ; but the shoals then became more
numerous, and the channels so narrow that it was very difficult to
proceed further. The latitude observed upon the si.xth island was
27 deg. 35 min., being thirty-four miles south of Cape Moreton, at the
entrance to the bay. Above this island the east and west shores, from
being nine or ten miles apart, approach each other within two miles, and
the space between them takes the form of a river, but the entrance was
too full of shoals to leave a hope of penetrating by it far into the interior,
or that it could be of importance to navigation.

" Under this discouragement, all further research at the head of
Glass House Bay was given up, and I proceeded to seek in Pumice
Stone river for a place to stop the leak more securely, and the means of
visiting the Glass Houses. On the 22nd we got into the river after
many difficulties, arising principally from shoals in the entrance which
could only be passed at high water.

"July 25. The leaky plank being quite secured, and the sloop
restored and completed with water, we proceed two miles further up the
river, amongst mangrove islets and muddy flats. Next morning I landed
on the west side, as far above the sloop as the boat could advance, and.
with my friend Bongaree and two sailors, steered north-westward for the
Gjass House peaks. After nine miles of laborious walking, mostly
through swamps or over a rocky country, \vejeache d the top o f ^ sto ny
mounti_from whence the highest peak was four miles distant, to the
north^^Avest Three or four leagues beyond it was a ritlge of mountains,
from which various small streams descend into Pumice Stone river, the
principal place of their junction seeming to be at a considerable extent
of water, which bore 80 deg. E., and was about si.x miles above the sloop.

5^8 Genesis of Queensland.

Early on the 27th we reached the foot of the nearest Glass House, a flat-
topped peak, one mile and a half^liorthorTlie stony mount. It was
impossible to ascend this almost perpendicular rock ; and, finding no
marks of volcanic eruption, we returned to the sloop the same evening.
Some communication with the natives had been obtained while the sloop
was on shore. 1 am happy to say they were all friendly, which is
attributable to their opinion of us, having undergone a salutary change
from the effect of our fire-arms at Point Skirmish. These people were
evidently of the same race as those at Port Jackson, though speaking a
language which Bongaree could not understand. They fish almost
wholly with cast and setting nets, live more in society than the natives to
the southward, and are better lodged. Two or three bark canoes were
seen, but from the number of black swans in the river, of which eighteen
were caught in our little boat, it should seem that these people are not
dexterous in the management of the canoe or spear. «*

" The entrance of Glasshouse Bay, from Cape Skirmish to the
inner part of Cape Moreton is eight miles wide ; but it contains so many
shoals that a ship would have much difficulty in finding a passage.
These shoals are of sand, and in the channels between them, are various
depths from five to thirteen fathoms. The land on the borders of
Pumice Stone river is low, and is either sandy or rocky, with a slight
superficies of vegetable soil, yet not ill-clothed with grass and wood.
On the west side of Glasshouse Bay, the appearance of the land was
much similar. The long slip on the east side, which I have called
!Moreton Island, as supposing it would have received that name from
Captain Cook, had he known of its insularity, is little else than a ridge
of rocky hills, with a sandy surface, but the peninsula further south had
some appearance of fertility. I judged favourably of the country on
the borders of what seemed to be a river falling into the head of the
bay, both from its thick covering of wood, and from the good soil of the
sixth island which lies at the entrance. The other islands in the bay
are very low, and so surrounded with forest of large mangrove, that it
would be difficult to land upon them. . . .

"July 31. We sailed out of Pumice Stone river and by keeping
near the shore of Point Skirmish had generally six fathom. . .
Being constantly repulsed by shoals, I was at length forced to relinquish
the hope of penetrating further up Hervey's Bay. We then started
north-westward, to complete the examination of the west side down to the
coast seen by Captain Cook. . . .

" August 7. At daylight, a sloping hummock, in latitude 24 deg.
50 min., bore W. 16 N., our distance off the shore under it being one
mile and a half, and the depth seven fathom. The coast was then
seen extending to the W.N.W., and having been laid down by Captain
Cook, the north-eastern course was continued for Break Sea Spit, and

H.M.S. "Investigator." -eg

the examination of Hervey's Bay concliuled. This inlet is about fifteen
leagues across, from the sloping hummock to the eastern extremity of
Sandy Cape, and nearly as much in depth. The east siile is formcil by
a great sandy peninsula, of which the Cape is the nortliern extremity; but
about half way up there arc several while cliffs, ■^n^ i^\]^,■v<. in tl,,. u'.pcr
bay, which had the appearance of clialk.

"The shores at the head and on the west side, arc more rockv
than sandy ; the back land is low for some miles and not ill covered
with grass and wood ; it then rises to hills of considerable elevation.
amongst which Double Mount was mo^t remarkable. The smokes in
different places bespoke the country to be inhabited in the scanty num-
bers usual on other parts of the east coast, but none of the people were seen.

" At ten in the evening, we passed the end of Break Sea Spit,
and hauled up south-east ; but the winds were so unfavourable
that on the 14th our latitude was no more than 29 deg. 19 min. I kept
the land barely within sight, in order to obtain the greatest advantage
from the southwardly current ; for contrary to Captain Cook's obser-
vations, it was found to be strongest at the distance of six, and from Uience
to twenty leagues. Close in with the shore, more especially in the
bights which fall within the general line of the coast, an eddy had been
found setting to the northward. Light northern winds favoured us for
two days, but returning to the southward and sometimes blowing strong;
it was the 20th in the evening, before the sloop was secured in Port
Jackson, although the current had set us two hundred and ten miles on
the way. I must acknowledge myself to have been disappointed in not
being able to penetrate into the interior of New South Wales by either
of the openings examined in this expedition, but however mortifying the
conviction might be, it was then an ascertained fact, that no river of
importance intersected the east coast between the 24th and 29th degrees
of south latitude." ... "^

" On the 19th of January, 1801, a commission was signed at tlie
Admiralty appointing the lieutenant of His ISIajesty's ship 'Investigator.'
to which the name of the ship hitherto known as the ' Xenophon,' was
changed by this commission ; and Captain John Henry Martin having
received orders to consider himself to be superseded,! took the command
at Sheerness, on the 25th of the same month.

" The 'Investigator' was a north-country built ship, of 330 tons; and
in form, nearly resembled the description of vessel recommended by
Captain Cook as best calculated for voyages of discovery. . . .
Every chart at the Admiralty, which related to Terra Australis. and the
neighbouring Islands, was copied for us under the direction of the laic
hydrographer, Alexander Dalrj-mple, Esq.

"On July 18th, 1801, we sailed from Spithead. . . . At daybreak of
November 4th a light breeze from the eastward enabled me to quit

^60 Genesis of Queensland.

Simon's Bay after a stoppage (at the Cape of Good Hope of eighteen days)
at six in the evening. . . . We took our departure for New Holland.

"Sunday, 9th May, 1802. At one o'clock we gained the Heads
(Port Jackson), and soon after three the ' Investigator ' was anchored in
Sydney Cove.

"Thursday, 22nd July. Lieutenant John Murray, commander of
the brig ' Lady Nelson,' having received orders to put himself under my
command, I gave him a code of signals, and directed him, in case of
separation, to repair to Hervey's Bay, which he was to enter by a passage,
said to have been found by the South Sea whalers, between Sandy Cape
and Break Sea Spit. In the morning of July 22, we sailed out of Port
Jackson together, and the breeze being fair and fresh, ran rapidly to the
northward, keeping at a little distance from the coast.

"Sunday, 25 July. The sun was setting at the time Cape Byron
bore west, three or four miles, and the coast from thence to Point Look-
out having been seen by Captain Cook, we steered off in order to avoid
falling in with the reefs of Point Danger in the night. At eleven,
hauled more in for the land.

"Monday, 26 July. Mount Warning was set at S. 25 deg., W.
twenty leagues. In coming in with Point Look-out, I took observations
for the latitude and longitude, which fixed it at 27 deg. 27 min. south,
and 153 deg, 31 min. east. The latitude is the same as it had been made
in the Norfolk but is 19 min. south and 3 min. west of the situation
given by Captain Cook's chart. . . . We made sail for Cape
Moreton, and came up with it at four o'clock. I was much surprised to
see a small but dangerous reef lying between four and five miles off this
Cape to the north-east, which had not been noticed in the Norfolk" (see
above, Flinders, 1798-9, the colonial sloop allotted to him of twenty-five
tons, in Sydney, by Governor Hunter) " in entering Glasshouse Bay, I
had then hauled close round Cape Moreton at dusk in the evening, and
in coming out had passed too far westward to observe it.

" Tuesday, 27th July. After passing the dangerous reef, we steered
northward until three in the morning, and then hove to until daylight,
for the purpose of examining the land about Double Island Point and
Wide Bay, which did not appear to have been well distinguished by
Captain Cook. At seven o'clock the point bore N. 2 W., six leagues,
and the shore abreast, a beach with sandy hills behind it was distant
six miles. Between the point S. 63 deg. W. and alow bluff head bearing
S. 32 deg. W., was a bight in the coast, where the sand hill seemed to
terminate, for the back land further south was high and rocky, with
small peaks on the top similar to the ridge behind the Glass Houses,
of which it is probably a continuation.

" At half-past nine we hauled close round Double Island Point,
within a rock lying between one and two miles to the N.N.E., having

Do Wide and Hervey's Bays Join? cjOi

seven fathoms for the least water. The jioint answered Captain Cook's
description. It is a steep head at the extremity of a neck of land,
which runs out two miles from the main, and lies in 25 dej,'.
56 min. S. and 153 deg. 13 mm. E. On the north side of the point
the coast falls back to the westward, and presents a steej) shore of
white sand, but in curving round Wide Bay the sandy land becomes
very low, and a small opening was seen in it leading to a piece of
water like a lagoon, but the shoals which lie across the entrance
render it difficult of access, if, indeed, there be a passage for anythin"-
larger than boats. Had the ' Lady Nelson ' been with me I should
have attempted to get her into the lagoon, having previously entertained
a conjecture that the head of Hervey's Bay might communicate with
Wide Bay, but the apprehension that Lieutenant Murray would
arrive at the first rendezvous, and proceed to the next before we
could join him, deterred me from attempting it with the ' Investigator '
or with boats.

" Upon the north side of the opening there were a number of Indians,
fifty as reported, looking at the ship, and near Double Island Point ten
others had been seen, implying a more numerous population than is usual
to the southward. I inferred from hence, that the piece of water at the
head of Wide Bay was extensive and shallow ; for in such places the
natives draw much subsistence from fish which there abound, and are
more easily caught than in deep water. So far as could be seen from
the mast-head at three or four miles off, the water extended about five
miles westward. Its extent north and south could not be distinguished,
and it seemed probable that one, and perhaps two streams fall into it^
for there were many large medusae floating at the entrance, such as are
usually found near the mouths of rivers. . . Our course at night
vjras directed by the fires on the shore, and the wind being moderate
from the south -\vestward, it was continued until ten o'clock ; after which
we stood off and on until daylight.

" Wednesday, 28th July, Had Indian Head bearing S. 54 deg. \^'.
one mile and a-half. This head was so named by Captain Cook
from the great number of Indians assembled there in 1770. At
eleven o'clock we reached Sandy Cape, and the master was sent
ahead to sound in a small passage through Break Sea Spit. The
ship followed under easy sail until we got into three fathoms, and the
master not making the signal for any deeper water, I tacked and called
the boat on board. The channel appeared to go quite through the
Spit into Hervey's Bay, but as there were in many parts not more than
two fathoms it can be passed only by small vessels. . . . Our
observations fixed Sandy Cape in 24 deg. 42 min, S. and 153 deg.
16 min. E,, being 3 deg. north, and 7 min. east of the position assigned
to it by Captain Cook.
2 N

^62 Genesis of Queensland.

"Thursday, 29th July. At three in the morning, on a breeze
springing up at S.W. by S., we stretched south-eastwards, and a vessel
having been observed overnight off Indian Head, this tack was prolonged
till seven o'clock, when seeing nothing of her, we stood back to the
Spit, and coasted close along its east side as before, in from ten to five
fathoms water. At forty minutes after noon we passed over the tail of
the Spit, in latitude 24 deg. 24 min.; the water then deepening suddenly
from six and seven to twenty-two fathoms, and the white patches on
Sandy Cape bearing S. 8 deg. E. In standing N.W. by W. we crossed
a bank in eleven fathoms, and on tacking, passed another part of it
with only five. The water upon it was not discoloured, nor had it been
observed by Captain Cook or me in the ' Norfolk.' It lies about six
miles W.N.W. from the end of Break Sea Spit.

'' The first rendezvous appointed for Lieutenant jNIurray was the
anchorage near Sandy Cape ; but the wind being unfavourable, we did
not reach it till four on the following afternoon, Friday, 30th July, at
which time the anchor was dropped in seven fathoms, sandy bottom,
with the outer extremity of the Cape bearing S. 79 deg. E., and the
nearest part distant two miles. A vessel was seen on the outside of the
Spit, which proved to be the ' Lady Nelson,' and the master being sent
with a boat to assist her through the passage, she anchored near us at
sunset, and Lieutenant ^tlurray came on board. The account he gave
of his separation, and the delay in arriving at the rendezvous, convinced
me, both of the ' Lady Nelson' being an indifferent vessel, and of the
truth of an observation before made upon the current ; that it runs
much stronger to the southward at the distance of six, and from that to
twenty leagues off the coast, than it does close in with the shore.

"Sunday, ist August. In the morning the wind was from the
southward, and we steered across Hervey's Bay towards a sloping
hummock on the west side, where my examination in the
'Norfolk' had terminated. . . . From Port Jackson to Sandy Cape,
Captain Cook's positions had been found to differ from mine not more
than from 10 min. east to 7 min. west, which must be considered a great
degree of accuracy, considering the expeditious manner in which he
sailed along the coast, and that there were no timekeepers on board the
'Endeavour;' but from Sandy Cape northward, where the direction of the
coast has a good deal of westing in it, greater differences began to show
themselves.

" Monday, 2nd August. At daybreak we pursued our course along
shore, at the distance of four or five miles. There was no remarkable
projection till we came to the south head of Bustard Bay, and the night
being at hand we ran in and anchored.

" At daylight (Tuesday 3rd August), we proceeded along the coast,
but the wind being very light, were no more than abreast of the north

Gatcotnhe Head. 563

head of Bustard I5ay at noon. This norih head lies in latitude 24 deg.,
as laid down by Captain Cook, and bears from the south head N. 44
deg., W. twelve miles. It is moderately high, and behind it is a mass
of hummocky, barren hills, which extend far to the westward.

"Wednesday, 4th August. At noon the north head of Bustard Bay
was brought to bear S. 16 deg. E. four leagues, our latitude being then
23 deg. 48 min., and longitude 151 deg. 40 min. .\ low island was
seen from the mast-head, bearing north at the su])i.osed distance of six
leagues, of which Captain Cook does not make any mention ; and the
furthest visible part of the mainland was a conspicuous hill, named
Mount Larcom, in compliment to Captain Larcom of the navy. It bore
W. \ N. ten or eleven leagues, but the coast line between it and the
north head of Bustard Bay, seemed to be much broken.

"In the afternoon a light breeze from the north-westward enabled
us to stretch in for the land, and we anchored soon after sunset in ten
fathoms, brown sand, five or six miles from a projection which received
the name of Gatcombe Head ; and to the southward of it there was
rather a deep bight in the coast.

" Thursday, 5th August. At daylight of the 5th we closed into the
shore, steering north-westward ; and at nine o'clock a small opening
was discovered, and water seen over the low front land. . . . The
opening was not so much as a mile in width, but from the extent of
water within, it was conjectured to have a communication with the bight
on the south side ot Gatcombe Head ; and this being an object worthv
of examination, the sails were furled, and the boats hoisted out. The
naturalist and his companions landed at the west side of the entrance,
where some Indians had assembled to look at the ship, but they retired on
the approach of our gentlemen, and afterwards taking advantage of a hil-
lock began to throw stones at the party, nor would they desist until two or
three muskets were fired over their heads, when they disappeared.
There were seven bark canoes lying on the shore, and near them hung
upon a tree some parts of a turtle ; and scoop nets, such as those of
Hervey's Bay, were also seen.

" I proceeded up the opening in a boat, went over to the west shore,
and ascended a hill called in the chart, Hill View, from whence it was
evident that this water did certainly communicate with the bight rouml
Gatcombe Head, and by an opening much more considerable than that
in which the vessels were anchored ; the port was also seen to extend
far to the westward, and I was induced to form a regular plan for its
examination,

" Friday, 6th August. Early in the morning I went off in the
whale-boat, with two days' provisions, and made nearly a straight course
up the port for a low point on the south shore called Southtrecs Point.
The water was very shallow, with many rocks and dry banks, until the

564 Genesis of Queensland.

southern entrance was fairly open, when the depth varied between seven
and three fathoms, but there was from six to eight close to the low
point. This forms the inner part of the southern entrance, and Gatcombe
Head, the outer part, lies from it S. 64 deg. E. about four miles ; from
the head southward, however, the width of the channel is much less,
being contracted by banks which extend out from the opposite shore.
Seeing nothing of the brig, I proceeded in the examination, steering
westward for a small island four or five miles up the port. This is the
southernmost of six islets, lying behind the point of Hill View, and
from one or two hillocks upon it another set of bearings was taken.
. . . . 1 went to a point on the northern shore, near two miles
higher up. where the water was so deep that a ship might make fast to
the rocks and trees ; the soundings were very irregular from the
southern islet, but the least depth was five fathoms.

" The port was here contracted to one mile in width, but it opened
out higher up, and taking a more northerly direction, assumed the form
of a river. . . . We rowed on upwards, and landed with difficulty
on the west shore before it became quite dark. The breadth of the
stream here was about a mile, and the greatest depth six fathoms at low
water.

" Saturday, 7th August. In the morning a small opening was
observed in the opposite eastern shore; but, reserving this for examination
on returning, I proceeded upwards, with a fair wind, five miles further,
when the greatest depth anywhere to be found was three fathoms. The
stream then divided into two arms ; the largest, about one mile in
breadth, continuing its direction to the N.W. by N., and apparently
ending a little further up ; the other running westward ; but the greater
part of both occupied by shallow water and mud banks. Upon the
point of separation, which is insulated at high water, there were some
low, reddish cliffs, the second observed on the west shore, and from
thence I set Mount Larcom at S. 15 deg. 15 min. W., distant seven or
eight miles.

" This station was nine miles above the steep point where the port
is first contracted, and the steep point is ten from Gatcombe Head ; and
conceiving it could answer no essentially useful purpose to pursue the
examination where a ship could not go, I returned to the small opening
in the eastern shore, opposite to where we had passed the night. There
were four fathoms in the entrance of this little branch, but it presently
became shallow, and I landed to ascend a hill, which had but little wood
on the top. The sea was visible from thence (Ship Hill).

" Lieutenant Murray had found some difficulty in getting into the
southern entrance, from a shoal which lay to the S.E. by E., one mile
and a-half from Gatcombe Head. He passed on the north side of the
shoal, and brought deep water as far as Southtrees Point ; but in

Port Curtis. cr,c

steering onward in mid-channel, had mei with other banks, and was
obliged to anchor.

" Sunday, 8th August. As much time had been employed in the
examination of this port as the various objects I had in view could
permit, we prepared to quit it on the following morning. This part of ihc
east coast had been passed in the night by C'ai)tain Cook ; so that both
the openings escaped his notice, and the discovery of the port fell to
our lot. In honour of Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, who had commanded
at the Cape of Good Hope, and been so attentive to our wants, I gave it
the name of Port Curtis, and the island which protects it from the sea
and, in fact, forms the port, was called 'Facing Island.' It is a slip of
rather low land, eight miles in length, and from two to half-a-mile in
breadth, having Gatcombe Head as its southern extremity.

" The northern entrance to Port Curtis is accessible only to boats,
but ships of any size may enter the port by the southern opening.
There is good anchorage just within Gatcombe Head, and at a small
beach there, behind a rock, is a rill of fresh water, and wood is easilv to
be procured.

" Monday, 9th August. On getting under way at daylight to
prosecute the examination of the coast, the anchor came up with an arm
broken oft, in consequence of a flaw extending two-thirds through the
iron. The negligence with which this anchor had been made might, in
some cases, have caused the loss of the ship.

" In following the low and rather sandy shore, northward to Cape
Capricorn, we passed within a rocky islet, and another composed of rock
and sand, four miles south-east of the Cape, and at 10 o'clock hauled
round for Cape Keppel, which lies from Cape Capricorn N. 80 dcg. \V.,
ten miles. At six miles out there is a hummocky island and four rocks,
one of which was at first taken for a ship. We passed within these, as
Captain Cook before had done ; and at half-past two in the afternoon
anchored in Keppel Bay, in six fathoms, soft bottom, three-quarters of a
mile from a head on the east side of the entrance.

"My object in stopping at this bay was to explore two openings
marked in it by Captain Cook, which it was possible might be the
entrances of rivers leading into the interior. I landed with a party of
the gentlemen to inspect the bay from an eminence called Sea Hill.
There were four places where the water penetrated into the land, but
none of these openings were large; that on the west side, in which were
two islands, was the most considerable, and the hills near it were
sufficiently elevated to afford an extensive view.

" Tuesday, loth August. The depth in steering for the western
arm was from six to nine fathoms, for about one mile, when it diminished
quickly to two, upon a shoal which seemed to run up the bay ; the water
afterwards deepened to five and seven fathoms. I then went on in my

566 Genesis of Queensland.

boat for the nearest of the two islands. The two islands are mostly very
low, and the shores so muddy and covered with mangroves, that a
landing on the northern and highest of them could be effected only at
the west end ; but a hillock there enabled me to take a useful set of
bearings, including INIount Larcom, which is visible from all parts of this
bay, as it is from Port Curtis.

" In the afternoon I proceeded up the western arm, having three to
eight fathoms close along the northern shore ; and about four miles up,
where the width was diminished to one mile, found a landing place, a
rare convenience here, and ascended a hill, from whence there was a
good view. The borders of the western arm, and of its upper branches,
so far as could be perceived, were overrun with mangroves ; whence it
seemed probable that the water was salt, and that no landing was
practicable higher than this station ; the sun also was near setting when
my bearings from Westarm Hill were completed ; and I therefore gave
up the intention of .proceeding further, and returned to the northern
island in the entrance, to pass the night.

"Thursday, 12th August. I went, accompanied by the naturalist,
to examine the eastern arm of the bay, which is divided into two
branches. Pursuing the easternmost and largest, with soundings from
six to three fathoms, we came to several mangrove islands, about four
miles up, where the stream changed its direction from S.S.E. to E.S.E.,
and the deepest water was two fathoms. A little further on we landed
for the night, cutting a path through the mangroves to a higher part of
the northern shore.

"Friday, 13th August. In the morning I set Broad INIount, in
Keppel Bay, at N. 61 deg. 20 min. W., and Mount Larcom S. 8 deg-
20 min. E. ; and we then steered onward in six to eight feet water,
amongst various little islands of mud and mangroves ; the whole width
of the stream being still more than half-a-mile, nearly the same as at the
entrance. Three miles above the sleeping place the water began to
increase in breadth, and was two fathoms deep ; and, advancing further,
it took a direction more southward, and to our very agreeable surprise,
brought us to the head of Port Curtis, forming thus a channel of com-
munication from Keppel Bay, and cutting off Cape Capricorn, with a
piece of land twenty-five miles in length, from the continent. Having
found one communication, we rowed up the western branch near the
reddish cliffs, hoping to get back to Keppel Bay by a second new
passage ; but after going two miles, with a diminishing depth from four
fathoms to three feet, we were stopped by mangroves, and obliged to
return to the main stream.

" The tide was half ebbed when we came to the shallowest part of
the communicating channel, and it was with difTiculty that the boat could
be got over. A space here of about two miles in length appears to be

Keppel Bay — Soldier Crabs.

567

dry, or very nearly so, at low water, hut it is possible that some small
channel may exist amongst the mangroves of sufficient depth for a boat
to pass at all times of tide. ... We reached the entrance of ihc
eastern arm from Keppel Bay with the last of the ebb, and look the
flood to go up the southern branch. The depth of water was generally
three fathoms on the eastern side and the width nearly half-a-mile. This
continued three miles up, when a division took place. In the smallest.
which ran southward, we got one mile, and up the other, leading south-
west, two miles, when both were found to terminate in shallows amongst
mangroves.

" Saturday, 14th August. I left the ship again in the morning, and
went up the southern arm, to a little hill on its western shore ; this arm is
one mile in width, and the depth in it from three to six fathoms ; the
shores are fiat, as in other parts, and covered with mangroves ; but at
aigh water a landing was effected under the ' South Hill' without much
trouble. The sides of this little eminence are steep, and were so thickly
covered with trees and shrubs, bound together, and intertwisted with
strong vines, that our attempts to reach the top were fruitless. It would
hcve been perhaps easier to climb up the trees, and scramble from one
to another on the vines, than to have penetrated through the intricate net-
work in the darkness underneath The small fish

which leaps on land upon two strong breast fins, and was first
seen by Captain Cook on the shores of Thirsty Sound, was verv
conmon in this swamp around South Hill. There were also
numbers of a small kind of red crab, having one of its claws un-
corr.monly large, being, indeed, nearly as big as the body ; and this it
keeps erected and open so long as there is any expectation of disturb-
ance. It was curious to see a file of these pugnacious little animals
raise their claws at our approach, and open their pincers ready for an
attack ; and, afterwards, finding there was no molestation, shoulder
their arms and march on.

"At nine in the evening, the tide brought the boat under the hill,
and allowed us to return to the ship. All the examination of Keppel
Bay, which our time could allow, was now done.

"Tuesday, 17th August. The anchor was weighed at daylight,
but the wind being unfavourable, it took the whole day to get into the
offing.

"Keppel Bay was discovered by Captain Cook, who saile«l past in
1770.

"The rocks and islands lying off Keppel Bay to the northward arc
numerous and scattered without order; two of them are of greater
magnitude than the rest, and Captain Cook had attemi)tetl to pass
between these and the main land, from which they arc distant about five
miles, but shoal water obliged him to desist.

568 Genesis of Queensland.

" Wednesday, iSth August. When we got away in the morning of
the 1 8th our course was directed for the outside of these two islands,
and we passed within a mile of them in nine, and from that to thirteen
fathoms of water. They are five miles asunder, and the southernmost
and largest is near twelve in circumference. Its rocky hills are partly
covered with grass and wood, and the gullies down the sides, as also
the natives seen upon the island, implied that fresh water was to be had
there.

"Thursday, 19th August. At seven next morning, having a light
air from the land with foggy weather, we steered northward along the
coast, and at noon were in latitude 22 deg. 47|-min., and two rocks near
the shore bore S. 54 deg. W., two or three miles.

" Friday, 20th August. At daylight we proceeded along the coast
to the island lying off Cape Manifold. ,

"Saturday, 21st August. The wind veering to the south-west x
five (in the morning) we stretched in for the land, and approached somi
rocky islets, part of the Harvey's Isles of Captain Cook, of which, and of
the main coast as far as Island Head, Mr. Westall made a sketch. At
half-past nine, when we tacked from Harvey's Isles, I was surprised to
see trees upon them resembling the pines of Norfolk Island, none such
having been noticed upon this coast, nor, to my knowledge, upon any
coast of Terra Australis. Pines were also distinguished upon a mare
southern islet, four miles off, and behind it was a deep bight in the land,
where there seemed to be shelter. . . . Instead of a bight in the
coast we found this to be a port of some extent, which had not only
escaped the notice of Captain Cook, but, by the shift of wind, was very
nearly being missed by us also. I named it ' Port Bowen,' in compliment
to Captain James Bowen, of the navy ; and to the hilly projection on the
north side of the entrance I gave the appellation of ' Cape Clinton,' after
Colonel Clinton, of the 85th, who commanded the land, as Captain
Bowen did the sea forces, at Madeira, when we stopped at that island.

" Sunday, 22nd August. Early next morning set off in my whale-
boat upon an excursion round the port. From the ship to the inner part
of Cape Clinton the soundings were from five to eight fathoms, on a
sandy bottom, but close to the innermost point there was no ground at
ten fathoms. From thence I steered up the western arm, passing to the
south of a central rock lying a mile out, and got, with difficulty, to the
projection named West Water Head. The arm terminated a little further
on ; but to the northward, over the land, I saw a long shallow bay at the
back of Island Head, and beyond it was the sea. . . Then returned
to the inner part of Cape Clinton. In rowing to the southward, close
along the inside of the cape, we had from three to nine fathoms water ;
but it was too late in the evening to make an examination of the southern
arm, and I therefore ascended a hill near the shore to inspect it. This

Cape Townshend to Upper Head. 565

was called ' East Water Hill,' and I saw from its toj) that the souihcrn
arm extended S. 16 deg. W., about seven miles, to the foot of the liills
behind Cape Manifold, when it terminated in shallows and mangroves.

"Wednesday, 25th August. I saw not only that Cape Townshend was
in a distinct island, but also that it was separated from a piece of land to
the west, which Captain Cook's chart had left doubtful. Wishing U) follow
the apparent intention of the discoverer, to do honour to the noble family
of Townshend, I have extended the name of the Cape to the larger island.
and distinguished the western piece by tlie name of Leicester Island.
Besides these there were many smaller isles scattered in the entrance of
Shoalwater Bay, and the southernmost of them, named Aken's Island,
after the master of the ship, lies in a bight of the western shore. Out
at sea there were more of the Northumberland Islands, further westward
,than those before seen, the largest being not less distant than fifteen
leagues. Pier Head, on the west side of Thirsty Sound, was also visible ;
and in the opposite direcdon was the highest of the two peaks behind
Cape Manifold, the bearing of which connected this station with Port
Curtis and Keppel Bay. The view was indeed, most extensive from this
hill, and in compliment to the landscape painter, who made a drawing
from thence of Shoalwater Bay and the Islands, I named it Mount
Westall." (A painting was made of this view and is now in the Admiralty. 1

"Sunday, 12th September. Anchored abreast of the hilly pro-
jection on the east side, which I have named ' Upper Head,' in four
fathoms, soft bottom, two-thirds of a mile from the shore, This was
the first place on the main where there was any prospect of being able
to land; for the western shore, thus far up, was equally low, and as
much overrun with mangroves and defended by muddy flats, as the
shores of Keppel Bay. . . . There was no fresh water at Upper
Head.

"Monday, 13th September. Next morning, when the flooil made,
we drifted upwards, with the ' Lady Nelson," and a boat sounding ahead.
. . . After advancing three miles the brig suddenly took the ground,
and we dropped a stream anchor ; but in swinging to it the ship was
caught upon a bank of quick-sand for eleven feet, and the tide running
strong upon the broadside, it made her heel in a manner to excite alarm.
The sails were immediately clewed down, and the top-gallant yards
struck ; ... the best bower was let go, and then she righted and
swung to the tide. The ' Lady Nelson ' also got off safe ; but a i)art of
the after sliding keel was carried away. I went in a boat to examine
the place which had presented the apjiearance of an 0{)cning, but it
proved to be only a bending in the shore, and the mud banks and man-
groves did not admit of landing ; we therefore went back to Upper Head
with the returning ebb ; and moored the ship nearly in our first situation ;
where there was something more than three fathoms at low water.

" The latitude of Upper Head, from six meridian observations in
the artificial horizon, is 22 deg. 23 min. 24 sec. S., longitude 149 deg.
46 min. 53 sec. E.

" It may be proper to say what I conceive to be the extraordinary
rise of the tide in Broad sound. From Cape Howe, at the southern
extremity of the east coast, to Port Curtis at the edge of the tropic, the
time of high water falls between seven and nine hours after the moon's
passage, and the rise does not exceed nine feet, but from thence to the
northward, commencing with Keppel Bay, the time becomes later, and
the rise augments till at Broadsound they reach eleven hours, and
between thirty and thirty-five feet. The principal flood-tide upon the
coast is supposed to come from the south-east, and the ebb from the
north or north-west ; but from the particular formation of Keppel and
Shoalwater Bays, and of Broadsound, whose entrances face the north or
north-west, this ebb tide sets into them, and accumulates the water for
some time, becoming to them a flood. This will, in some degree,
account for the later time and greater rise of the tide, and is
conformable to what Captain Cook says upon the subject* ; but
I think there is still a super-adding cause. At the distance of about
thirty leagues to the N.N.W. from Break Sea Spit, commences a vast
mass of reefs, which lie from twenty to thirty leagues from the coast, and
extend past Broadsound. These reefs, being mostly dry at low water,
will impede the free access of the tide, and the greater proportion of it
will come in between Break Sea Spit and the reefs, and be late in reaching
the remoter parts ; and if we suppose the reefs to terminate to the north
or north-west of the Sound, or that a large opening in them there exists,
another flood-tide will come from the northward, and meet the former,
and the accumulation of water from this meeting will cause an extra-
ordinary rise in Broadsound and the neighbouring bays, in the same
manner as the meeting of the tides in the English and Irish Channels
causes a great rise upon the north coast of France and the west coast of
England.

" That an opening exists in these reefs will hereafter appear ; and
Captain Cook's observations prove that for more than a degree to the
north-west of Broadsound the flood came from the northward. Ifound,
when at anchor off Keppel Bay, and again off Island Head, that the
flood there came from the east or south-east ; but when lying three miles
out from Pier Head, there was no set whatever, and I am disposed to
think that it is at the entrance to Broadsound where the two floods meet
each other.

"Tuesday, 28th September. On quitting Broadsound, we steered
for the north-easternmost of the Northumberland Islands, which I

* Hawkesworth, III., 244.

Percy and Northumberland Isles. 571

intended to visit on the way to Torres Straits. These arc not otherwise
marked by Captain Cook than as a single i)iece of land seen indistinctly,
of three leagues in extent ; but I had already descried from Mount
Westall and Pier Head a cluster of islands, forming a distinct portion of
this archipelago ; and in honour to the noble house to which Northum-
berland gives the title of Duke, I named them Percy Isles.

"Thursday, 30th September. Mount Westall Cnot distinct) S. 23 deg.
5 min. E.; Northumberland Islands, the fourth, a peak, S. 18 deg.

20 min. E.; Northumberland Islands, the seventh, the station on the
hill, S. 19 deg. 30 min. W. ; Northumberland Islands, a peak I
marked , ' N,' N. 87 deg. 35 min. W. ; Northumberland Islands, high
northernmost, marked 'I,' N. 57 deg. W.

" Sunday, 3rd October. Mr. Bauer, the natural history painter,
went with me to the northern Percy Isles, upon each of which is a hill
somewhat peaked ; but that on number three is much the most so, and the
highest ; and being thickly covered with pine trees, is called ' Pine
Peak '; it lies in 21 deg. 31^ min. S., and 150 deg. 14^ E. My prin-
cipal object was to take angles for the survey ; and not being able to
ascend 'Pine Peak," from its great declivity, we went onward to the two
smaller islands, number four.

" Monday, 4th October. Early in the morning we got under way,
with the 'Lady Nelson' in company, to proceed on our voyage to Torres
Straits and the Gulf of Carpentaria. . . . Passed between number
four and some rocks lying two miles to the north-east, with thirty-three
fathoms water. During the night we tacked every two hours, working to
the eastward, in from thirty to thirty-six fathoms, and at six p.m.
anchored in twenty-seven fathoms, coarse sand, in the following
situation: — Latitude obser\-ed from the moon, 21 deg. 4 min. S.;
longitude from bearings, 150 deg. 19 min. E.; Percy Isles, Pine Pe.ik,
of No. 3, S. 7 deg. W.; Cumberland Island, marked ' K," W. 6 deg. N.

"Tuesday, 5th October. At daylight my station on the Eastern
Isle, number 4, bore N. 89 deg. W. four leagues. Nothing was seen in the
offing, but in stretching to the N.N.E. reefs were discovered from the
mast-head a little before noon, and after the observation for the latitude
was taken, I set one bearing east to E. by S. two leagues, and another
N, 14 deg. W. to 29 deg. E. four or five miles. Our situation was in

21 deg. i5t min. S., and longitude, from the bearings of the Pine Peak,
IS4 deg. 34 min. E. These reefs were not exactly those seen by
Mr. Campbell"— [of the brig " Deptford," in 1797]— "but they are
probably not more than five or six leagues to the north-westward of
them, and form part of the same barrier to the coast. At six. anchored
in 27 fathoms."

Captain Flinders continued his search for a passage through these
barrier reefs during the 6th, 7th, and Sth October, and on . . .

cn2 Genesis of Queensland.

"Saturday, 9th October. In the morning, steered E.N.E., with a
light air from the southward. The brig was ahead, and at half-past
nine made the signal for immediate danger, upon which the stern anchor
was dropped in sixteen fathom. . . .

"The latitude observed to the north and south at this fifth anchorage
amongst the reefs" was 20 deg. 53 min. 15 sec, longitude, by timekeeper,
151 deg. 5 min. E. In the afternoon I went upon the reef with a party
of the gentlemen, and the water being very clear round the edges, a new
creation, as it was to us, but imitative of the old, was there presented to
our view. We had wheat sheaves, mushrooms, stag's horns, cabbage
leaves, and a variety of other forms, glowing under water with vivid tints
of every shade betwixt green, purple, brown, and white, equalling in
beauty and excelling in grandeur the most favourite parterre of the
curious florist. These were different species of coral or fungus, growing,
as it were, out of the solid rock, and each had its peculiar form and shade
of colouring ; but whilst contemplating the richness of the scene, we
could not long forget with what destruction it was pregnant.

" Different shells in a dead state, concreted into a solid mass of a
dull white colour, composed the stone of the reef. The negro heads
were lumps which stood higher than the rest ; and being generally dry,
were blackened by the weather ; but even in these, the forms of the
different corals, and some shells were distinguishable. The edges of
the reef, but particularly on the outside where the sea broke, were the
highest parts ; within there were pools and holes containing live corals,
sponges and sea eggs, and cucumbers* ; and many enormous cockles
{chama gigas) were scattered upon different parts of the reef. At low
water, this cockle seems most commonly to lie half open, but frequently
closes with much noise ; and the water within the shells then spouts up
in a stream, three or four feet high : it was from this noise, and the
spouting of the water, that we discovered them, for in other respects
they were scarcely to be distinguished from the coral rock. A number of
these cockles were taken on board the ship, and stewed in the coppers ;
but they were too rank to be agreeable food, and were eaten by few.
One of them weighed 47i lbs. when taken up, and contained 3 lbs. 2 oz.
of meat ; but the size is much inferior to what was found by Captains
Cook and Bligh, upon the reefs of the coast further northward, or to
several in the British Museum ; and I have since seen single shells more
than four times the weight of the above shells and fish taken together.

"There were various small channels amongst the reefs, some of
which led to the outer breakers, and through these the tide was rushing

* What we called sea cucumbers, from their shape, appears to have been the
beche-de-mer or trepang, of which the Chinese make a soup, much esteemed in
that country for its invigorating qualities.

"Lady Nelson'' parts Company 573

in when we returned to the ship ; t)ut I could not anywhere see an
opening sufficiently wide for the vessels.

"The loss of anchors we had this day sustained, deterred me from
any more attempting the small passages through the Barrier Reef : in
these, the tide runs with extraordinary violence, and the bottom is coral
rock, and whether with or without wind no situation can he more dangerous.
My anxious desire to get out to sea, and reach the north coast before the
unfavourable monsoon should set in, had led me to persevere amongst
these intricate passages beyond what prudence could approve, for had
the wind come to blow strongly, no anchors, in such deep water and
upon loose sand, could have held the ship; a rocky bottom cut the cables :
and to have been under sail in the night was certain destruction.

"Tuesday, 12 October. Our latitude at this tenth anchorage
amongst the reefs was 20 deg. 53 min. 10 sec.

"Sunday, 17th October. Our latitude here (at anchor in the
evening), by an observation of the moon, was 20 deg. 10 min. S., and
now, hoping we should not meet with any more interruption from the
reefs, I resolved to send the brig back to Port Jackson. On IMonday I
wrote to His Excellency Governor King an account of our proceedings
and discoveries upon the east coast, and requested a new boat might be
built against our return to Port Jackson, and that the brig should be
repaired and equipped ready to accompany me in the following year.

" At nine o'clock we got under way, and showed our colours to bid
farewell to the 'Lady Nelson.'

"Tuesday, 19th October. The latitude at noon was 19 deg.
35 min. 15 sec, and longitude, by timekeeper, 148 deg. 475 min.
Four reefs then extended from E. by S. to N.W. by W., at the distance
of two to five miles. The northern Cumberland Island bore S. 9 deg. E.,
and the outer of two hills, which I judged to be upon Cape Gloucester
S. 39i deg. W.

" At sunset. . . . Holborne Island bore S. by W. from the
mast-head, and no breakers were in sight. This tack was prolonged
under treble-reefed top-sails till ten o'clock, when a light was seen
bearing S. by E. \ E., probably upon the isle, and we stood to the north-
ward. The wind blew fresh from the eastward all night, and raised a
short swell which tried the ship more than anything we had encountered
from the time of leaving Port Jackson ; and, 1 was sorry tofmd, brought
on the former leakiness, to the amount of five inches of water per hour.

"Wednesday, 20th October. Holborne Isle was seeen bearing
S. 6 deg. W., four or five leagues at daylight. At noon, the latitude
was 19 deg. 8 min. 15 sec, and longitude, by timekeeper, 147 deg.
57 min. east At six, a heavy swell from the eastward, and a depth of
sixty-six fathoms were strong assurances that we had at length gained the
open sea.

574 Genesis of Queensland.

" The topsails were then treble reefed, and we hauled to the wind,
which blew strong at E.S.E., with squally weather. At eight, hove to
and sounded : no ground with seventy-five fathoms : and at twelve, none
with one hundred and fifteen.

" Our latitude was 17 deg. 5+ min., longitude 148 deg. 37 min., and
at the depth of one hundred fathoms there was no ground, the variation
observed in the morning, with three Azimuth compasses, was 6 deg.
8 min. east, corrected to the meridian. Another reef was discovered at
two o'clock, lying nearly three leagues to the northward of the former ;
but although there were many boobies, and tropic, and man-of-war birds
about, no more dangers had been descried at dusk ; nor did we see any
more until approaching Torres Straits.

" I shall conclude with some general remarks on the reefs, which
form so extraordinary a barrier to this part of New South Wales ; and
amongst which we sought fourteen days, and sailed more than five
hundred miles, before a passage could be found through them, out to sea.

" Thursday, 28th October. At day break bore away again on our
north-western course, and at noon our latitude was 9 deg. 51 min.
36 sec, and longitude 145 deg. 45! min., by timekeeper. No reefs
were then in sight, but, in steering west, we passed through a rippling
tide or current, and a single breaker was seen from the mast-head, at
three o'clock, bearing S.W. four or five miles.

" These reefs lie nearly a degree to the eastward of those first seen
by Captains Edwards and Bligh when entering Torres Strait, for the
north-eastern extreme lies in 10 deg. 2 min. S., and 145 deg. 45 min.
east. ... In the belief that this was the first discovery of these
coral banks, I called them Eastern Fields, intending thereby to designate
their position with respect to other reefs of Torres Strait.

" Our latitude at noon was exactly that of the opening by which
Captain Edwards, of the 'Pandora,' had entered the strait in 1791 ; and
which I call the ' Pandora's Entrance.' This opening appeared to be
preferable to that further northward, by which Captain Bligh and Mr.
Bampton had got within the reefs ; more especially as it led directly for
^Murray's Islands, where, if possible, I intended to anchor.

" Friday, 29th October. Finding by the latitude that we had been
set considerably to the north, and were out of the parallel of ^Murray's
Islands, I tacked to the S.S.W., and at two o'clock the largest island was
seen bearing S. 38 deg. W., about five leagues. ... At half-past
five the largest island bore S. 36 deg. E. to 28 deg. W., one mile and a
half ; and there being more reefs coming in sight to the westward, the
anchor was immediately let go in twenty fathoms, coarse sand and shells.
The north and east sides of the island are surrounded by a reef. . . .
A number of pole.s, standing up in various places, more especially
between the islands, appeared at a distance like the masts of canoes . .

The " Needles " of the South. ^y^

but on approaching nearer the poles were I'ouml to l)e ui)oii the reefs, and
were probably set up for some purpose connected with fishing, wj had
scarcely anchored when between forty and fifty Indians came off m three
canoes.

" Saturday, 30th October. Murray's largest island is nearly two
miles long, by something more than one in breadth. On the shores of
the large islands were many huts, surrounded by palisades, apparently of
bamboo. Cocoa-nut trees were abundant, both on the low grounds and
the sides of the hills, and plantains, with some other fruits, had been
brought to us. There were many Intlians sitting in groups upon the
shore, and the seven canoes which came off to the ship in the mornin"
contained from ten to twenty men each, or together, about a hundreti.
. . . The latitude of the highest hill, deduced from that of the ship
at the following noon, is 9 deg. 54 min. S., and longitude, by the time-
keeper, 144 deg. 2 min. E., being 3 min. N. and 20 min. K. of its
position by Captain Edwards.

"Sunday, 31st October. At daylight the south-east trade blew
fresh, with squally w-eather. We steered south- w^estward. . . Our
latitude at noon was 10 deg. 26 min. 45 sec, and our longitude 142 deg.
39!^ min.; and we had high land bearing S. 3 deg. E. — ten or twelve
miles which I supposed might be the easternmost of the York Isle>,
although Captain Cook's longitude of it was thirty-eight deg. more west-
ward. . . . Anchored in seven fathoms, gravel and shells, one mile
and a-half from the land. . . . Our latitude here was 10 deg. 30 min.
from bearings, and longitude from time keeper 142 deg. i8-i min. E., but
I was altogether at a loss to know what islands these were, under which
we had anchored. Supposing the flat-topped island to have been the
easternmost York Isle, the land we had in sight to the southward should
have been Cape York ; but no such isles as those around us were laid
down by Captain Cook to the north of that Cape. . . It appeared
that the first land was not the easternmost isle, but one much nearer Cape
York, and that our anchorage was under the southern group of Trince
of Wales Islands, the longitude of which, by Captain Cook, is twelve
min. W. of what I make it. rhe north-eastern isle of this group.
under which we more immediately lay, is that named Wednesday Islaiul
by Captain Bligh ; to the other isles he gave no name ; but the one
westward of the ship seems to have been Hammond's Island of Captain
Edwards.

" Tuesday, 2nd November. In the morning, the wind being more
moderate and at E.S.E., we steered between Hammond's Island and the
north-western reef, with soundings from six to nine fathoms. Another
island appeared beyond Hammond's to the south-west, which, as it had
no name, I called ' Good's Island," after Mr. Good, the botanical
gardener ; and WQ hauled up for it, passing a rock and a small reef

576 Genesis of Queensland.

between the two. The botanical gentlemen landed on Good's Island ;
and in the afternoon I took these bearings, amongst others, from a hill
near its south-west end :

" Wallis Isles, over the Shoal Cape of Bligh, S. 23 deg. 5 min. W. ,
Booby Isle, centre, S. 80 deg. W.

" It was now ascertained that the figures resembling sentry boxes
(seen on Wednesday Isle, on the ist) were ant hills, of eight or more
feet high. Pelsert found similar hills on the west coast. . . . The
correct latitude (of this anchorage, near Good's Island) is taken to be
10 deg. 32 min. 58 sec. . . . The longitude by the corrected time-
keeper . . . was 142 deg. 10^ min east.

"Wednesday, 3rd November. In the morning the wind was
moderate at E.S.E., and we made sail to get in with the main land to
the south of the Prince of Wales Islands. . - . Noon ; the latitude
was then 10 deg. 50 min. 44 sec, and the bearings of the land were
these :

" Station on Good's Island, N. 29I deg. E. ; Cape Cornwall, N.
68 deg. E. ; Wallis .Island, the highest, distant two and a-half miles,
N. 84 deg. E. ; mainland, low, sandy point, distant eight miles, S. 43
deg. E.

" Between Cape Cornwall and the low land above set, is the open-
ing called in the old Dutch charts Speult's river ; but which Captain
Cook, who sailed through it, named Endeavour's Strait. . . . We
passed Wallis Isles, steering southward to get in with the main coast ;
but the shoals forced us to near seven or eight miles to the west, out of
sight of land, before regular soundings could be obtained, and a southern
course steered into the Gulf of Carpentaria. At dusk, the anchor was
dropped in eight fathoms, soft mud, in latitude 1 1 deg. 5 min., as
observed from the moon to the north and south, and longitude 141 deg.
51 min. by timekeeper.

"I now considered all the difficulties of Torres Strait to be
surmounted since we had got a fair entry into the Gulf of Carpentaria ;
and to have accomplished this before the north-west monsoon had made
any strong indications was a source of much satisfaction after the
unexpected delay amongst the Barrier Reefs on the east coast.

" Monday, 8th November. A breeze came off the land at night as
usual, and the weather was dark and squally. Early in the morning we
steered along the coast with good soundings — ten and nine fathoms,
muddy bottom. A sandy point with two hillocks on it, which had been
the extreme of the preceding evening, was passed at ten o'clock, and,
seeing a large bight round it, we tacked to work up. . . . This
point is one of the very few remarkable projections to be found on this
low coast, but it is not noticed in the Dutch chart. There was little
doubt, however, that it was seen in 1606, in the yacht 'Duyphen,' the first

The " Dove" first finds the "Terra" 577

vessel which discovered any part of the Gulph of Carpentaria ; and, that
the remembrance may not be lost, I gave the name of the vessel to the
point. Our observation placed the extreme of Duyphen Point in 12 deo-.
35 min. S., and 141 deg. 42 min. E.

" Tuesday, 9th November. In the morning I set the west extreme
of Duyphen Point at N. 9 deg. E., and the farthest land in the opposite
direction at S. 9 deg. E. This last forms the south side of the large
bight, and besides projecting beyond the coast line, and being a little
higher than usual, is remarkable for having some reddish cliffs in it and
deep water near the shore. It is not noticed in the Dutch chart, but I
called it Pera Head, to preserve the name of the second vessel which, in
1623, sailed along this coast.

" Friday, 12th November. At seven o'clock we passed an opening
near which several natives were collected. The opening seemed to be
a full mile in width, but a spit from the south side runs so far across,
that there is probably no access to it, unless for rowing boats : its latitude
is 15 deg. 12 min. S., corresponding with a bight in the Dutch chart to
the south of the second ' Water Plaets.'* The latitude at noon was 1 5 deo-.
25 min. 20 sec, and longitude 141 deg. 32 min.

" Saturday, 13th November. At six in the morning, being then four
miles off the land, and steering S.S.W., a lagoon was seen from the mast-
head, over the front beach. It has doubtless some connection with the
sea, either by a constant or a temporary opening, but none such could be
perceived. The latitude, 15 deg. 53 min., corresponds with that of
' Nassau river ' in the old chart ; and from the examples already had of
the Dutch rivers here, it seems probable that this lagoon was meant.
A few miles further south, the shoal water obliged me to run westward,
out of sight of land from the deck ; and even at the mast-head, the tops
of the trees were only partly distinguished ; yet the depth was no more
than from four to six fathoms. At noon, when our latitude was 16 deo-.
24 min. 29 sec, and longitude 141 deg. \i,\ min., trees were visible from
the deck at N. 70 deg. E., and from thence to S. 50 deg. E., the nearest
part, whence a smoke arose, being distant seven or eight miles, and the
depth of water four fathoms. The slight projection here is probably one
of those marked in the old chart on each side of Staten river ; but
where that river can be found I know not.

" Sunday, 14th November. At noon the latitude was 17 deg. 3 min.
16 sec, longitude 141 deg. o min.; a projecting part bore N. 59 deg. E.
three or four miles, and the depth was three and a-half fathoms. There
appeared to be a small opening on the south side of this little projection,
which corresponds in latitude to Van Dieman's riverf in the old chart.

* The m'outh'of the Mitchell river. — (Leichhardt.)

t One of the inlets of the Gilbert, high up which Gilbert was killed.

2 O

^yg Genesis of Queensland.

If this place had any title to be called a river in 1644, the coast
must have undergone a great alteration since that time.

" In the afternoon our course along shore was more westward ; and
this, with the increasing shallowness of the water, made me apprehend
that the gulph would be found to terminate nearly as represented in the
old charts, and disappoint the hopes formed of a strait or passage leading
out at some other part of Terra Australis.

" At four o'clock, after running more than an hour in three and a
half fathoms, or less than three at low water, our distance from the shore
was five miles ; and a small opening then bore S. 14 deg. E., which
seems to be the Caron river, marked at the south-east extremity of the
gulph in the Dutch chart ; but whatever it might have been in Tasman's
time, no navigator would now think of attempting to enter it with a
ship. The latitude is 17 deg. 26 min., and longitude 140 deg. 52 min.

east.

" Wednesday, 17th November. In the morning a fresh land wind
at south-east favoured our course, the w-ater deepened to ten fathoms ,
and at eight o'clock to no ground with thirteen, near the south end of a
reef extending out from the hill. On coming into five fathoms behind
the reef the anchor was dropped on a muddy bottom, with the hill
bearing N. 15 deg. E., one mile and a quarter, and the dry extremity of
the reef S.E. \ E. The hill proved to be a mass of calcareous rock.
It was the highest land we had seen in Carpentaria, after having followed
one hundred and seventy-five leagues of coast ; nor was any land to be
distinguished from the top of the hill, which had an equal degree of
elevation ; yet it did not much exceed the height of the ship's mast-head.
The land round it proved to be an island of live miles long, separated
from other land to the west by a channel of nearly two miles in width.
This wide opening between this land and the low coast to the southward,
I take to have been what is called Maatsuyker"s river in the old chart.
Maatsuyker was one of the Councillors at Batavia, who signed Tasman's
instructions in 1664 ; but as there is no river here. . . I would have
followed in the intention of doing him honour, by transferring his name to
the island, but jNIaatsuyker's Isles already exist on the south coast of Van
Dieman's Land ; I therefore adopt the name of Sweers, another member
of the same Batavia Council, and call the island at the entrance of the
supposed river, Sweers Island. The hill obtained the name of Inspec-
tion Hill, and after taking bearings from it, I rowed into the channel
which separates Sweers Island from the western land.

" Friday, 19th November. This land proved to be an island of ten
or eleven miles long, and I have given it the name of Bentinck, in
honour of the Right Hon. Lord William Bentinck. To the north-west
of Bentinck's Island several small isles came in sight, . . the main
being four miles distant, and the eastern extreme of the nearest island,

His Majesty's Rotten Service, 579

bearing N. 3 deg. W. two leagues, was naincl Allen's Isle, after the
practical miner of the expedition.

" Saturday, 20th November. In the morning we steered towards
Allen's Isle. . , . Our latitude here was 17 deg. 5 min.. longitude
139 deg. 26 min. . . . Went eastward to a smaller island two miles
off, where several Indians were perceived. , . . The tallest Indians
I had ever seen . . . two brothers being from three to four inches
higher than my coxswain, who measured five feet eleven. . . . This
low piece of land is between one and two miles long, and, from its form,
received the name of Horseshoe Island.

"Sunday, 21 st November. At daylight the anchor was weighed.
. . . At dusk in the evening we anchored half a mile from the west
sandy point of Sweers Island, in five fathoms. This anchorage between
the two islands, though it may not be called a port, is yet almost equally
well sheltered, and I named it Investigator's Road.

"Tuesday, 23rd November. The ship was removed to within two
cables length of the west point, nearer to the spring" — [of fresh water
found there] — " and Lieutenant Fowler was established on shore with a
party of seamen and marines, taking tents, a seine, and other necessaries
for watering the ship and supplying us with fish. The carpenters pro-
ceeded in their work of caulking, but as they advanced report after
report was brought to me of rotten places found in different parts of the
ship . . . until it became quite alarming. I therefore directed the
master and carpenter to make a regular examination. . . . After
two days' examination their report was made.

" Friday, 26th November. I cannot express the surprise and sorrow
which this statement gave me. According to it a return to Port Jackson
was almost immediately necessary, as well to secure the journals and charts
of the examinations already made, as to preserve the lives of the ship's
company ; and my hopes of ascertaining completely the exterior form of
this immense, and in many points, interesting country, if not destroyed
would at least be deferred to an uncertain period. My leading object
had hitherto been to make so accurate an investigation of the shores of
Terra Australis that no future voyage to this country should be necessary.
And with this always in view, I had ever endeavoured to follow the land
so closely that the washing of the surf upon it should be visible, and no
opening nor anything of interest escape notice ; . . but . . with
such a ship I knew not how to accomplish the task. A passage to Port
Jackson at this time presented no common difficulties. In proceeding
by the west the unfavourable monsoon was likely to prove an obstacle
not to be surmounted, and in returning by the east stormy weather was
to be expected in Torres Strait, a place where the multiplied dangers
caused such an addition to be peculiarly dreaded. These considerations,
with a strong desire to finish, if possible, the examination of the Guph of

580 Genesis of Queensland.

Carpentaria, fixed my resolution to proceed as before in the survey
during the continuance of the north-west monsoon, and when the fair
wind should come, to proceed by the west to Port Jackson, if the ship
should prove capable of a winter's passage along the south coast, and if
not, to make for the nearest port in the East Indies.

"Sunday, 28th November. By the 28th the watering and wooding
of the ship were completed, the gunner had dried all his powder in the
sun, and the tents and people brought on board.

" Friday, 3rd December. Saw a small island two leagues out, one
of three laid down in the old chart near Cape Van Dieman, it is thickly
covered with wood, principally of that softish, white kind, whence it
obtained the name of ' Isle Pisonia.'

" Saturday, 4th December. Two boats went to bring off the
officer and people with, what had been caught; but their success had
been so great, that it was found necessary to hoist out the launch, and it
took nearly the whole day to get on board what the decks and hold
could contain, without impediment to the working of the ship. They
were found by j\Ir. Browne to be nearly similar to, but not exactly, the
true green turtle, and, he thought, might be an undescribed species.
We contrived to stow away forty-six, the least of them weighing two
hundred and fifty pounds, and the average about three hundred pounds ;
besides which many were returned on shore and suffered to go away.
This ' Bountiful Island,' for so I termed it, is near three miles long, and
generally low and sandy. . . . The latitude of our anchorage, one
mile from the south-east side of Bountiful Island, was 16 deg. 41 min.
south ; 139 deg. 59I min. east.

" Sunday, 5th December, We quitted Bountiful Island to resume
our examination of Cape Van Dieman.

" No doubt remained that the land of Cape Van Dieman was an
island ; its extent is considerable, being thirty-five miles long, and the
circumference near ninety. It may in some parts reach three hundred
feet in height. I have taken this opportunity of indulging my gratitude
to a nobleman, who, when Governor-General of British India, humanely
used his efforts to relieve me from an imprisonment which was super-
added to a shipwreck in the voyage. This large island is therefore
distinguished by the name of Isle IMornington ; and to the whole .group,
now discovered to exist at the head of the Gulph of Carpentaria, I have
given the name of Wellesley Islands.

" Friday, loth December. At sunset, a hillock upon a projecting
point bore N. 73 deg. W. four miles, and behind it was a small opening
which answered in situation to the river Van Alphen of the old chart.

"Monday, 13th December. At noon our situation was in latitude
15 deg. 50 min. 31 sec, longitude 137 deg. 190 min. Worked north-
ward, anchoring at dusk, two or three miles from the east point of the

Flinders' Fragments. eg,

northern land. There was no appearance of ihc nonhern land bein-
connected with the mainland; and I therefore called the separated piece
Vanderlin's Island.

"Tuesday, 14th December. The north point of the island, which is
the true Cape Vanderlin, bore N. 71 deg., W., and was distant three or
four miles : its utmost extremity lies in 15 deg. 34' min. S., and 137 deg.
8^ min. E.

"Wednesday, 15th December. Were obliged to make a long
stretch to sea before Cape Vanderlin could be weathered,
Anchored at dusk under the easternmost of the two small islands in ilie
offing.

" Thursday, i6th December. I landed early to take bearings, and
amongst them set the craggy north end of the western island, which 1
call Cape Pellew, at S., 87 deg. W., distant three or four miles. It lies

in latitude 15 deg. 30^ min., longitude 137 deg. 2 min

Lieutenant Flinders went to commence a series of observations for the
rate of the timekeepers on the small isle, thence called Observation
Island. iMy attention was attracted by a cove in the western shore, upon
the borders of which, more abundantly than elsewhere, grew a small
kind of cabbage palm, from whence it was called Cabbage-tree Cove.
This presented the appearance of a complete little harbour. . . .

"Friday, 17th December. From the furthest part of the western
island visible from the ship, I found the shore trending S. 73 deg. W.
to a point where there was an opening out to the westward, of a mile and
a-half wide and of considerable depth. About three leagues up the
opening were two craggy islands ; and beyond them was a more e.xtensive
land, which proved to be an island also, and from its situation in this
group was called 'West Island'. The island whose north end is Cape
Pellew, and whose southern extremity I had now reached, was called
' North Island ' ; and the land opposite to me which formed the south
side of the opening and seemed to be extensive, is marked with the name
of ' Centre Island ' in the chart.

" Sunday, 19th December. In the morning the weather cleared
and I took the ship over to Cape Vanderlin.

"Sunday, 26th December. In compliment to a distinguished
officer of the British navy, whose earnest endeavours to relieve me from
oppression in a subsequent part of the voyage, demand my gratitude, I
have called this cluster of islands ' Sir Edward Pellew's Group.'

"Wednesday, 29th December. The latitude was then 15 deg.
7 min., longitude 135 deg. 40 min., and we tacked towards the land,
which was not in sight from the mast-head.

"Friday, 31st December. Nine or ten leagues from the west, two
small humps were then seen, bearing S. 53 deg. and 59 deg. W.. and at
the mast-head they were perceived to join, and apparently to form an

582 Genesis of Queensland.

island. On the wind veering to the south and eastward, we steered for
it, and before sunset got to an anchor in a small bay on its south side, in
four fathoms. . . . A similar error to that at the Capes Van Dieman
and Vanderlin has been made here in the Dutch chart, this island being
represented as a projection from the main land, and called Cape Maria.
To the west of it is marked a large bay or bight, called Limmen's Bogt,
where the coast turns north-eastward to a projecting cape without name,
which has a shoal, forty miles in length, running out from it.

" Saturday, January I St, 1803. Early in the morning I landed. . .
The length of the island is about seven miles, N.E. and S.W., by a
variable breadth from one to four miles, and its northern extremity, to
which I continue the name of Cape Maria, lies in 14 deg. 50 min. S.,
and 135 deg. 53i E.

" Tuesday, 4th January. In the morning our course was continued
to the northward, leaving extensive land, which I supposed to be Groote
Eylandt of the old charts, six or eight leagues on the starboard hand.
. At seven we edged in for the coast, and, coming into three and
a-half fathoms, drppped the anchor on a bottom of blue mud, within a
mile of the shore. No part of Groote Eylandt was in sight, but an
island of considerable extent and elevation not noticed in the old chart
lay six or seven miles to the E.N.E., and I have called it ' Bickerton's
Island,' in compliment to Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton. . . I took
the whale-boat to a woody islet, five miles off, close to Bickerton's Island,
A meridian observation from north and south, placed the islet in latitude
13 deg. 48 min. 30 sec, and the points of the opening to the northward
bore N. 18 deg. E. and N. 2\ deg. W. This last was the furthest visible
part of the mainland, and, proving afterwards to be a projecting cape, I
named it 'Cape Barrow," after John Barrow, Esq., author of the interesting
travels at the Cape of Good Hope.

" Wednesday, 5th January. In the morning we got under way and
steered eastward for Groote Eylandt, which I now intended to circum-
navigate. . . Between the nearest parts of Groote and Bickerton's
islands is a space of eight miles, which seemed to offer a perfectly safe
passage. . . Nor can the rather high and woody isle which lies
almost exactly in the middle of the opening be considered as presenting
any obstacle. . . I call it * Connexion Island ' because my sun-ey
round Groote P>landt was connected by its means. . . The centre
of Connexion Island lies in 13 deg. 50^ min. S., and the longitude . .
would be 136 deg. 27 min., . . but 136 deg, 2\\ min. E. should be
more correct. Our distance from the west side of Groote Eylandt, at four
o'clock, was not quite three miles, and we then bore away southward along
the shore ... At the northernmost end of Groote Eylandt is a bluff
head, the termination that way of a range of woody hills from the interior,
of which the highest is what was set under the name of Central Hill.

Glyptography of Groote Eylandt Group, 583

" Sunday, 9th January. In the afternoon of the (jth we passed
round the south-east rocky point of Groote Kylandt, which Hes in
14 deg. 17 min. S., and 137 deg. 2\ min. E.

" IMonday, loth January. With the north-east point of Groolc
Eylandt bearing N. 33 deg. W., about seven miles ; further out lay two
small islands, and a hill upon the outermost was set at N. 10 deg. W.
The latitude of this anchorage was ascertained to be 13 deg. 53J min.
south.

"Friday, 14th January. On the wind dying away, we anchored;
the outer North-point Islet, which lies in 13 deg. 37 min. south, and
136 deg. 45 min. east, then bore E. 3 deg. S. five miles, and the furthest
extreme of a higher cliffy island, S. 38 deg. W. three miles. This was
called Chasm Island ; it lies one mile and a-half from a low point of
Groote Eylandt, where the shore trends southward and seemed to form
a bay, into which I proposed to conduct the ship. We found upon
Chasm Island a fruit which proved to be a new species of eugenia of
the size of an apple, whose acidity of taste was agreeable ; there were
many bushes covered with nutmegs similar to those seen at Cape
Vanderlin, and in some of the chasms the ground was covered with this
fruit, without our being able for some time to know whence it came.
Several trees shot up in these chasms, thirty or forty feet high, and on
considering them attentively these were found to be the trees whence the
nutmegs had fallen ; thus, what was a spreading bush above, became,
from the necessity of air and light, a tall, slender tree. The fruit was
small and not of an agreeable flavour ; nor is it probable that it can at
all come in competition with the nutmeg of the Molucca Islands. In
the steep sides of the chasms were deep holes or caverns, undermining
the cliffs, upon the walls of which I found rude drawings, made with
charcoal and something like red paint upon the white ground of the
rock. These drawings represented porpoises, turtles, kanguroos, and a
human hand, and Mr. Westall, who went afterwards to see them, found
the representation of a kanguroo, with a file of thirty-two persons
following after it. The third person of the band was twice the height of
the others, and held in his hand something resembling the ' whaddie,'
or wooden sword of the natives of Port Jackson. The situation of this
bay in Groote Eylandt led me to give it the name of North-west Bay.
It is formed on the east and south by that island, and on the west by a
separate piece of land five or six miles long, which, in honour of the
noble possessor of Burley Park, in the county of Rutland, I named
Winchelsea Island ; and a small isle of greater elevation, lying a short
mile to the east of the ship, was called Finch's Island.

"Friday, i8lh January. In the morning we lay up south-west on
the starboard tack, and weathered the island, having a rock one mile
and a-half on the other side. I wished, by a good bearing of Connexion

584 Genesis of Queensland.

Island, to join the survey completely round Groote Eylandt, and at nine
o'clock it was set at S. 27^ deg. to 47 deg. W. two leagues. The wind
then came ahead, and we tacked towards two small isles, where the
anchor was dropped at ten in sixteen fathoms, sand and shells. Our
latitude here was 13 deg. 43 min. 42 sec. S., and the east side of Con-
nexion Island bore S. 9|- deg. W., six or seven miles. ... I went
immediately to the northern and largest of the two sandy isles, and after
observing the latitude, 13 deg. 42 min. 17 sec, or the south-west point,
ascended the highest hillock, which, from the clumps of trees upon it,
was called ' Pandanus Hill.' Some of the trees being cut down, I had
a tolerably extensive view of points and islands before passed, and saw
more to the north-westward behind Wedge Rock, all of which the Dutch
charts represent as parts of the mainland. One of these I have called
' Bumey's Island,' in compliment to Captain James Burney, of the navy,
and another ' Nicol's Island,' after his Majesty's bookseller, the pub-
lisher of this work. Beyond this was a more extensive land, which also
proved to be an island, and its form having some resemblance to the
whaddie, or woodah, or wooden sword used by the natives of Port
Jackson, it was named 'Isle Woodah.'" (Did Captain Flinders know the
use of the boomerang ?)

" Thursday, 20th January. The mainland was in sight to the west-
ward forming a large bay with Isle Woodah, and Bickerton's Island
covered the entrance, so that the ship was in complete shelter. On
landing I ascended a hummock at the east end of the island, where
alone the view was not impeded by wood. Many of my former fixed
points were visible from thence, and the mainland was traced round to
northward to a hill named 'Mount Grindall,' near which was another
round hill upon an island.

" Friday, 2 1 St January. Thomas Morgan, a marine, having been
some time exposed bare-headed to the sun, was struck with a coup de
soleil ; he was brought on board . . . and died in a state of frenzy
the same night.

"Saturday, 22nd January. The body of Thomas Morgan, who
died so unfortunately, was this day committed to the deep with the usual
ceremony ; and the island was named after him, ' IMorgan's Island.'
. . . The latitude of the hummock at the east end of IMorgan's
Island, 13 deg. 27^^ min., and longitude from the survey, 136 deg.
9^ min. Came to an anchor. The bottom here, and in most other
parts of the bay, is a blue mud of so fine a quality that I judge it might
be useful in the manufactory of earthenware ; and I thence named this
' Blue Mud Bay.'

''Tuesday, 25th January. After clearing Blue Mud Bay, we
worked to the north-eastward, and at eight in the evening anchored
under Nicol's Island.

Morgan's Island to Cape Grey. 585

"Wednesday, 26th January. In ilie morning we stretched N.N.E.
for the projecting part of the mainland before set at N. 55 deg. 20 min
E., from the eastern hummock of Morgan's Island ; and to wliich I have
given the name of ' Cape Shield,' in compliment to Captain W. Shield.
a commissioner of the navy. There is a small bay on its soutli-wcst
side, and we anchored there. ... No part of the main coast to the
eastward could be seen from thence beyond a low projection distant
seven or eight miles, which I named ' Point Arrowsmith '. . . Cape
Shield lies in latitude 13 deg. 19! min. south, longitude by the survey
136 deg. 23 min. east; it projects out six miles from the body of the
land, and appears, when seen from the south, to be an island. Two
cassowaries were seen upon it.

"Thursday, 27th January. Ne.xt morning we steered westward
with a fair wind, to explore the main coast up to Mount Grindall, and
see the northern part of Blue Mud Bay. At three leagues from Cape
Shield, we passed a projecting point to which I gave the name of Point
Blane, in compliment to Dr. (now Sir Gilbert) Blane, of the Naval
Medical Board. Five miles from it to the W.S.W. lies Round-hill Island.
We then worked up to a large bight on the west side of Point Blane.

"Friday, 28th January. I went over in the whale-boat to Mount
Grindall. Blue Mud Bay was seen to reach further north than
Mount Grindall, making it to be upon a long point, w^hich I also named
Point Grindall, from respect to the present vice-admiral of that name.
The large bight between Points Grindall and Blane extended two leagues
above the ship. A still larger bight between Point Blane and Cape
Shield was also visible. The extremity of the Cape bore S. 76 deg.
15 min. E. An observation to the north and south, taken on the outer-
most rocks, places Mount Grindall in 13 deg. 15^ min. south, and the
longitude from survey is 136 deg. 6 min. 20 sec. east. Our course was
then directed N.E. by N., parallel to the coast.

" Wednesday, 2nd February. We worked to windward all night,
with a north-western breeze, and in the morning saw two islands. There
appeared to be a wide opening behind them, the entrance being round a
projection which I have named * Cape Grey,' in compliment to the
Hon. General Grey, lately commander of the forces at the Cape of Good
Hope. Our situation and bearings at noon were, latitude, observed to
the north and south, 13 deg. 3 min. 41 sec; longitude, from survey,
136 deg. 46^ min. On the wind veering to north-east we were enabled
to weather the rocks near Cape Grey, but not more than a quarter of a
mile. Ran further up, and at sunset anchored in nine fathoms, mud
and sand, near the innermost and largest of three islands which lie in
the entrance. Around and between these islands were many islets and
rocks, and others were seen to the north-eastward ; the bay extended to
the north-west, and was divided into two branches by a projection named

^86 Genesis of Queensland.

Point INIiddle, the eastern branch being defended from the sea by a
tongue of land, whose south point seemed to be connected by a reef of
rocks with the inner island. This point I have called 'Point Alexander,'
and to a hill, upon the furthest visible part of the coast to the northward,
the appellation of ' Mount Alexander' is given.

" Saturday, 5th February. In the evening I went over with two of
the gentlemen to the south side of the bay, for the purpose of taking a
station upon a hill there, named IMount Caledon, whose height exceeded
that of any other near the water side. We landed at dusk at the foot of
the mount, and ascended the top.

" Wednesday, 9th February. It has been said that an opening, of
a river-like form, is laid down in the Dutch chart in the situation of this
bay. No name is there given to it, and as I conceive our examination to
confer the right of bestowing one, I have distinguished it by the title of
' Caledon Bay,' as a mark of respect to the worthy nobleman lately
Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, after whom the mount on the south
side was also named. There is no other safe passage into the bay than
that between the islands in the entrance and Cape Grey, which cape is
remarkable for the round hummock on its extremity, and lies in latitude
13 deg. I min. S., and longitude 136 deg. 42 min. E.

" Thursday, loth February. At daylight we sailed down Caledon
Bay, and steered eastward along the south side of the islands lying in
the entrance.

" Friday, nth February. At daylight the shore was found to be
distant four or five miles ; the farthest part then seen was near the
eastern extremity of Arnheim's Land, and this having no name in the
Dutch chart, is called Cape Arnheim. ... Its position was ascer-
tained to be 12 deg. 19 min. S., and 137 deg. i min, E. . . . The
furthest land visible at noon was a flat-topped hill, which I called Mount
Saunders, and nearer to us was a higher and more woody hill, also flat-
lopped and steep at its north end, to which is given the name of IMount
Dundas, and our position was at this time as under : latitude observed,
12 deg. 12^ min., longitude 137 deg. 2\ min. W. We tacked to the
westward in the afternoon, and an island came in sight, lying to the
north of the two mounts, with several rocks and islets scattered on its
north-east side. . . . The flood tide set gently to the westward, and
induced me to suppose that there might be a passage within the island
and the rocks. . . . The passage is more than two miles wide, and
our soundings in working through it were between four and a-half and
six fathoms, on a gravelly bottom. . . . Two natives with a canoe
had been seen upon the island, and as our boat stood that way, sounding
ahead of the ship, they waved and called to the people. The island is
about five miles long, and between one and two in breadth ; it is low,
mostly destitute of wood, and the shores in general are sandy, and not

Melville hlauds.—The Gulph Garnished. 587

being laid down in the Dutch chart, I distinguished it with the islets and
rocks to the north and north-east by the name of iMclville Isles , ihc
south end which forms the passage lies in 12 deg. 8^ min. S,. and 136
deg. 62 min. E. In the opposite shore, between Mounts Saunders and
Dundas, is a sandy bight. . . . The low land especially under
Mount Saunders was sandy and barren, and .so continued for seven miles
westward, to a low point near a woody islet. Further on the coast took
a northern direction, and was seen from the mast-head a.s far as N.N.W.
but no other part could be set from the deck than the highest of the
several eminences in the back land, named Mount Bonner.

" Monday, 13th February. The course was directed towards a bight
behind the wood islet ; and a little before noon its appearance became
so promising, that I steered into it before the wind. In passing the islet
and Sandy Point we had from ten to seven fathoms, in an opening of
four miles wide, and a bay of considerable extent then lay before us.
In the middle of the bay were three rocks, and to the north-cast of them
a headland, beyond which the water extended eastwards. ... I
called the largest of the rocks which form the south-east side of this snug
little place, ' Harbour Rock ;' and the sandy point at the entrance of the
bay is named ' Point Dundas.'

"Monday, 14th February. Beyond a low isthmus, a piece of water
was seen communicating with the south-eastern part of the bay, and making
a peninsula of the high rocky land named ' Drummie Head ;' at high water,
indeed, it is an island, for the tide flows over some parts of the isthmus.
After taking two sets of bearings, I rowed southward along the shore of
Drummie Head ; and from a hill near the southwest e.xtremity obtained
a good view of the bay, and saw the western coast as far northward as a
cliffy cape, which was named after William Wilberforce, Esq., the worthy
representative of Yorkshire.

"Wednesday, i6th Februar}-. Messieurs. Brown anil Bauer accom-
panied me in a boat excursion to the eastern part of the bay

This bay is unnoticed in the Dutch chart, and I name it * Melville B.iy.' in
compliment to the Right Honourable Robert Saunders Dundas, Viscount
Melville, first Lord of the Admiralty. It is the best harbour we found in
the Gulph of Carpentaria.

" Thursday, 17th Februar)-. We passed three rocks lying out from
a point under Mount Bonner. From the north part of this cliffy cape a
chain of islands and rocks extends out three or four leagues to the
E.N.E., which I call ' Bromby's Isles,' after my worthy friend the Rev.
John Bromby, of Hull. :

" Thus was the examination of the Gulph of Cari)entaria finished.
after employing one hundred and five days in coasting along its shores,
and exploring along its bays and islands. The extent of the gulph '
longitude, from Endeavour's Strait to Cape Wilberforce, is 5^ deg,

)h m j
,andj

^88 Genesis of Queensland.

in latitude 7 deg., and the circuit, excluding the numerous islands and
the openings, is little less than four hundred leagues. It will be remarked
that the form of it given in the old charts is not very erroneous, which
proves it to have been the result of a real examination ; but as no
particulars were known of the discovery of the south and western parts,
— not even the name of the author, though opinion ascribed it with
reason to Tasman, — so the chart was considered as little better than a
representation of fairy-land, and did not obtain the credit which it was
now proved to have merited. Henceforward, the Gulph of Carpentaria
will take its station among the conspicuous parts of the Globe in a
decided character,

" After clearing the narrow passage between Cape Wilberforce and
Bromby's Isles, we followed the main coast to the S.W."

Captain Flinders quitted Wessel's Islands and steered for Timor,
and dropped anchor at Coepang Bay at four o'clock in the afternoon of
Thursday, 31st March; "where," he says, "we were occupied nearly
a week in completing our water, which was brought aboard in Malay
boats, and in obtaining and stowing away the provisions." He left
Coepang Bay on Friday, 8th April, rounded Cape Leeuwin in the
middle of May, and, after much general suffering from sickness,
arrived in Port Jackson on Thursday, 9th June.

APPENDIX C.

Journal of an Excursion up thk Rivkr Rrishank in

THE YEAR 1 825, BY EdmUND LoCKYER, EsQ., J. P., LATE

Major in His Majesty's 57TH Regiment of Foot*

" September ist. Embarked on board the cutler ' Mermaid.'

" September 2nd. At five o'clock a.m., sailed from Sydney — after
a fine run anchored inside Nobby's Island, Hunter's River — at half-past
six p.m., landed the detachment of the Buffs.

" September 3rd. The brig ' Amity' lying here, learnt that she had
not the boat that was supposed to be on board that vessel. At eleven
a.m. sailed for Port Macquarie.

" September 4th. Arrived off Port Macquarie at five a.m., went on
shore. The brig ' Henrietta ' had sailed from thence with the boat that was
said to be in the ' Amity.' Captain Gillman offered me any of his boats
that I thought would answer; on inspecting them, they proved quite
unfit, except a boat belonging to Lieutenant Owen, which I considered
it my duty to purchase for Government, as the one furnished at Sydney
was incapable of carrying the necessary articles, &c., for the expedition,
besides being very much the worse for having been badly used, and was
patched up and not safe. Went on board at twelve a.m.; had the new
boat hoisted, and made sail.

" September 5th. Wind fresh W.S.W. Running along the coast,
found the headlands to answer correctly as laid down by Captain
Flinders ; passed Cape Byron, and Point Danger, the latter at half-past
six p.m.

" September 6th. Wind, south light airs; at daylight close in with
Point Look-out, passed in between the Reef of Rocks, and Flat Islands,
plenty of water, eighteen fathoms to eleven, to the outer buoys of the
channel leading into INIoreton Bay by Amity Point. In the channel not
less than four fathoms and. a-half, at the last of ebb, good anchorage
inside and close under the shore of the land inside Amity Point, from
this anchorage through the channel up to Peel's Island, not less than
four fathoms at high water. After rounding Peel's Island, plenty of
water for ships of any size and good anchorage, which continues all the
way up to the Green Islands, and from thence to the buoy on the spit of
land off the mouth of the Brisbane.

* From the Australian Quarterly Journal. Vol. I., 1828. Edited by Rev.
Charles P. N. Wilton, M.A.

590 Genesis of Queenslajid.

" September 7th. At six o'clock weighed anchor and stood for the
river — came to anchor at the buoy on the end of the spit. The
navigation would be considerably facilitated by regular buoys being
placed of different colours, red and white, to mark the sides of the
channel. At three p.m., learning from j\Ir. Penson, the master of the
' Mermaid,' that he did not think it prudent to take the cutter over the
bar, I departed in my boat to proceed to the settlement up the river.
On going over the bar, which was then high water, found upwards
of twelve feet all over the passage by which I entered. At half-past
seven o'clock, landed at Edenglassie, Captain Bishop, 40th regiment,
commandant.

" September 8th. Wrote back to Mr. Penson, desiring him to use
all exertion to sound for a passage, and to bring the cutter over the bar
and up the river to the settlement.

" September 9th. Making arrangements for the equipment of the
boats and packing of the provisions.

" September loth. Loaded the boats and embarked at two p.m.
Several natives were seen on the side of the river opposite to the settle-
ment. I was informed by C aytain Bishop an d Lieutenant^Iillej] that
they had not appeared there before in numbers except one or two, and
that, very seldom. On this occasion, I think, there were upwards of
thirty men, women, and children, they seemed desirous to cross the river,
I learnt on my return that they had swam across higher up after my
departure, but could not be persuaded to approach the settlement nearer
than two or three hundred yards, where they remained looking at the
buildings and the cattle for about an hour, and then went off, and were
not again seen.

" At a quarter past five o'clock landed on the right side of the river,
in going up which, I observed it to be a bush with long grass, thinly
wooded, and rising in a gradual slope from the river — it was a very
pretty situation where I halted for the night, which was very cold, with
a very heavy dew, and the mosquitoes innumerable and exceedingly
troublesome, which we found to be dispersed by our smoking. The
boat's sail was a good substitute for a tent, though it did not succeed in
keeping out heavy rain.

"September nth. Left our halting place and embarked at eight
o'clock. The wood on the banks — fig-tree, blue gum, swamp oak, and
ironbark, for the last half distance no pines, but here and there a solitary
cedar. On landing, found spinach in great abundance, mint, parsley
and the wild poppy. Halted at three o'clock on the left side of the
river, on a sandstone rock forming a natural wharf or jetty. The tide
only flows a short distance above this. Whilst dinner was preparing,
took a walk into the country, found it delightful, thinly wooded, to a great
extent fine pasturage for any number of cattle, and only occasionally

Oxley's Highest.— The Royal Livery.

_59i

thick brush with httle marks of natives having been ilicrc. Several very
fine eels were caught here, and a fish called the cat-fish.

"September 12th. At a quarter-past eight left our haliing-place
and proceeded. The country, as yesterday, except the hills, being high.
with fine downs thinly wooded, with very high grass of the oat species ;'
very few pines to be seen; the river in some places was very narrow, and
then again widened ; over the rapids, rather shallow, obliged to track the
boats over, to do which the men were forced to get out; marks of drift
grass and pieces of wood washed up the sides of the banks, and up into
the branches of the trees, marked the fioods to rise here upwards of one
hundred feet. Near the place of our encampment fresh marks of the
natives having had their fires — as yet we have not seen any— landed at
half-past four p.m. Mr. Oxley has been thus far.

" This day, from the number of rapids and shoals, the getting of the
boats up was a matter of great labour and e.\ertion, as the men were
mostly in the water for upwards of six hours. At half-past two, landed
and encamped for the night. Saw some cedar trees on the banks of the
river near the edge, quantities of honey-suckle and swamp oak on the
high ground, blue gum and ironbark in abundance, and very large.
Saw a few wild ducks ; the fires of the natives quite fresh, and concluded
from not seeing them that they avoid us; codfish caught similar to those
which are taken in ihe river at Bathurst.

" 14th. At 8.30 embarked and proceeded up the river. The hills
beautifully covered with pine trees of large size, the banks as before with
swamp oak, honey-suckle, blue gum, and ironbark. We this day for the
first time saw some of the natives; ordered the boats to pull up to the
shore on which they stood. After a little hesitation, and the sight of a
looking-glass which I held up, they ventured down within a few yards ;
gave them some biscuit, shewed them two sheep we had in the boat; at
the sight of them their astonishment was great, as also at two of the soldiers
of the 40th Regiment, who had very red hair ; from their manner it was
evident the colour of these soldiers' hair was a matter of great curiosity to
them as well as their red jackets. They were perfectly naked, stout,
clean-skinned, well made people, and shewed no symptom whatever of
hostility. From the short intercourse I had with them, I do not think
that they had ever seen a European before. In the evening heavy rain ;
the sail completely drenched through ; passed a very uncomfortable
night, the fires going out, owing to the heavy rain ; much thunder and
lightning.

"September 15th. About seven o'clock the rain ceased, and the
weather began to break up ; with the aid of good fires we soon had our
clothes dry, and at nine o'clock embarked.

"The natives we saw yesterday again made their apjicarance;
amongst them saw an old man a cripple, whom they carried, also a little

592 Genesis of Queensland.

boy — gave them fish hooks and Hnes — they kept constantly pointing to
the boats and shouting, supposing them, as I concluded, to be alive.
The men having no change of clothes, but what were wet, at two o'clock
I ordered a landing, having observed a good spot for the purpose, on a
point which projected into the river from its bank, on the left side going
up. Under a range of hills, encamped near a very large tree, a blue
gum, to mark the spot I caused the broad arrow to be cut above four
feet from the bottom. The country here was very good on both sides,
soil good ; walked up the hills, the country behind them having quite a
park-like appearance. I saw kangaroos in abundance, but they were
extremely shy. As far as I could see to the S. and S.W. the whole
country appeared well timbered with forests of tall pines ; and to the
N.W. and N.E. very few. Walked several miles, having started as soon
as I landed, and did not return until half-past five in the evening — a fine
lagoon of good water about a mile and half from landing place in a S.W
direction ; found the grass very long and fatiguing to walk in ; rain
during evening.

" i6th. At nine o'clock got into the boats and departed. Landed
where Mr. Gray the pilot said he saw the white man, and made our
huts for the night; the party being much fatigued, having been hard
at work for six hours, it being three o'clock when we landed. The
pine hills, which appeared very high on ascending, now that we had left
them in our rear, presented only their tops to our view, which proved we
had ascended considerably. No appearance of the natives where we
halted— no marks or fires nor the remains of shells of the river mussel
nor of huts — this place was pointed out by Thomas Robinson, one of the
sailors who was with Mr. Gray, who on my questioning him as to the
colour, number, &c., of the people, stated to have been seen, said it was
dusk at the time — that he only saw two or three men running into the
bush, who appeared to be of a light colour, but he saw no bows or arrows.

" N.B. — The natives are known on some occasions to whiten them-
selves with wood ashes.

" 17th October. At eight again set out.

" Much obstruction from dead trees lying across a narrow and
winding part of the view ; too numerous and large to attempt cutting a
way through them, consequently had to pull the boats over them, taking
every article out of them, and in making a distance of about a mile
and a-half they were unladen four times, which occupied upwards of
three hours, the stream running four knots and a-half. On getting clear
of this rapid, we entered a long reach with deep water ; great number of
wild ducks; shot several, as also a yellow snake. On the hillside going
up, and opposite our halting place, a large stream or creek joined the
main river. After landing the men went to fish, and caught a great
number of cod and eels, the former particularly good. The country

Wet Weathered.— Woods' Womatihood. 593

about this place was very fine, and the soil excellent. The trees of the
same description, ironbark, and stones in abundance.

"September i8th. At nine o'clock, proceeded up the river. Lindcd
at half-past four o'clock p.m. ; from the number of falls and the rapidity
of the stream, this proved a most laborious day, and the party landtnl
completely knocked up. Several marks of fires and mussel shells,
where the natives had lately been ; white cockatoos in great numbers ;
paroquets in great variety, but similar to those seen in the ronnirv
about Sydney.

"September 19th. During the morning, until two o'clock, vcrv
heavy rain. Rain began to pour in torrents about twelve o'clock, which
compelled us to seek a place of shelter ; took advantage of a ver)-
remarkable spot, under a very high hill, near its base, where were some
natural caves, about the size of a side box of a theatre, and resembling
it much in shape, the abode of wild cats and dogs. After getting the
necessary articles landed from the boats, walked up the hill, which
occupied one hour and a half, it appeared to me not less than one
thousand feet high. On reaching the summit the weather began to
clear up; had a tolerable view of the country, which is very mountainous
to the W.N.W., and high hills to the W. and S.W., to the S. and S.E.
high land was discernable through the haze. Between the hills, upon
whose summit I then was, and the mountains to the W.N.W. and W..
was a large flat country, in extent not less than thirty or forty miles, finely
wooded with blue gums and ironbark. The ironstone prevails, very
rotten, good sandstone, fine soil, and fit for any purpose of cultivation.
The rain again set in, and continued during the evening and greater part
of the night, with thunder and lightning.

" 20th. The weather having cleared up, and having got our clothe.s
pretty dry, we quitted this spot at 9 o'clock.

" On rounding the point of one of the reaches we came suddenly
on the encampment of some natives, who on seeing us, ran off, leaving
their kangaroo skins, spears and tomahawks all behind. We landed and
examined their implements, giving strict orders not to remove a single
article ; sent to the boats for some biscuit, and left it on the kangaroo
skins. As I could not ascertain the direction the natives had taken, or
whether they would return, we got into the boats, and proceeded
about one mile, when two natives were seen following us up the l)ank.
and calling to us ; we returned to the shore, and after some difliculty
induced them to have suflicient confidence to allow us to approach
close to them, when they proved to be a woman and a lad about
fourteen years of age. The former had an infant in her arms ; gave
them looking-glasses, beads, and fish-hooks ; their surprise and apparent
wonder at seeing people so opposite to themselves in colour, as well
as in other respects, cannot well be described, but it is certain they had
2 p

2g4 Genesis of Queensland.

never seen white people before, nor could they believe but that the boats
were living animals, as I could not induce them to go down to the
place where they were. On making signs to them to do so, the woman
shook her head and put her hand to her mouth, as if she was afraid they
would bite. While we were holding communication with these natives,
several women and children were seen at a distance, but we could not
induce them to come near ; the men no doubt were not far off though
they did not appear. Finding we could not induce them to approach
we left our new acquaintances, after convincing them of our friendly
intentions. The woman, in return for what I had given her, held out a
neat basket made of plaited straw and a kangaroo skin. The former I
took, but declined the latter, as it was of considerable use and value to
them. As we proceeded up the river, these poor people continued to
wave their hands, and to shout after us, until we were completely out of
sight. They were black and perfectly naked. Great numbers of wild
ducks were seen up the river. We shot several in passing the boats.
No pine trees were seen this day. At five o'clock we landed and made
the boats fast for the night on a bank on the right side of the river about
half-way up a rapid, in the eddy of the stream, which had formed a little
basin. This place, from the colour of the soil, was named ' Redbank.'

"Sept 2 1. This morning at half-past seven I observed the water
had risen a foot in less than an hour, and its discoloured appearance
indicating that a flood was coming down the river, no time was to be lost
in getting the boats up this rapid into the next reach ; we accordingly all
quitted our position. The rapidity of the current increased every hour
and the river had risen upwards of eight feet by eleven o'clock, and
there was no want of water over the rapids, but we experienced extreme
difficulty in getting the boats up, from the great strength of the stream
running down the falls and rapids.

" The country both sides of the river was very fine with a very rich
alluvial soil, and the whole on both sides, all the way up from the settle-
ment, quite fit for the cultivation of wheat, barley, maize, fruit, vegetables
— grapes particularly, as also cotton, coffee, rice, with sugar cane, might
with common exertion be produced in the greatest abundance. "Very
fine fish, including a great quantity of very large eels were caught by the
party, we landed at two o'clock, and examining the country in the
vicmity, found it as described. We also observed marks of fires, and
trees marked by the natives.

" 22nd. Left at nine o'clock. Landed at half-past one to enable
the party to wash their clothes, and to repair the oars of the whale-boat,
the river continuing the same ; the country appearing beautiful — the
flood still running down.

" 23rd. Left at nine o'clock. The flood still running with so much
force, that with increasing exertion we had only made eight miles at four

Carried Away. cgr

o'clock, and frequently after we had nearly surmounted it wiih ilie
greatest exertion in pulling up against the stream ; the men. from being
completely exhausted, were obliged to desist from their efforts, and we
should soon have been taken down against our wish to the first tree to
which we could make fast. Here I was in the hopes of falling in with
a large tribe of natives— nine huts being directly opposite where we
landed— on going over, however, we were disappointed, as there was no
trace of their having been there for some days. We noticed several
kangaroo and fish bones. Heavy rain.

" 24th September. During the night heavy rain, thunder and light-
ning, the flood in the river running down with great force making much
noise in rushing over the rocks and the stumps of trees lying in the
river — at this place a considerable stream runs into the river from the
eastward — I caused a blue gum tree to be cut down — The weather
proved so bad during the day that I considered it advisable to remain
where we were,

"25th September. We attempted to go with the boats— made
about four miles, but found it impossible to make head against the
stream, which was running at least eight or nine knots. We landed and
took the precaution to have the ropes of the boats carried well up the
bank, as the river was rising very rapidly. Opposite our encampment
was an immense range of mountains the largest of which, and the nearest,
was fifteen hundred feet high.

" Having landed about one o'clock we made an excursion into the
country. There can be no doubt that the natives avoid us. From the
marks of fires, their empty huts, and the number of trees barked, I should
think them rather numerous in this neighbourhood.

" We again attempted at eight o'clock to proceed, finding the river
to have gone down six feet. Advanced about a mile, but found it
impossible to pull against the stream up a rapid. Made arrangements-
for tracking the boats up by sending ashore, and the party, passing the
end of the rope to each other along the banks as far as it would reach,
and all the party assisting in hauling one boat at a time against the
stream, remaining myself to steer her clear of trees and stumps lying in
the middle. We succeeded in doing so nearly half-way up the rapid,
when the rope broke, and the boat was instantly carried down a
considerable distance below, but, fortunately, without coming in contact
with anything, and by steering into an eddy 1 got the boat to the opposite
shore. 1 found it useless, with the means with which I was provided, to
make any further attempt to get the boats up this rapid, which I observed
to extend upwards of a mile, and, trying the stream with the log-line, J
found it running at the rate of nine knots ; therefore considerable danger
was to be apprehended. And it was extremely fortunate, on the rope
breaking, that the boat escaped coming in contact with any of the

596 Genesis of Queensland.

numerous large stumps of trees which lay directly in the main stream of
the river, and which would have instantly knocked her to atoms.

" The loss of the boat and also of the provisions would have placed
me in an awkward situation. This determined me to order the party
and the other boats to join me, and, on their doing so, I directed every-
thing to be lan'Sed, and having fixed on a good spot under the mountain,
I made arrangements to proceed by land for further exploring the river,
leaving the corporal of the 40th Regiment in charge of the boats and
stores, with one private of the 40th, four sailors and a convict. At the
same time, I gave strict orders to the corporal, on no account whatever
to quit that place, or to move the boats, and to be upon his guard in the
event of the approach of any number of natives, and to prevent any
violence being offered them, and to behave towards them in a manner to
convince them no hostility would be intended. Everything being ready,
at twelve o'clock I set out, accompanied by Mr. Dulhunty, a private of
the 40th, one sailor and two convicts, with my servant, carrying with us
eight days' provisions. Kept the river in view ; found walking extremely
difficult and dreadfully fatiguing from the long grass, which was at least
four or five feet high, out of which started numbers of kangaroo of the
large sort, or forest kangaroo. Private Ward, of the 40th, would have
trodden on an immense snake had he not, fortunately, been prevented
by my servant. It was shot by the former, and when measured proved
to be ten feet in length, and seven inches round, and of the diamond
species. We crossed three considerable beds of rivers, running down
from the mountain to the main river. The water in the streams that was
running through them was excellent. At five o'clock, being considerably
tired, we halted for the night, about a quarter of a mile from the banks
of the Brisbane. The night was extremely cold, and a number of emus,
which our fires had disturbed, were running about, making an intolerable
noise all night. From the quantity of trees newly barked, and wood
lately burnt, as well as the skeleton of several bark huts, we concluded
that the natives must be numerous, and could not be far off.

" September 27th. At eight o'clock, being all ready we again set
out, having the river in view. Nothing can possibly exceed the fine
fresh, rich country, we are now in. We continued keeping the river in
view, until twelve o'clock. Here the bed of the river, though broad, was
nearly dry, except a small stream passing through it. and at this time
quite impassable for boats, and from the number of large streams
running down from the Brisbane Mountain, I am induced to suppose
the river to be chiefiy supplied by these tributary streams, as it certainly
terminates here as a river, but I think it very probable that the large
bwamp into which the river at Bathurst loses itself occasionally overflows,
and is the cause of the tremendous floods that at times take place in the
Brisbane river. From the Brisbane Mountain looking to the W., with a

Mount Brisbane Broad-arrowed. jp.

fine clear sky, I could not discern the least sign of any hills or mounuins
but all a flat country behind a ridge of hills running N. and S. These
hills well wooded with pine trees ; the long and thick grass making it
dreadfully fatiguing to walk through it with our loads, the men heing
badly off for shoes, and two of them having sore feet. In consequence
of this, seeing the impossibility of making any progress by land, I
determined to rejoin the boats by a short cut, without going back bv the
course of the river, which we accomplished the same evening, after having
crossed the easternmost end of Brisbane Mountain, at half past 6 p.m.,
found all right with the party left in charge, myself and companions
quite knocked up.

"September 28th. Much rain, thunder and lightning: directed
the boats to be got ready and everything put into them to descend the
river, as my instructions were to return, if possible, by the middle of
October. At ten o'clock we left the Brisbane Mountain, and before
quitting it I caused a tree to be barked and a broad arrow to be cut deep
into it. Made rapid progress, going at the rate of eight and nine
knots through the falls and rapids, which was attended with consider-
able danger from the want of ropes to ease the boats down. I
had no alternative, but to keep the stream and a good look out, as also
good steerage. The weather threatening I deemed it prudent to land
and erect our huts, which was no sooner done than the rain began to
come down accompanied by thunder and lightning; the flies were very
troublesome, as we had experienced these three days past. Made the
distance twenty-five miles.

" September 29th. At nine, set out, and continued going down the
river, until three o'clock p.m. In passing down one of the falls the
whale boat was caught by a stump of a tree that was under water and
nearly upset, she was half full of water before she was clear. The jerk
threw me nearly out of the boat, being head and shoulders in the water,
but was prevented going further by one of the men holding me by the
leg : killed several ducks, took a walk with my gun, saw a bird not unlike
a goose running in the bush, but he was too quick for me to get a
shot at him. Smoke was seen several times, but the natives do not
appear to wish to come near us. This day twenty-two miles.

" September 30th. At eight, v,-e again set out, passed through
several falls, in one of which I was obliged to drop the boats down.
Several fresh obstacles had taken place, by the flood having taken
away several large trees from off the banks of the river. Arrived at
the Caves at two o'clock, heavy rain with thunder and lightning;
shot a wild duck of a new species, which proved good eating.
Distance fourteen miles.

"October ist. Last night the weather was extremely sultry, with
thunder, lightning, and rain. At eight o'clock we set forward, and in

5g8 Genesis of Queensland .

our way had many proofs of the effects of a small flood ; a large one
must be terrific. Had we by any chance been deprived of the cross-cut
saw and axes, the boats must have been abandoned. After meeting
with manv obstructions, we arrived at the spot where we halted on the
17th of last month. Afternoon and evening heavy showers ; fish caught
in abundance. Distance, fifteen miles.

" 2nd. All our clothes being very wet, and having a wish to examine
the large branch which here joined from the southward, I determined on
halting at this spot. After breakfast took one of the boats, and went up
this branch about three miles, then landed, and on ascending the banks
found a large open countr}' with scarcely any wood of consequence to
impede cultivation upon it. The trees, chiefly blue gum, being at least
an acre or more apart, and more ornamental than otherwise. The
natives had lately set fire to the long grass, and the new grass was just
above ground, making this plain appear like a bowling green ; the soil
rich beyond any idea, and from its being easily flooded, it would be
particularly adapted to the cultivation of rice, sugar-cane, cotton, and
coffee. I saw plenty of kangaroos and wild turkeys. After traversing
this fine piece of land, which was at least six to seven thousand acres in
extent, I returned to our encampment.

" 3rd. At half-past eight set out. Obliged to drop the boats down
some falls : observed, in passing through one of the reaches, a native
sitting on the banks, and within a half-mile of where Mr. Gray had stated
he had seen white people. This man was sick, and appeared to be
totally indifferent to our presence. I gave him some biscuits and left
him. At three, landed and encamped the party ; discovered som.e
natives about a mile off. We immediately went to the place and got
close to them before they saw us. They proved to be two men, a
woman, and three children. We made them presents. The woman
could not be induced to look up, but hid her face between her legs, and
on our moving off, she was on her legs and off like an arrow. This
day's distance twenty-two miles.

" 4th. Left at eight o'clock, made rapid progress, and arrived
at the coal-bed ; filled a sack with some as a sample ; there is
fine coal just below. The whale-boat struck a tree, and knocked a
large hole in her bottom ; she was full of water before she could
be beached. Took everything out of her, hauled her up, and in
about two hours had her completely repaired. Distance this day,
twenty-eight miles.

" 5th. Left at eight o'clock. Passed down a fall with a remarkable
bed of rocks in it. On going up the water was much lower, it was now
nearly four feet higher and broke violently. Met several natives, who
were a little shy at first, but soon became confident, and were fine people.
Distance, eighteen miles.

Back to Sydney. — A Dog of Amity

V^)

" 6th. Left at five o'clock, and arrivcii at the settlement at eleven •
distance twenty miles, having been absent twenty-seven davs. the party
being all in good health. I am certain the distances are 'considerably
underrated, from a wish at the time to rattier underrate than otherwise.
The obstructions in the river might be easily removed, which no doul)t
must prove of considerable importance. The fine timber growing on it.
banks is fit for every purpose, particularly shipbuilding. Morcton Bay
is calculated to become a place of trade when once settled.

" 8th. At two o'clock quitted the settlement to join the cutler at
Moreton Bay, for the purpose of returning to Sydney. It becoming
dark on getting clear of the river we did not get on board until eleven
o'clock at night, as it was with great difficulty we discovered the cutter,
which we should not have succeeded in doing but for my having my
double-barrelled fowling-piece with me, which I discharged several
times. At last we saw a light hoisted to the mast, distant from us about
a mile and a-half.

" 9th. Beat down to Peel's Island ; came to an anchor. Went on
shore, and found it well wooded ; some part good soil, the remainder
sandy. On removing it from the surface found a good clay soil below.
In the middle of the island is a lagoon of excellent water. The island
is from twelve to fifteen miles in circumference, and would be a very
proper place on which to build a storehouse to deposit stores landed
from large vessels that could not approach the settlement nearer than
this. It would also feed a number of cattle, sheep, and other stock.

" loth. Dropped down to Amity Point ; anchored there, the wind
blowing in with a strong sea breeze N.E. Went on shore, a number of
natives being there. Was much amused by their singing a song,
pronouncing several English words distinctly, and by their instantly
recognising James Finnigan — one of three men who were wrecked on
the shore in a boat there three years ago, having been driven away to the
northward from Illawarra, or the Five Islands, by a gale of wind. These
men were kindly treated, and taken care of by the natives for nine
months, until discovered by Mr. Oxley. They appeared delighted at
meeting Finnigan again, and instantly brought a supply of fish, which
they offered without expecting any return, though I took care, by giving
them fish-hooks, lines, biscuits, and seveial other things, looking-gla.sses.
hatchets, to show them we did not slight such good will. The stories
told of their being cannibals are fabulous and absurd : ihey are a quiet,
inoffensive, good-natured people.

" nth. Quitted Moreton Bay at nine o'clock p.m., with a land
breeze, leaving our friends, the natives, sitting on the shore at Amity
Point, watching the vessel until she sunk in the horizon from their view.
The attachment of these people to their dogs is worthy of notice. I was
very anxious to get one of the wild native breed of a bla«-!< colour, a very

6oo Genesis of Queensland.

handsome puppy, which one of the men had in his arms. I offered a
small axe for it. His companions urged him to take it, and he was
about to do so, when he looked at the dog and the animal licked his
face, which settled the business ; he shook his head, determined to keep
him. I tried him afterwards with handkerchiefs of glaring colours, but
it would not do ; he would not part with his dog. I gave him, however,
the axe and handkerchief.

"On Sunday, October i6, at four o'clock in the afternoon, anchored
in Sydney Cove, and on Monday made my report to his Excellency the
Governor.

" On my passing down to Moreton Bay I visited Newcastle and Port
Macquarie. The difficulties which attend vessels entering into these
places (particularly the latter) will prevent their ever becoming sea ports
of consequence, as produce raised there must be sent to Sydney in small
vessels for ulterior shipment in larger vessels for exportation. Not so,
however, with Moreton Bay. Ships of the largest size can go in at the
passage, which is called the southern one, by Point Look-out, where a
light-house or signal station could be established, as also pilots, who
would board vessels before they approached any danger. No stranger
ought to go in without a pilot. The passage, as you approach the
southern end of Moreton Island, is marked by buoys on each side, and
runs up from the entrance a course about N.W. for nearly one mile,
bet^veen two sandbanks. On the southern one, which is the spit, the
course changes to S.S.W., about a mile and a-half. On getting past
Amity Point there is no farther danger, being then in Moreton Bay, and
still distant from the establishment on the Brisbane river about forty
miles. Inside Amity Point is the most eligible spot for a future town for
this fine seaport. There is abundance of most excellent fresh water, and
good depth of water for ships to lie close to the shore. The bay abounds
with excellent fish of every description, as well as wild fowl in great
numbers. From no accurate survey having been taken, or good
examination of Moreton Bay, a great part of it is still unknown. There
are many rivers running into it that no one has ever entered, conse-
quently their capabilities and resources are yet to be learnt, though from
what is known of the Brisbane, the Blind river, and the Pumice Stone,
they abound with the finest timber that has hitherto been found in New
South Wales. It would be well that the Government should direct their
attention to this valuable article, as there is no doubt it will become one
of great export, as also for colonial purposes in ship-building, &c., &c.
A steam engine with sawing apparatus might be erected with advantage
on Peel's Island, for converting the pine into deals, and squaring other
timber for the more convenient stowage and shipment ; whilst it remains
a penal settlement, the prisoners would be well employed in felling this
valuable timber, rafting it down the rivers to Peel's Island, where it would

More ton Bay Pine. (,oi

be prepared for exportation. The pine which is in such abundance at
Moreton Bay is well adapted for masts, spars of every denomination, as
also being excellent for oars. All these would find ready sale in India,
as well as being a most valuable article in the colony. As a proof that
this wood of the country is valuable, several ships in this last year have
been principally loaded with it on their home voyage; and, further, the
merchants of Sydney are not inclined to give any information of their
profits on this article."

APPENDIX D.

A COPY OF General Order No. 5, dated 2nd of
January, 1826.

" ist. The Lieutenant-General calls the attention of Officers in
command at the Penal Settlements and other detached stations to the
consequences which must result to the service from any intimacy being
permitted between the soldiers and the prisoners of the Crown ; and
they will be pleased to take the necessary steps for putting an
immediate stop to it.

" 2nd. It is hoped that the soldiers themselves are alive to the
distinction which exists, and which it is of importance should be
preserved between them and the convicts. They must not indulge
in any familiarity with them. Such intercourse would be inconsistent
with the proper discharge of their duty, and highly injurious to the
public service.

" 3rd. The soldiers are not, however, to suppose, that the ill-
treatment of a convict would be passed over with impunity. The
Lieutenant-General assures them, that any such act would be promptly
and severely punished. It would be as unbecoming the character of a
British soldier, as an indiscriminate association with men under the
sentence of the law, would be derogatory to it.

" 4th. The foregoing is to be considered a standing order, and
to be read monthly to the corps and detachments, with the Articles of
War.

" 5th. The Officers in command of Penal Settlements, and
detached stations will consider it their special duty to see it strictly
enforced.

(Signed) " Henry Gillman,

" Major of Brigade."

" [Government Order.]
" (No. 9.) " Colonial Secretary's Office,

" 13th February, 1826.

" The Governor has been pleased to establish the following regu-
lations with respect to the Government vessels proceeding to and from
the different settlements, viz. :

" ist. The Master Attendant is to notify to the Colonial Secretary
and the Naval Officer the arrival of every Government vessel in the
harbour of Sydney, sending a list of the articles on board to each of
these officers, and the names and descriptions of the passengers to the
Colonial Secretary.

Government Coasting Service. 603

" 2nd. The Colonial Secretary will make such communications as

may be necessary to the officer at the head of the commissariat, and any
other of the public departments which may be concerned, cither with
respect to landing the cargo or the i)risoners, should there be any on
board ; and no prisoner, whether claiming his certificate of expired
sentence or otherwise, is to be allowed to disembark until permission to
this effect is duly conveyed by the Superintendent of Convicts.

" 3rd. The officer in charge of the commissariat is to be apprised
of the arrival of such vessels, with the further view of supplying such of
the detached settlements as may require stores.

" 4th. The officer in charge of the commissariat is to signify to the
Colonial Secretary, whenever it may be necessary, to send supplies to any
of the settlements, he being considered responsible that they are always
regularly and duly furnished with provisions and all other necessaries.

" 5th. When a vessel is ready to proceed to sea, the Master Attendant
will furnish the Colonial Secretary with a list of all the articles shij)ped on
account of Government, and no others are to be embarked without
special permission to that effect. The Colonial Secretary will transmit a
copy of this list, with an account of the prisoners forwarded, or any other
passengers on board, to the Commandant of the Settlement.

" 6th. On the arrival of a vessel at any of the settlements, the
Commandant is immediately to send a confidential person on board to
ascertain whether the passengers and supplies correspond with the list
forwarded by the Colonial Secretary, and neither are to be landed without
the express order of the Commandant. Should the master of the vessel
have brought other passengers and goods, a special report is immediately
to be made to the Colonial Secretary, in order that the master may be
dismissed.

"7th. The Commandants are to forward to the Colonial Secretary
lists of the passengers and articles embarked in Government vessels
bound to Sydney; and nothing is to be landed until the Governor's
authority shall have been signified through that officer.

" By His Kxcellency's command,

" Alexander McLeay."

" Proclamation.

" By His Excellency Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling, Commanding

His Majesty's Forces, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of

the territory of New South Wales and its dependencies, and

Vice-Admiral of the same, &c., &c., &c.

"Whereas, by an Order of His Majesty in Council, bearing dale at Carlton

House,the eleventh day of November, eighteen hundred and twenty-five.

and issued in pursuance of the Act of Parliament in such case made, it is

ordered that theGovernors,orotherpersonsforihetimebeing,administering

6o4 Genesis of Queensland.

the government of any of His Majesty's foreign possessions, colonies, or
plantations, shall, from time to time, by proclamation to be by them
respectively for that purpose issued, appoint the place or places within
His Majesty's dominions to which any offenders, convicted in any such
foreign possessions, colonies, or plantations, as aforesaid, and being
under sentence of transportation, shall be sent or transported: — Now,
therefore, I, the Governor aforesaid, in pursuance of the said order of
His Majesty in Council, and in exercise of the power and authority in
me vested, do issue this my proclamation, and do hereby appoint Port
Macquarie, Moreton Bay, and Norfolk Island, to be the places, within
the said colony of New South Wales and its dependencies, to which the
several offenders convicted in New South Wales, and being under
sentence or order of transportation, shall be sent or transported.

" Given under my hand and seal, at Government House, Sydney,
this fifteenth day of August, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six.

" Ralph Darling.

"By His Excellency's command,
"Alexander McLeay,"

" Wednesday, January 2nd, 1828. On Sunday last, arrived from
her voyage of discovery, the Hon. East India Company's ship 'Research,'
Captain Dillon ; Count Cheneau, Consul to China from France, is onboard.

" Wednesday, January i6th. 'La Perouse.' In another part of
our paper will be found the details of the various relics that were
procured from the natives of the Manicola Islands, belonging to the
vessels under this unfortunate, but universally respected navigator."
(Such lists and vouchers of their authenticity are given.)

" Friday, January 25th. The ' Research ' though at so great a dis-
tance from the town, is daily thronged with visitors, who are laudably
anxious to witness and examine those remains of the wreck of the* two
French ships, under the command of the unfortunate La Perouse.
Captain Dillon has a cabin set apart as a depository of those valuable
articles which, the moment they are seen, strike conviction into the mind
of the most sceptical, and satisfy all those who are privileged to examine
them, of their undoubted identity as forming a part of the wrecked ships.
Of all the articles which engaged our attention, that of the decayed part
of the stern, was most interesting. . . . The mind is insensibly led
to a retrospection of forty years, and the wood itself wears all the appear-
ance of forty years old. The fleur-de-lis are very plain, and there can
be no doubt, that the piece of timber formed a part of the ornamental
work of the stern of one of the ships. . . . We have a small piece
of this decayed relic, which we took the liberty of seizing upon, for the
purpose of placing it amongst numberless other curiosities, which we
intend to hand over to the Colonial Museum, as soon as it is organised.'

Dillon and La Peroiise. 6oe

... From the French gentleman on board the ' Research ' we were
casually mformed that the utmost praise is due to Captain Dillon for the
coolness, intrepidity and skill, which he displayed at the island of
Manicolo, as it was with the greatest diniculty, and unabated attention
that the ' Research ' was saved from being lost on some of the many
reefs, which render the island dangerous to approach. . . The

reefs were carefully examined, and correctly laid down bv Captain
Dillon, though the latitude and longitude of Manicolo continue a secret,
but which, no doubt, at a future day, will be exploded.
Amongst other toasts drank on board the ' Research.' was that of
' Captain Dillon, the discoverer of the fate of La Pcrousc.' To-morrow
will be the fortieth year since Australia was founded as a British
colony." — From the Sydney Gazette.

" La Perouse.
" It is now forty years, the 20th of the present month, that the two frigates
' Boussole ' and ' L' Astrolabe,' commanded by M. De la Perouse,
anchored in Botany Bay — since which period no satisfactory tidings were
ever obtained, until the ship 'St. Patrick,' Captain Dillon, fell in with
the sword-guard of the lamented and celebrated navigator, which simple
circumstance has led to the termination of a research, at the spirited
instance of the Honourable East India Company, under an enterprising
commander, that will render the name of Dillon famous, and elicit the
grateful regards of the French nation towards the Honourable East India
Company ; whilst the most distinguishing and substantial rewards will,
as a matter of course, be showered upon the present adventurous com-
mander of the Company's cruiser ' Research.'

"In looking over the first volume of an old work, entitled 'The
Voyage of La Perouse round the World in the years of 17S5, 1786,
1787, and 1788,' we have encountered a very satisfactor}' document,
which clearly demonstrates that Captain Peter Dillon, upon the faith ot
the French Government, will be ' rewarded according to the importance
of the service.' A single individual has accomplished, under the
auspices of the Honourable East India Company, that which the
celebrated D'Entrecastreaux failed in accomplishing with two of the first
vessels France could produce, ' La Recherche ' and ' L'Esperance,'
from Brest, and which were fitted up at enormous expense ; indepen-
dently of which, the deepest interest has invariably been excited in the
mind of ever)'' Frenchman who has visited these seas for the last twenty
or thirty years." — Sydney Gazette, Januar}- 4.

" Now for the
"Decree of the National Assembly of Febru.vrv qth, 1791.

" The National Assembly, having heard the reports of the united Com-
mittees of agriculture, commerce, and the marine, decrees :

6o6 Genesis of Queensland.

" That the King be requested to issue orders to all ambassadors,
residents, consuls, national agents employed at the courts of the several
maritime powers, to use their influence with the respective sovereigns at
whose Court they reside, in the name of humanity, and of the arts and
sciences, to charge all navigators and agents whatever, who act under
their instructions, in whatever place of the globe they may be, but,
espegially in the southern parts of the south sea, to make every
enquiry in their power, respecting the two French frigates ' Boussole '
and ' L' Astrolabe," commanded by M. De la Perouse, and also respecting
their crews, in the view of obtaining such information as may ascertain
their existence or their shipwreck, to the end that, in case M. De la Perouse
and his fellow-navigators shall be found or heard of, no matter in what
place, all possible assistance may be given them, and means procured for
assisting them to return to their country, as well as to enabling them to
recover and carry off whatever property they may possess ; the National
Assembly becoming bound to indemnify, and even reward, according to
the importance of the service, the person or persons who shall lend
assistance to these navigators, obtain information concerning them, or
so much as to procure for France the restitution of such papers or other
effects of whatever kind, which belonged, or might have belonged
to their expedition.

" Decrees, farther, that the King be requested to issue orders for
the equipment of one or more ships, on board of which shall
embark men of science, naturalists and draughtsmen, and to
instruct the commanders employed in the expedition to fulfil the
twofold mission of searching after M. De la Perouse, agreeably
to the documents, rules, and orders which shall be given to them,
and at the same time to pursue researches relative to science and
commerce, taking every measure to render the expedition, independ-
ently of the enquiry after M. De la Perouse, or even in the event of
recovering him, or of procuring intelligence concerning him, useful
and advantageous to navigation, geography, to commerce, to the arts
and sciences.

" Compared with the original, by us, the President and Secretaries
of the National Assembly, at Paris, this 24th day of February, 1791.
(Signed) " Duport, President.

" LlORE 7c , • "

,, -, > Secretaries.

" BOUSSON )
(For particulars concerning this interesting subject, see the " Narrative and
Successful Result of a Voyage in the South Seas, performed by order of the
Government of British India, to ascertain the actual fate of La Perouse's expedi-
tion," by the Chevalier Captain P. Dillon, Member of the Legion of Honour, of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and the Geographical Society of Paris, Commander
of the Honourable E. L Company's ship "Research"; in two volumes; London,
1829.)

Oxley' s Successor. (^-j

" [Government Order.]

" Colonial Secretary's Oflice,

"May 26, 1828.

" His Excellency has directed the notification of Major Thomas
Livingstone Mitchell's appointment to the office of Surveyor-(Jcneral, in
the room of John Oxley, Esq., deceased.

" It would be impossible for His Excellency, consistently with his
feelings, to announce the decease of the late Surveyor-General without
endeavouring to express the sense he entertains of Mr. Oxiey's services,
though he cannot do justice to them.

" From the nature of this colony, the office of Surveyor-Cieneral is
amongst the most important under the Government ; and to perform its
duties in the manner Mr, Oxley has done for a long series of years is as
honourable to his zeal and abilities, as it is painful to the Government to
be deprived of them.

" Mr. Oxley entered the public service at an early period of life,
and has filled the important situation of Surveyor-General for the last
sixteen years.

" His exertions in the public service have been unwearied, as has
been proved by his several expeditions to explore the interior. The
public have reaped the benefit, while it is to be apprehended that the
event, which they cannot fail to lament, has been accelerated by the
privations and fatigue he endured during the performance of these
arduous services.

"Mr. Oxley eminently assisted in unfolding the advantages of this
highly-favoured country, and his name will ever be associated with the
dawn of its advancement.

" It is always gratifying to the Government to record its approba-
tion of the services of meritorious public officers, and in assigning to
Mr. Oxiey's name a distinguished place in that class, to which his
devotion to the interests of the colony has so justly entitled him, the
Governor would do honour to his memory in the same degree as it feels
the loss it has sustained in his death.

" By His Excellency's command.

"Alexander McLeay.''

" [Government Order.]

" Colonial Secretary's Office,

"September 17, 1829.
" His Majesty having been pleased to appoint the Reverend
William Grant Broughton to be Archdeacon of New South Wales,
in the room of the Reverend Thomas Hobbes Scott, whose resig-
nation has been accepted, his Excellency the Governor directs it
to be notified that Archdeacon Broughton was sworn inio ofiicc

6o8 Genesis of Queensland,

yesterday as Archdeacon and Member of the Legislative Council, and
took his seat accordingly.

" By his Excellency's command.

"Alexander McLeay."

" [Government Order.]

" Colonial Secretary's Office,

"September 23, 1829.
" His Excellency the Governor directs it to be announced that the
Venerable Archdeacon Broughton was yesterday sworn in as a Member
of the Executive Council, and took his seat accordingly.
" By his Excellency's command.

"Alexander McLeay,"

"Proclamation.

"November 3, 1829.
" By His Excellency Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling, Commanding

His Majesty's Forces, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief, &c.
" Whereas, in consideration of the very serious calamity with which the
colony was threatened, in consequence of the unusual and long-
continued drought, as well as the providential change which has taken
place since the occurrence of the late favourable rains, it is proper that
special opportunity should be afforded to the inhabitants of publicly
expressing their humble thankfulness to Almighty God for this instance
of His mercy : — Now I, the Governor, do hereby direct that a General
Thanksgiving be observed throughout the territory of New South Wales,
on Thursday, the 12th day of the present month of November, and that,
for a becoming celebration of the same, a form of prayer and thanks-
giving, which the Venerable the Archdeacon will be pleased to prepare,
will be used on the occasion in all churches and places of religious
worship belonging to the establishment, and I do further require and
direct that the clergy do attend to the instructions which shall accom-
pany the said form of prayer and thanksgiving (copies of which will be
transmitted to them without delay), and that they do earnestly enforce
upon their parishioners the reasonable duty of uniting in grateful
acknowlegments of a blessing whereby all classes have been so signally
relieved."

" Proclamation.
"By His Excellency Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling, Commanding
His Majesty's Forces, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief &c.
" Whereas, by a Proclamation dated the fifteenth day of August, one
thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, the Governor, in virtue of the
power in him vested, appointed Port Macquarie to be one of the places to

The Last of Logan. 609

which offenders convicted in New South Wales and being under sentence
or order of transportation, should be sent or transported :

"And whereas it is expedient that the said place of Port Macquarie
should be no longer continued as a Penal Settlement, but that the same
should be open for settlers and all free persons desirous of proceeding'
thither : Now I, the Governor aforesaid, in exercise of the power and
authority in me vested, do, by this my Proclamation declare that Port
Macquarie is no longer considered as a Penal Settlement ; and that
from and after the fifteenth day of August next, all settlers and other free-
persons shall be at liberty to proceed thither in like manner as to any
other part of the Colony.

" Given under my hand and seal, at Government House, Sydney,
this thirtieth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty.

" Ralph Darling.
" By His Excellency's command,
" Alexander McLeay."

APPENDIX E,

"Captain Logan of the 57th Regiment, Commandant of INIoreton
Bay, had for some time been diligently employed in surveying
that part of the country, and executing a chart for the public service.
His labours having been nearly completed, he left the settlement on the
9th ultimo (October) to make his final survey. . . He was accom-
panied by a boat's crew and one private servant. On the morning of
the fatal day, when they had reached about fifteen miles beyond the lime
kilns, situated about seventy miles from the coast, a group of natives
made their appearance, and manifested a very unfriendly feeling towards
the party ; in the afternoon, however, the Commandant ordered his
horse, saying he should take a solitary ride and return to the encampment
in time for dinner.

"The afternoon wore away, the darkness of night set in, but
no appearance of the Commandant."

"When reported. Captain Clunie instantly despatched several
parties" in search from Brisbane. "On the fifth day, one of these
parties descried a saddle hanging from a branch of a tree ; the
stirrup leathers of which had been cut away ; it proved to be the one on
which the Commandant had travelled, and on examining the earth it
was observed that the saddle had been trailed along, leaving marks of
its course upon the surface. These marks they proceeded to trace, and
in a short time found the Captain's waistcoat much stained w'ith blood,
and his pocket compass and other instruments scattered about and much
broken. Pursuing the marks, they at length came to the body of the
horse, and a little further on discovered the lifeless remains of the
Commandant loosely covered with leaves and earth, the feet protruding,
and mangled by the native dogs. The body was inspected by Mr. Cowper,
the surgeon of the settlement, who found no difficulty in proving that the
act had been perpetrated by native weapons. The corpse was carried to
the settlement, where an inquest was held, and the above facts proved in
evidence.'" — From the Sydney Gazette, November 16, 1830.

" On the next day" (loth October) "upwards of two hundred blacks
covered a hill close to where the party had to pass, which was on the
Limestone side of the river, and began throwing and rolling down large
stones on the party while passing, but no spears were thrown at this time.
Captain Logan was in advance, and finding he could not proceed on
account of the natives, he was obliged to fall back and wait the coming
up of the party. CoUison, his servant, seeing what was going forward,
fired a shot over their heads to frighten them.

He and his Horse found Dead. gj,

"This for a time had the effect, and they kept more aloof, but
while the party were in the act of fordin.i,- the river the blacks closed upon
them again. Collison fired another shot, which again had the effect of
keeping them off. The natives appeared to know Captain Logan, for as
soon as he had crossed they repeatedly called ' Commidy Water,' inti-
mating thereby, it is supposed, he should go back over the water. They
followed at a distance all the day, hiding themselves occasionally behind
trees and in the long grass.

"From this till Saturday, 17th" (? i6th), "when Captain Logan, saying
he had accomplished all that was practicable, gave directions for the return
of the party to the Limestone station, nothing of consequence transpired.

" Between eight and nine on the 17th (Sunday), Captain Logan took
a path which led him in the direction of Mount Irwin, where, being
desirous of obtaining some basaltic formations, he was lost sight of and
his party pushed on, and encamped about four in the afternoon on the
ground previously pointed out by Captain Logan. Some time after,
the men thought they heard him cry ' cooey.' Several ' cooeyed' in
return, and then waited about half-an-hour, when they thought they heard
him ' cooey' again. It was answered, and four or live shots fired at
intervals during the evening.

" Early on Monday, the i8th, two men were sent down the creek to
follow the tracks of his horse's feet. About twelve o'clock fifty or si.xty
blacks appeared with spears, shields, and waddies. They hovered about
the party, shouting, getting behind trees, and endeavouring to close upon
them undiscovered, but no shots were fired. They continued their
course, and in an hour or two went off towards Mount Irwin, which was
the direction Captain Logan had taken the preceding evening."

The men came to Limestone, and on the 21st another party
found "a space eaten round where the horse had been tethered. There
were marks where Captain Logan had taken his horse to water, ami
where he had roasted chesnuis at a fire produced at the slump of a tree.
No marks of struggling or other violence appearing, it was conjectured that
Captain Logan had jumped on his horse barebacked and made his escape.

"The party then returned to the Limestone station without having
seen a black on the whole journey.

" Disappointed a second time, another party consisting of five
soldiers of the 57th Regiment, and twelve prisoners, set out, and meeting
with a party under I\Ir. Cowper, surgeon, on Wednesday, after consider-
able search found Captain Logan's waistcoat, covered with blood, as well
'as some leaves of his notebook.

" Next day Mr. Cowper discovered the horse, dead, in the bottom
of a shallow creek covered with boughs.

" One broken spear only was found, and about seven or ten yards
from the opposite bank Captain Logan's body was found, thi.- back of

6i2 Genesis of Queensland.

the head much beaten with waddies, in a grave about two feet deep,
where the blacks had buried him with his face downwards. The body
was taken up, put into blankets, and by stages brought to Limestone
station, and afterwards by water to the settlement.

"We will not pourtray the sufferings of his agonized widow on
receipt of the fatal news.

" Captain Logan, though severely strict was, on the whole a well
disposed man, a man disposed to do impartial justice." — From the
Australian of November 19, 1830.

" Funeral of Captain Logan.

" The last sad tribute was, on Tuesday afternoon, paid to the
remains of this lamented and unfortunate gentleman.

" Notwithstanding the very unfavourable state of the weather, a
considerable concourse of persons was assembled to witness the sad but
imposing spectacle. The procession was formed in the Barrack" (now
Wynyard) "Square, from which about four o'clock they departed on this
mournful journey. . . . The procession advanced to St. James'
Church where the burial service was read in a most solemn and
impressive manner by the venerable the Archdeacon, after which the
melancholy cavalcade continued its route to the Protestant burial-ground
where a brick vault had been built, near that of Major Ovens, to receive
the remains of the deceased.

" The Archdeacon, who was accompanied by the Rev. Messrs. Hill
and Cowper, here performed the remainder of the service, and the coffin
was deposited in the house appointed for all living, the escort advancing
and discharging three rounds of musketry over the grave of their late
gallant Commander." — Sydney Gazette, November 25, 1830.

" [Government Order.]

" Colonial Secretary's Office,

"November 17, 1830.

"His Excellency the Governor publishes, with feelings of
deep concern, the following copy of a letter from Captain Clunie,
conveying intelligence of the melancholy fate of Captain Logan,
57th, late Commandant at Moreton Bay, who was murdered
by the natives, when completing a survey which he had commenced
last year.

"It would be painful to dwell on the particulars of this distressing
event. Everyone who is capable of estimating Captain Logan's charac-
ter — his zeal — his chivalrous and undaunted spirit — will deplore it.

" He had held for a period of four years the command at Moreton
Bay — a situation, from the character of the settlement, of the most
troublesome and arduous description. He did not, however, confine

Clwiie's Official Report. ^ij

himself to the immediate duties of his i.oinin;ind. but hud on several
occasions, at great personal risk, explored the country to a considerable
extent, and on one of these he discovered a river, which, in curnplimcni
to his services, was named the 'Logan,' as will be seen by the Govern-
ment Order of the i6th July, 1827,

"The circumstances of Captain Logan's tleath prove that the
ardour of his character was not to be restrained by personal con-
siderations. His life was devoted to the public service. Professionally
he possessed those qualities which distinguished the best officers ; and
in the conduct of an extensive public establishment, his services were
highly important to the colony.

" The Governor, though he deeply regrets the occasion, is gratified
in expressing his sentiments of Captain Logan's character and services.
He is assured that every feeling mind will sympathise with the afllicied
widow, who with her infant family, has by an act of savage barbarity,
sustained a loss which cannot be repaired.

" As a tribute to this meritorious officer, His Excellency requests
that the gentlemen of the Civil Service will join the military in attending
the funeral, of which due notice will be given.

" By His Excellency's Command,

" Alexander McLeay."

" Moreton Bay, November 6th, 1830.

" Sir, — It is with feelings of unfeigned sorrow that the duty devolves
upon me of reporting to you, for the information of His Excellency the
Governor, the melancholy death of Captain Logan, late Commandant of
this settlement.

" The particulars relative to this unfortunate event are nearly as
follows :

" On the 9th ultimo Captain Logan, accompanied by his ser%'ani
and five prisoners, proceeded from Brisbane Town to the neighbourhood
of Mount Irwin and the Brisbane Mountain, with a view of completing
his chart of this part of the colony. It appears that when near
the Pine Range the party were attacked by a large assemblage of
natives, who, however, on a shot being fired, ceased to annoy them.
The party then proceeded on their journey, and Captain Logan, after
traversing part of the country, was on his return home, on the 1 7lh
ultimo ; when not far from the foot of Mount Irwin he left the party,
desiring them to proceed to a place he pointed out, and where he said
he would join them in the evening. From some unfortunate misunder-
standing, however, he was unable to do so, and on the i8th, the parly
believing he would proceed immediately to the Limestone station,
took their departure, also to that place, where they arrived the following
evening.

6i4 Genesis of Queensland.

" Finding that Captain Logan was not there, as they expected, and
having seen many natives on the day previous, their fears were naturally
excited, and three of them immediately returned to the place where
Captain Logan had left them, while the others came here to announce
the distressing intelligence.

" As we naturally concluded he had fallen into the hands of the
natives, and hoped he might be a prisoner and alive, parties were sent
out in every direction to endeavour to meet them ; while, in the mean-
time, his servant and party found his saddle, with the stirrups cut off as
if by a native's hatchet, about ten miles from the place where Captain
Logan had left them, in the direction of the Limestone station. Near
to this place, also, were the marks of his horse having been tied
to a tree ; of his having himself slept upon some grass in a bark
hut, and having apparently been roasting chestnuts, when he had
made some rapid strides towards his horse, as if surprised by the
natives. No further traces, however, could be discovered, and
though the anxiety of his family and friends were most distressing,
hopes were still entertained of his being alive till the 28th ultimo,
when Mr. Cowper, whose exertions on this occasion were very great,
and for which I feel much indebted, discovered the dead horse sticking
in a creek, and not far from it, at the top of the bank, the body of
Captain Logan, buried about a foot under ground. Near this also
were found papers torn in pieces, his boots, and a part of his waistcoat,
stained with blood.

" From all these circumstances it appears probable that while at the
place, where he had stopped for the night. Captain Logan was suddenly
surprised by the natives ; that he mounted his horse without saddle or
bridle, and, being unable to manage him, the horse, pursued by the
natives, got into the creek, where Capain Logan, endeavouring to extricate
him, was overtaken and murdered.

" Mrs. Logan having a decided objection to the remains being
interred here, has requested they may be forwarded to Sydney by the
' Isabella,' while she and her family proceed by the ' Governor Phillip'
and, it being the opinion of both the medical ofTicers here that, in her
delicate state of health, proceeding without a medical attendant would
be attended with much danger, I have been induced to sanction
Assistant-Surgeon Murray accompanying Mrs. Logan, as in the present
healthy state of the settlement the services of one medical officer can be
dispensed with for a short time.

" I have, etc.,

"J. O. Clunie,
"Captain 17th Regiment.
" The Honourable the Colonial Secretary,
" Sydney."

APPENDIX V

" Proclamation.
" By His Excellency Lieutenant-Gencral Ralph Darling. Commanding

His Majesty's Forces, Captain-General and Govcrnor-in-Chicf of

the Territory of New South Wales and its Depemicncics, &c., &c.
" Whereas, by an Act of the Governor, with the advice of the Legislative
Council, passed in the present year of His Majesty's reign, intituled *
' An Act for the Punishment and Transportation of Offenders in New
South Wales,' it is enacted, That if any offender transported to a penal
settlement shall, during the time of his remaining at such penal settlement,
beguilty of misbehaviour or disorderly conduct, the commandant or super-
intendent of such penal settlement shall be authorised to inflict or cause to
be inflicted such moderate punishment as shall be allowed by public
proclamation or order to be made for such purpose by the Governor.

" Now I, the Governor aforesaid, do, by this my proclamation,
declare and direct that the commandants or persons in charge of the
several penal settlements now established or that shall hereafter be
established in this colony or its dependencies respectively, or any two
or more magistrates in either of the said penal settlements, shall have
full power and authority to punish or cause to be punished all offences
committed by convicts while under their charge or in such penal
settlements respectively, excepting mutiny, murder or attempt to
murder, or other crime for the punishment of which tlie sentence of
death is of law awarded, by solitary confinement, increased labour,
working on the tread-mill, or whipping, according to the discretion of
such commandant or two or more magistrates ; but that no such
offender shall be whipped more than three times for the same offence,
nor shall a greater number of lashes than one hundred be inflicted upon
any offender in one day. And I do further declare and direct that no
order for increased labour or other punishment, except solitary confine-
ment, shall be carried into effect without the consent of the medical
officer of the settlement, who, should he see any reason why the
punishment should not be carried into effect, will state the same to
the commandant in writing ; and no number of lashes beyond twenty-
five shall be inflicted without the actual presence of a medical oflicer.
who is to be answerable that no greater number of lashes shall be inflicted
than the bodily strength of the offender can bear without endangering life.

" Given under my hand and seal, at Government House, Sydney,
this twenty-sixth day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand
eight hundred and thirty. " Rali-h Darling.

"By His Excellency's Command,
" Alexander McLeay."

APPENDIX G.

"Journal of the Geographical Society of London." Vol. IV. —
Geographical Memoir of Melville Island and Port Essington,
on the Cobourg Peninsula ; with some Observations on the
Settlements which have been established on the North Coast
of New Holland. Communicated by Major Campbell, 57TH
Foot, formerly Commandant of Melville Island.
" Very little local correct information on a most interesting part of
the northern coast of New Holland and its neighbouring islands, has yet
been laid before the public, arising probably from the little attention that
has hitherto been paid to this distant and not thoroughly explored portion
of our British dominions, as well as from the few opportunities that navi-
gators, or others, have had of minutely examining its shores or interior.

" Experimental Settlements. — Two experimental settlements were
formed on the north coast of New Holland between 1824 and 1828, and
subsequently abandoned. One of them was placed in Apsley Strait in
1824, the other in Raffles Bay in 1827; and the intention of their
formation, with the causes which led to their being abandoned, being
little known, I shall first explain these points. Previous to 1824 some
masters of small trading vessels, who had been carrying on a traffic with
the islands in the Indian Archipelago, found the trade thus embarked
in of a description that promised a profitable market for European goods;
they also observed that several articles of traffic among these islands
were obtained on the northern coast of New Holland, ' such as beche-de-
mer or trepang, and pearl and tortoise shell." They, therefore, naturally
concluded that a British settlement on that coast might facilitate a com-
mercial intercourse, not only with the islands of the Indian Archipelago,
but also with the Chinese; and these observations meeting with a, favour-
able consideration in the Colonial Department at home, and Government
evincing a desire to extend our trade in the Indian seas, arrangements
were entered into for carrying the views founded on them into effect.
Captain Bremer, C.B., commanding H.M.S. 'Tamar,' received instruc-
tions to take charge of an expedition which would be fitted out at Sydney,
to proceed with it to the north coast of New Holland, and establish a
settlement on such part of that coast as he thought most likely to answer
the intentions of Government. The settlement on Melville Island was
the result — of the formation of which I will give a short account. The
materials being prepared at Sydney, Captain Bremer (afterwards
Sir J. G. Bremer) sailed from Port Jackson, on August 24th, 1824, having
under his command (besides his own ship) two vessels, in which were
embarked two officers and fifty soldiers of the 3rd Regiment, a surgeon,
two gentlemen of the Commissariat Department, and forty-five convicts,

Trafalgar. 6 1 7

with cattle and various stores. The expedition proceeded through
Torres Strait, and crossing,' the Gulf of Carpentaria, on Sepicnihcr 20
reached Port Essington, where they came to anchor. Tliey remained
three days, but after searching in several directions for water, and being
unable to discover any, except by digging hole;+s^n the sand at I'oini
Record (so named by Captain Bremer,) they were induced to look for a
more convenient place to the westward. On the morning of the 2 4lh
of September, Melville Island was seen from the mast-head, bearing
S.W., and at 7 p.m., the expedition anchored outside of the reef called
Mermaid Shoal, which extends W. from Cape Van Dieman. The 2 5ih
was occupied by the expedition in threading its way through this reef,
and in the evening they anchored in seven fathoms water, off Bathiysi
Island.

" At daylight on the 26th they weighed, and stood for the entrance
between Melville and Bathurst Islands into Apsley Strait, and in the
afternoon anchored off Luxmore Head in iifteen fathoms . The next
four days were occupied in searching for water, but none but what was
brackish was found, until late on the 29th, when a small stream was met
with by Captain Bremer ; this decided him to establish the new settle-
ment in Apsley Strait, on the Melville Island side. The most ehgible
spot that presented itself was six miles higher up than Luxmore Head ;
on September 30, the soldiers and convicts were landed, and the operation
of clearing away ground in order to build was commenced.

" The spot fixed upon by Captain Bremer was named by him Point
Barlow, in compliment to Captain Barlow, 3rd Regiment, who was
appointed commandant. A low point of land to the N.W. of it was
called Garden Point, and these two points formed the extremities of a
small bay, which became the anchorage, and was named Kings
Cove.

"By the 21st October, through the efforts of the sailors, soldiers,
and convicts, the settlement was in a great state of forwardness, and this
being the anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, Captain Bremer landed
some guns and mounted them on the fort, which was now nearly
complete. A royal salute was fired, and, besides the names already
mentioned, others were given. The work was called Fort Dundas. On
the 13th of November, the fort, wharf, soldiers' huts, officers' houses,
and commissariat store being completed, also an excellent well, thirty feet
deep and six in diameter, and the provisions all landed. Captain Bremer
took his departure for India, leaving an officer and thirty marines to
assist in the protection of the settlement. One small vessel, of about
sixty tons ^the 'Lady Nelson") was also left for the purpose of fetching
supplies from the Island of Timor. From the great distance bciwcen
Melville Island and Sydney, and the total want of any direct intercourse,
very little was known about the settlement even in July, 1826. Towards

6i8 Genesis of Queensland.

the end of 1825 one set of despatches reached Sydney, which had been
sent via Batavia or India ; and these did not convey a very favourable
report, the Commandant having experienced many unexpected difficulties,
the principal of which were — want of fresh provisions and vegetables,
inadequate materials for carrying on field labour, scurvy, and a great
deal of sickness, several deaths which had taken place, the loss of the
' Lady Nelson,' which was sent for supplies to the Island of Timor in
February, 1825, and never again heard of, and also of a schooner called
the Stedcombe, which the commandant had engaged in place of the
Lady Nelson, to procure buffaloes from Coepang, Timor, and which
sailed from Melville Island in February, 1826, and never returned, having
been taken by pirates off the east end of Timor. The settlement was
thus left without fresh meat or vegetables, which latter could not be
produced in sufficient quantities. Scurvy thus broke out, and raged for
many months in a very alarming degree. Supplies of flour, pickles, and
preserved meats were afterwards sent from Sydney, in the ship ' Sir
Philip Dundas,' which reached Melville Island in the beginning of 1826,
and another vessel (the 'Mermaid,' cutter), sent from Sydney in March,
1826, did not reach the settlement until August 5th. These delays and
losses occasioned not only great impediments to the improvement of the
settlement, but left the Governor of New South Wales in much anxiety
respecting it. At the beginning of August, 1826, His Excellency
(ieneral Darling, Governor of New South Wales, appointed me
commandant of Melville Island, and directed me to embark on board
the colonial schooner 'Isabella,' with a detachment of troops, some
convicts, and various stores, as well as live stock, and to proceed with all
despatch through Torres Strait to relieve Captain Barlow and his
detachment. On August 19th we left Port Jackson, and reached
INIelville Island on September 19th. The officers and men who had
formed the settlement, and had been there about two years, were rejoiced
to find that relief had arrived for them. They gave us a discouraging
account of the oppressiveness of the climate, the scarcity of vegetables,
the deficiency of meat, the almost impossibility of procuring fish, the
dreariness of the situation (having only been visited by the two small
colonial vessels already mentioned, by a man-of-war's boat, which came
in for a few hours whilst the man-of-war, the ' Slaney,' remained outside,
eighteen miles off ; and I believe that H.M.S. ' Lome ' had touched
there), the hostility of the natives — all this conveyed a gloomy picture of
the settlement. As the views of Government in wishing to establish a
commercial depot have already been mentioned, and two years' trial had
now been given, certainly with very limited means, I shall state such
observations as I made on my arrival.

" The number of persons landed in 1824 amounted to about one
hundred and twenty-six; and during the period of two years before my

Loss of Live Stock. 619

arrival eight soldiers and four convicts had died ; but two of these had
been drowned and one died from spear wounds given l)y the natives.
The appearance of the military and prisoners was that of health ; and
from the statement of Dr. Turner, I formed an opinion that Melville
Island was not v^vy unhealthy, and by no means inferior to most under
the same parallel. The amount of population after Captain Harlow
sailed, was as follows: one hundred and fifteen males, fifiy-fourof whom
were prisoners, and si.K females, besides fourteen sailors on board ship.
The live stock consisted of si.xteen head of horned cattle, twenty-three
sheep and lambs, and fifty-four head of swine, all kept exclusively for
breeding, besides which sixteen buffaloes from Timor had just been
landed for slaughter. Of land cleared of timber there were fifty-two
acres, three only cultivated ; and ninety-five acres on which the timber
was felled, but not cleared off. The buildings consisted of three wooden
houses for officers, one for soldiers, one hospital, two store houses,
thirteen huts for the prisoners and seven for Royal marines. The huts
were miserable hovels, constructed hastily and irregularly. Things
appeared in a more backward state than they should have been, after an
occupation of two years, but this might be owing to the scarcity of
workmen, the deficiency of draught animals, and the want of mechanics.
The gardens were very backward. The soil near the sea was rocky, and
difficult to the spade, and on this ground a government garden was
marked out in 1824. Melons and pumpkins grew well in it, and where
there was any depth of soil it was good, and seeds sprung quickly.
The Malays had never been seen near Melville Island. The approach
to Apsley Strait was intricate, attended with danger, and required much
caution on account of extensive reefs, currents and sand banks, which
embarrassed its entrance ; but I then thought it might be rendered safer
by means of buoys.

•' Melville Island is situated between the parallels 1 1 deg. 8 min.
30 sec. and 11 deg. 56 min. S., and extends \V. and ¥.. from longitude
130 deg. 20 min. to 131 deg. 34 rnin. E. It lies off the N. coa.st of
New Holland, from which its eastern end is distant fifteen miles. The
sea between Melville Island and 'the main was named Clarence Strait, by
Captain King, and is studded with small islands, rocks, and reefs,
between which run rapid currents. It is 8 deg. to the W. of the Gulf of
Carpentaria.

"The most northern and western point of Melville Island (Cape
Van Dieman) is three hundred and thirty miles distant from the island
of Timor. The extreme length of Melville Island from Cape Van
Dieman to Cape Keith is seventy-five miles, and its breadth from Cape
Radforth on the north to Cape Gambler on the south is thirty-seven.
The surface of the island is low and gently undulating, averaging from
twenty to seventy feet above the sea. Melville Island is separated from

620 Genesis of Queensland.

Bathurst Island by a strait varying from four miles to one and a-half in
breadth and forty-six miles long. This strait is called Apsley Strait.
Bathurst Island is of a triangular shape, each side measuring about forty
miles. Its surface and productions are similar to those of Melville Island.
In October, 1827, I examined the north coast of Melville Island, hoping
to find some good harbours, or a more eligible situation for the settlement
than Apsley Strait proved to be, but the whole line of this coast I found
lined with an almost continued barrier of mangroves, except a few places
where there were abrupt banks twenty feet high, of red ferruginous clay ;
the bays were all shallow, exposed to the N. and N.W. winds, unfit for
any other than small craft or boats. I observed two fine abrupt sand
beaches towards the eastern end of the island ; the one extending from
Lethbridge Bay to Smoky Point, the other extending from Brenton Bay
to near Point Jahleel : both face N.W. and are a great resort for turtle.
As the commanders of vessels that visited the settlement remarked on
the great difficulties of the entrance into Apsley Strait, many of them,
although several times in the strait, have frequently touched on the
rocks or shoal, and been driven by currents to the southward of the isle.
As I possessed no chart of the whole of Apsley Strait — or even of the
islands — I determined on surveying the whole, particularly examining
the southern end, and I hoped by finding a safe entrance there, that the
prospects of the settlement would be materially improved. In March,
1827, I entered upon this survey, which occupied nine days. From the
settlement to within seven miles of the sea at the south end of the straits
(a distance of thirty miles), the channel is safe and deep enough for any
vessel ; but at seven miles within the entrance of the straits, commencing
at an inlet named Medina, I found the passage intricate and dangerous ;
the channel narrow, and winding between sand banks and coral reefs.
This bay is three miles wide. In the chart I have named it ' Shoal
Bay.' It is in latitude 11 deg. 48 min. S. and longitude 130 deg. 43
min. E. I remained two days outside the southern entrance sounding
and endeavouring to find a passage out to the open sea, but the sand
banks were so numerous, and the winding passage through them so
narrow that I was obliged to desist. I was limited with regard to time
and had neither chart nor chronometer to assist me in making a quick
return to the settlement round Bathurst Island or through Clarence or
Dundas Straits. I was most reluctantly compelled to return, disap-
pointed in my hopes. I landed and examined a small lone island that
was situated in the bay, outside of the strait ; from the flock of pelicans
seen upon it, I named it Pelican Island ; but upon reference to Captain
King's chart, I found it had already been designated one of the Buchanan
Isles.

" Both Melville and Bathurst Islands, which form the strait, present
the same unvaried and gloomy appearance throughout. The land

Vegetation. 621

invariably low, intersected by swamps, in the lowest parts, and the higher
ground one continued forest. The shore from one end of the strait to
the other is bordered by a broad belt of impenetrable mangroves,
indented by numerous salt water creeks terminating in salt marshes*
some of these creeks stretch inland seven or eight miles. During mv
residence on Melville Island, I thrice examined the .Mermaid Shoal, which
had occasioned great embarrassment to vessels approaching Apslev
Strait. It may also be considered relevant that I should mention a
dangerous reef which lies off the eastern end of Melville Island. I pre-
sume it was observed by Captain King, but I was not aware of its
existence till I found myself hard and fast upon it, through the careless-
ness of the mate upon watch as I was proceeding from Melville Island
towards the Cobourg Peninsula in 1827.

" It is between Cape Fleming and Point Jahlcel. The interior of
Melville Island is very difficult of access, in consequence of almost
impenetrable mangrove swamps and close forest. When seen from the
sea the island has a pleasing appearance, in consequence of its gently
undulating surface, and being thickly wooded ; but when on shore its
beauty vanishes into a monotonous succession of mangrove swamps and
forest, with trees of long bare trunks, and very scanty foliage, and salt
water creeks, speedily surfeiting the most ardent admirer of nature.
Excursions into the interior are attended with excessive fatigue and
much risk, the leading causes of which are the oppressive heat experi-
enced in the close forest, the myriads of sand flies which torment the
traveller, and the constant alertness demanded to guard against the
hostile natives.

" We found the soil of Melville Island to be of an inferior quality,
the iron-stone being so generally diffused over it. The subsoil, after
digging two and a-half feet, is better ; bordering on the swamps, it is
richer, and more productive, but sometimes so dark in colour (almost
black) that by attracting the heat of the sun, it burns up the vegetables
it had quickly produced. The vegetable productions indigenous to
Melville Island are various and abundant, vegetation being altogether
very luxuriant, and during the whole year there was plenty of grass for
the subsistence of our cattle. The timber is in general of a useful
quality, although small trees predominate there are many of considerable
dimensions, and applicable to house-building, furniture, ship and boat-
building, and to agricultural purposes. The largest timber measured
sixty feet of stem and three feet in diameter; and the average number of
trees to an acre is about one hundred and twenty, but sometimes as
many as one hundred and eighty. In the neighbourhood of the swamps.
and generally on all the low ground, the sago palm, the fan palm, the
grass palm, and the cabbage palm are thickly intermingled with the
more lofty timbers. Amongst the forest trees, several species of

622 Genesis of Queensland.

the eucalyptus are most abundant. Although the timber is abundant
and good, yet one-third or fourth of the trees are frequently rendered
useless from the depredations of the white ants, which excavate a tree
from one end to the other, forming a tube from three to five inches in
diameter, and even the hardest lignum vita does not escape them. The
only trees we met with producing an edible fruit were two species of
apple and a plum ; one of the apples was very acid and astringent, and
only palatable when cooked ; the other two fruits were not much indulged
in for fear they might prove pernicious. Grasses are abundant, and
grow very rank, some of them being injurious to cattle, but the greater
proportion are wholesome and nutritive, and the cattle when once
acclimatised, thrive upon them well. Cattle, sheep, and goats, when
first landed upon INIelville Island suffer much, either from grass, water,
or climate. I cannot decide which, probably from a combination of all.
During the first three years of the settlement, two-thirds of the cattle
died in ten or fourteen days after landing. The cows which survived
this trial afterwards did well ; but sheep never fattened ; they, however,
produced fine lambs, and these, as well as the produce of the cows and
goats, which survived their first introduction to the island, continued to
thrive well.

" Besides the forest trees already enumerated, there is a great
variety of ornamental trees, shrubs, and flowers, which give some liveli-
ness throughout the year to the otherwise sombre appearance of the
island, the hibiscus, casuarina, convolvulus, the bead vine, and other
runners and parasitical plants are very conspicuous. The coranthus,
with scarlet flowers ; as also the beautiful colythrix, bearing a pink
flower, and many others. Some of the mangroves grow to a consider-
able height, and the mangrove holly is very frequent in their neighbour-
hood.

" In the forest lands trees producing a gum or resin are numerous.
This gum, exuding from the bark, is much used by the nadves in the
formation of their spears. I can say but little of the esculent roots
indigenous to Melville Island. There is a root of a small yam-like
appearance, and another resembling a parsnip, both scarce. We never
had any opportunity of judging if they were used by the natives. The
only vegetable production we observed them eat was the young flower,
branch, or leaves within the spothoe of the cabbage palm, with the seeds
of the sago palm. The former was frequently made use of at the settle-
ment, and a most acceptable vegetable it was when boiled or stewed.
A large bean is also met with in sandy places, particularly near the
shore, but when made use of it caused pain and uneasiness. The first
settlers reported that cloves and nutmeg were indigenous in the island,
but this is a mistake, and the nutmeg tree growing close to the swamps
j)roduced a small, pungent nut, and the mace or net-work enclosing it

The Island's Animals.

623

devoid of flavour. Wild ginger is, however, indigenous in Melville
Island.

" I shall mention now the animal kingdom. We hud the kangaroo,
opossum, bandicoot, native dog, a small brown rat, a species of squirrel,
and an animal, very destructive to poultry, with a sharp nose and the
body covered with dark-brown hair, the tail fourteen inches long and
bare like a rat, excepting within three inches of the tip, which is covered
with long white hair ; it measures twenty-seven inches from the nose 10
the tip of the tail. The Ternote bat, or flying fox, is very numerous, and
flies about or suspends itself to trees in flocks of several hundreds
together. Of all the animals I have mentioned only two of them were
used by us for food, viz., the kangaroo and bandicoot. The bandicoots
afforded good eating, and were found generally on moonlight nights in
the hollow trunks of trees.

" Of the feathered tribe there is a great variety, and of the most
beautiful plumage. Several varieties of cockatoo,' seven ditto of
paroquets, six different pigeons, four kinds of kingfishers, swamp
pheasants, quail, curlew, wild ducks, sand larks, wild geese (rare), and a
wild black fowl weighing from three to four pounds, blue and while
cranes, and several more of the genus Ardea ; there are also magpies,
ravens, hawks, owls, and wattle birds, and many beautiful small birds
are also numerous.

" Amongst the class reptiles we found a great variety of the snake
tribe, measuring from one foot to twelve in length. They were met with
everywhere — in forest, swampy ground, and houses. Several were
bitten, but none of the wounds were very dangerous, excepting in the
case of the overseer, who was bitten by a snake whilst in bed. The
reptile took a piece of the flesh clean out of his thigh, and there being at
the time no medical man on the island, Lieut. Bate burnt the wound all
round with caustic, instead of cutting any part away. The man suffered
considerable pain for some days, and was confined for ten days from the
effects of the bite. The snake was found on the following morning in
his hut, coiled up under a box ; it was killed and burnt before 1 had an
opportunity of examining it. It was described as six feet long, with a
broad head and small neck. Another snake, which had bitten a dog,
measured ten feet in length, with broad, flat head and small neck, the
back dark-mottled-brown and belly while. The dog did not suffer from
the bite ; this I attributed to his long hair preventing the poison from

entering the wound.

" The saurian order are also very numerous. Frogs of an immense
size (four or five inches in length of body, and prettily spotted ) swarm
in damp places. Apsley Strait and all the creeks around Melville
Island abound with alligators. They measure from fourteen to seven-
teen feet in length, and in the clear water around the island are frequently

624 Genesis of Queensland.

seen water snakes, two and three feet in length, and spotted black and
yellow. Turtles are common on the sea coast, but they were never seen
in Apsley Strait, and we, in consequence, were never able to obtain any ;
our limited numbers and necessary occupations deprived us of the power
of sending parties to any distance as would detain them beyond twenty-
four hours. Even to procure a few fish we were obliged to send ten
miles, and in so warm a climate the fish when brought home were
scarcely fresh enough to be eaten — not lasting twenty-four hours.

" To the entomologist, Melville Island offers an ample field for
observation. The species are both numerous and beautiful, and the
vicinity of the swamps affords the insect collector an abundant harvest.

" The climate of Melville Island is certainly unhealthy from the end
of October until the beginning of April, or even until May. The heat is
excessive, and the atmosphere, then overcharged with moisture, is
extremely oppressive and debilitating. This is the period of the N.W.
monsoon, or rainy season, and the general range of the thermometer is
from 80 deg. to 100 deg, in the shade, and seldom varies more than
12 deg. in the twenty-four hours : the mid-day heat is 89 deg. or 90 deg.
and the extremes jj deg. or 100 deg. These were the ranges at Fort
Dundas, which was surrounded by swamps, and about twenty-five feet
above the level of the sea. The N.W. monsoon sets in about the
beginning of November, when the sun is approaching the meridian of
Melville Island on its passage to the S. It is preceded by squalls of
variable winds, and its setting in, varies three or four weeks in different
years. During this monsoon there is daily thunder in the afternoon and
evening.

" The termination of the N.W. monsoon is indicated by squalls,
and sometimes a tempest in the early part of April. The sun then
returning to the northward, the wind settles in the S.E. The sky
then becomes clear, the rain ceases, the atmosphere becomes drier,
and the weather more temperate. The hospital gets cleared, animal
spirits revive and the thermometer ranges from 75 deg. to 90 deg. June,
July, August, and September are the only tolerably pleasant months.
During the period I was on Melville Island the prevailing diseases were
intermittent, acute, and typhus fever, constipation of the bowels, frequent
vertigo, dysentery, diarrhoea, rheumatism, scurvy, and nectalopia ; the
latter disease very common. Scurv}' increased to an alarming extent.
The site of the settlement was dry, and the establishment consisted of
young, healthy men, direct from Sydney, many of them only a few
months from England. The complaint made its appearance six or
seven months after landing. When the malady had attacked, and
rendered incapable of exertion two-thirds of the settlement — spirits, lime
juice, and sugar made into punch were issued to all the worst cases, and
grog or wine to the military ; it immediately remitted its virulence, and

Melville Islanders. 625

ultimately nearly or entirely disappeared. Altogether, I must pronounce
the climate of Melville Island to partake more of the character of an
unhealthy than a healthy climate. In personal appearance the natives of
Melville Island resemble those of New Holland, and are evidently of
the same stock ; but they are more athletic, active and cnterj.risini,' than
those I saw on the south coast of Australia at Port Jackson. Newcastle, or
Hunter river.

" They are not generally tall in stature, nor are they remarkable for
small men. In groups of thirty I have seen five or si.K strong powerful
men of six feet high, and some as short as five feet four or live inches.
They are well formed about the body and thighs, but their legs are
small in proportion, and their feet very large ; their heads are flat and
broad, with low foreheads, and the back of the head projects very much.
Their hair is strong, like horse-hair, thick, curly or frizzled, and jet
black. Their eye-brows and cheek-bones are extremely prominent ;
eyes small, sunk, and very bright and keen ; nose flat and short ; the
upper lip thick and projecting; mouth remarkably large, with regular,
fine white teeth ; chin small, and face much contracted at bottom. They
have the septum of the nose perforated, wear long, bushy beards, and
have their shoulders and breasts scarified and raised in a very tasteful
manner, and their countenance expresses good humour and cunning.
All those who have reached the age of puberty are deficient in an upper
front tooth, a custom common in New Holland. The colour of their skin
is a rusty black, and they go about perfectly naked. Their hair is
sometimes tied in a knot, with a feather fixed in it, and they frequently
daub it with a yellow earth. On particular occasions, when in grief, or
intending mischief, or open hostilities, they paint their bodies, faces, and
limbs with white or red pigments, so as to give themselves a most
fantastic and even hideous appearance. In disposition they are
revengeful, prone to stealing, and in their attempts to connnit depre-
dations show excessive cunning, dexterity, arrangement, enterpri.se, and
courage. They are affectionate towards their children, and display
strong feelings of tenderness when separated from their families. They
are also very sensitive to anything like ridicule. They are good mmiics,
have a facility for catching up words, and are gifted with considerable
observation. When they express joy they jump about, and clap their
hands violently on their posteriors ; ami, in showing contempt, they turn
their back, look over their shoulder, and give a smack upon the same
part with their hand. In the construction of their canoes, spears, and
waddies, they evince much ingenuity, although the workmanship is
rough from the want of tools. They are expert swimmers and dive like
ducks. They show no desire whatever for strange ornaments or trinkets.
They are polite enough to accept of them without any expression of
astonishment, but very soon afterwards take an opportunity of slyly

2 R

626 Genesis of Queensland.

dropping them or throwing them away. The only articles they seemed to
covet were hatchets and other cutting tools ; but when they could steal
they carried off everything they could lay hold of. When I assumed the
command of the Island I was extremely anxious to court their friendship,
as without it, with our limited means, we could never become
acquainted with all the resources of the Island ; but, notwithstanding,
they continued until the last day distrustful, if not determinedly hostile.
They put two gentlemen of the settlement, one soldier, and one prisoner,
to death, and wantonly wounded several others. During my time we
were obliged to fire at them several times.

" There was a curious inconsistency in their conduct, as one day
they would appear good humoured and friendly, and allow individuals
of our settlement to pass through extended lines of them, and probably
on the following day throw their spears at any individual they could
surprise by stealing upon him. They never came near us without their
spears and waddies, but sometimes they would leave their spears
concealed behind a tree, or in possession of boys, who would run with
them on the first signal ; they would then approach within fifty or sixty
paces, extend their arms, throw their waddies to the rear, in token of
amity, and then by signs oblige all who approached them from our side
to extend their arms also, and turn round, to show they had no weapon
concealed. When satisfied, they would enter into a palaver, and two or
three of the most daring would advance in front of the others, which
latter would remain ready to support them in case of emergency. .
I have not space to relate any of their daring and cunning acts of
aggression ; but we had one savage as a prisoner for several weeks, from
whom I learnt a great deal of their character, and the following circum-
stance caused me to conjecture the reason of their being so suspicious
of strangers : —

" In one of my interviews with a tribe of the aborigines who had
approached to within half-a-mile of the fort, I observed they appeared
more familiar than usual. Having previously prepared a medal
attached to a piece of scarlet tape, I expressed a wish to hang it round
the neck of a fine young man, who bore a feather in his hair, and
appeared to have some authority. This man remained at a distance,
took hold of his wrists, and appeared as if struggling to escape from an
enemy ; he then pointed his hand towards his neck, looked upwards to
a tree, shook his head significantly (evidently in allusion to being hung),
and avoided coming nigh enough to receive the proffered gift. This led
me to imagine that the island had been visited by strangers, and the
natives forced away by them as slaves, in corroboration of which I add
three other circumstances which came under my notice : — The first is,
that the Malay fishermen, from Macassar, are forbidden to go near
Melville Island (which they call Amba, signifying a slave), alleging that

At Enmity with the Malays. (,_..

it is infested by pirates — probably slavers. The second circumstance
relates to a lad who had been taken from a native tribe in 1825, and
detained at the selllement three or four days, when he escaped. This
lad was the colour of a Malay, and possessed of their features, whence it
is probable he was taken when a child from some Malay slave-ship, and
reared among the IMelville Islanders. The third circumstance is, that
when Captain King, R.N., entered Apsley Strait, 18 18, and was jtro-
ceeding towards the shore near Luxmore Head in his boat, a number
of natives were on the beach, and a female, who entered the water in
order to decoy him close to the shore, called out ' Vin aca ! vin aca !'
This being a Portuguese expression, induces me to believe that vessels
from the Portuguese settlement of Dilly, on the north side of Timor,
might have visited Melville for the purpose of seizing the natives and
carrying them away. During the four years this island was occujiicd,
only two aboriginal females were seen, and at a distance. They were
both old and ugly, and their only garment was a short, narrow strip of
plaited grass. We frequently saw boys who were plump, good-looking,
and with a remarkable expression of sharpness in their eyes. Their
weapons are spears and waddies, their spears are from ten to twelve feet
long, made of heavy wood, and very sharp-pointed ; some are plain,
others barbed ; some have a single row of barbs, others a double row,
from twelve to fifteen in number; they may weigh three pounds, and arc
thrown from the hand (without any artificial lever as at Port Jackson)
with great precision, to a distance of fifty or sixty yards. Their waddies
are used as weapons of attack, as well as for killing wild animals. They
are twenty-two inches long, one and a-half in diameter, pointed sharp at
one end, and weighing about two pounds ; they are not round and
smooth, but have sixteen equal sides, with rude carving at the iiandle, to
ensure their being held firm in the hand. Their canoes, water buckets,
and baskets are made of bark, neatly sewn with strips of split cane.

"The natives of Melville and Bathurst Islands are divided into
tribes of from thirty to fifty persons each. I never saw above thirty-live
or forty men together, although some individuals have reported having
seen a hundred in the forest : the noise they make, and their jumping from
tree to tree make them often appear more numerous than they really are.
They lead a wandering life, though I think each tribe confines itself to a
limited district. In 1824-5 a tribe of daring athletic men kept constantly
in the neighbourhood of Fort Dundas. In the beginning of 1S26 a
strange tribe visited the settlement, and they were generally slightly made
men. During the dry season they disperse themselves a great deal on
hunting excursions, and burnt the grass on the forest ground for that
purpose from April to September. When they move, their women and
children accompany them, as female voices were frequently heard at a
distance at night coming from their encampments. The lood ol these

628 Genesis of Queensland.

people consists of kangaroo, opossum, bandicoot, iguanas, and lizards
during the dry months ; fish, turtle, crab, and other shell-fish, during
the wet months, their vegetables are the cabbage palm and fruit of the
sago palm. They eat their meals just warmed through on a wood fire,
and the seed of the sago palm is made into a mash. Amongst those
natives whom we encountered I never saw any deformed or having the
appearance of disease or old age ; probably such were left with the
women, and only the able warriors came near us. There was one
powerful, determined looking fellow frequently seen who had lost a
hand, and threw his spear by resting it on his maimed arm and taking
an aim. It appears to be the custom of the natives to bury their dead in
retired spots near their most frequent camping ground. The burial
place is circular, probably ten to twelve feet in diameter. It is
surrounded by upright poles, many of which are formed at top like
lances or halberts fourteen or fifteen feet high, and between these the
spears and waddies of the deceased are stuck upright in the ground.

" I will just mention the effect the climate had upon our domestic
live stock. The English breed of cattle when first landed on the
island, died in great numbers, but those which survived turned out well,
had fine calves, and had beautiful sleek hides, they also gave excellent,
sweet, well-flavoured milk. The buffaloes introduced from Timor
herded separate from the English cattle, nor could we get them to
associate together. After being first landed, generally a third or fourth
part died within the first fourteen days, from inflammation of the bowels.
The appearance of the animal when taken ill, was drowsiness, lying
down, swelling of the bowels, and death ensued in five or six hours.
We at first thought this disease was brought on by over eating green
grass, or drinking too much water on first landing. Ultimately, however,
I built long roomy sheds, under which the buffaloes were allowed to
shelter from the sun from ten a.m. until three p.m., and as these animals
delighted in wallowing like pigs, in mud holes and pools of water, I
directed them to be driven to such places morn and eve. This system
combined with caution in feeding them the first week, diminished the
deaths from one-third to one tenth. Sheep did not thrive well, for
though they increased tolerably they never became fat, or fit to be killed
for food. From 1824 to 1828 only two of the New South Wales breed
were killed at the settlement, and neither weighed 15 lbs.

"Goats, which are considered hardy animals, died off even faster
than sheep ; out of twenty which were brought from Timor in the
course of four years, not one lived beyond twenty days. Goats from
Sydney lived better, as two only, out of six, died.

" Pigs did not thrive unless provided with plenty of grain and
cook's fat ; nutritious roots were scarce, and earth-worms were not met
with.

Disadvantages of Melville hland. 629

" Poultry did well during the dry season, and as long as a liitle
Indian corn, or paddy could be procured ; they, however, required great
care in rearing, as chickens were very subject to blindness during
January, February, and March ; and the almost constant timnder from
October to April frequently destroyed every young brood of chickens at
the settlement at the same hour.

" Towards the end of 1827 I had sufficient experience to form a
more correct opinion of the advantages and disadvantages of Melville
Island, and I represented to his Excellency the Governor of New South
Wales, the disadvantages under which it laboured, and which appeared
to me to counterbalance any argument that could possibly be offered in
its favour.

"Some of the objections were as follows: — 'The approach to
Apsley Strait was greatly obstructed by shoals; it was out of any direct
line of trade ; the soil near the setdement was generally light and difficult
to bring into cultivation ; the climate was extremely debilitating, although
notdecidedly very unhealthy ; and the constitutions of Europeans suffered
much from its effects.' In the course of twelve months nearly ever)'
individual belonging to the establishment had been in hospital, and some
of them three or four times. These circumstances, combined with
several obstacles, were so much at variance with the prosperity of a
young settlement, and had for three years operated so against it, that I
felt convinced there was no chance of opening a commercial intercourse
between Melville Island and the Indian Archipelago. Thus the main
object of the Government in forming an establishment with the view of
extending our commerce by introducing European goods throughout the
Indian Islands was completely frustrated. From an impression that
]Melville Island would be abandoned, I directed my attentions more to
the east, to that part of the coast of New Holland to which the Malay
fishing-proas resorted every year. I visited Cobourg Peninsula and
surveyed Port Essington, which I found to possess many advantages
over Port Cockburn.

" Port Essington is situated on the north side of the Cobourg
Peninsula, which projects N.N.W. from the main land of Australia, and
extends in that direction about fifty geographical miles. The greatest
breadth is fifteen miles, and its narrowest part where it is joined to the
mainland by a neck of five miles in length, is two and a-half miles across;
from Mount Norris Bay on the N.E. to Van Dicman's Gulf on the south
side of the Peninsula. This gulf was discovered and so named by the
Dutch navigators in 1705. The port is in 11 deg. 6 min. S. latitude,
132 deg. 12 min. E. longitude. It was examined by Captain King in
18 1 8, and named by him after Vice-Admiral Sir. W. Essington.

" The approach to Port Essington is perfectly open and unobstructed
by any danger whatever; at its entrance it is seven miles wide, between

630 Genesis of Queensland,

Port Smith on the E. and Vashon Head on the W. The general direction
of the Port, which extends between seventeen and eighteen miles, is
S.S.E. ] E., having a depth of water throtighout of nine, twelve, and five
fathoms, its average breadth is five miles, and at the S. end it forms
three spacious harbours, each of them extending inwards three miles,
with a width of about two ; the depth of water being about five fathoms,
with a bottom of stiff mud and sand. These harbours are sheltered
from every wind, and afford excellent and secure anchorage for vessels
of any description, being perfectly free from hidden danger ; indeed, the
whole port is secure, and forms one of the finest harbours in the world.
There is no harbour yet known (Port Jackson excepted) to be compared
to it in the whole of Australia, and it may be entered in safety by night
as well as by day, and at all seasons. The shores of this harbour
present a pleasing variety of little bays and sandy beaches alternating
with bold cliff and steep clay banks ; whilst inland the continuous forest
of trees, of rather monotonous dark green foliage, is occasionally relieved
by small round hills, rising one hundred feet above the general elevation
of the land, which land varies in height from sixty to two hundred feet
above the level of the sea.

" In my several excursions, on both sides of the port, I met a variety
of soil, and certainly that of an indifferent quality preponderated ; yet I
observed many situations in which the soil was very good, principally on
the low flats and hollows, and near places which were evidently swampy
in wet weather.

" The vegetation around the port was abundant and very luxuriant.
The forest land is clear of underwood ; the lower grounds and hollows
produce good grass (even in the middle of the dry season) and wide
spreading shrubs and flowers are there numerous. From my experience
of Melville Island, the climate of which is the same, and the soil similar
to that of Port Essington, (which latter has, however, superior local
advantages) as also from the manner I saw several tropical productions
cultivated on the Philippines, Java, Timor, and Singapore, I entertain
a strong conviction that most if not all tropical productions could be
brought to considerable perfection on the Cobourg Peninsula. Of land
animals and birds, I observed most of those seen on Melville Island.

" The fishing hawks were verv- audacious, and frequently, if we
removed fifty yards from the fish we had caught, would dart down and
invariably carry off a fish. Port Essington is well stored with fish, and,
from the numerous extensive sandy beaches around it, there is great
facility in procuring abundant supplies with the seine. Amongst the
fish we took there were mullet, cavalos, bream, garfish, flounders, whiting,
a kind of pike, white mackerel, stingray, a fish resembling a herring, but
fourteen or sixteen inches long, skipjacks, old-wives, and several others.
Of shell-fish there are the common oyster, and the large mother-of-

Trepang or Beclie-de-mer. 5-j,

pearl oyster, green turtle, spotted crabs, cockles, cray-fish, cowries, and
various others, and quantities of sponge.

"The large sea slug called trepang, or beche-de-mer, is very
abundant all along the north coast, from Endeavour Strait, in longitude
142 deg. 30 min. E., to Dundas Strait, and attracts a large fleet of
Malay proas during the monjjis of December, Januan.-, February, March,
and April, their fishing ground extending from the Gulf of Carpentaria
to Dundas Strait. The principal pan of these proas come from
Macassar, they may measure from t\venty to forty tons each, and arc
manned with from sixteen to thirty hands, sometimes as many as forty.
Each proa is commanded by a chief (called a nacodah), and to each of
these vessels from three to five canoes are attached. The canoes are
from eighteen to twenty-five feet long, hollowed out from the trunk of a
tree. The chief or master is not the owntr, but merely acts for the
proprietor, who resides in Macassar. He is not permitted to dispose of
the trepang during the voyage, but must return to Macassar with the
whole produce of the fishing. In November they commence their
fishing by going to the east, through Bowens Strait, gradually returning
to the west, until April or May, when, having cured the trepang, and
completed their cargoes, they repair to the ports in the Indian Seas
from whence they sailed. A trepang-curing establishment is formed
ever}- year in Port Essington, or sometimes Knocker's Bay. The
buildings are of bamboo, which the Malays bring with them, and
remove when they quit the coast.

*' The chmate of the Cobourg Peninsula must be similar to that of
Mehille Island. I took a great deal of exercise there, during all hours
of the day, as did the thirt}- persons with me, and none of us experienced
even a head-ache.

" Port Essington being more open to sea breezes, and much freer
from mangroves and mud-banks than Apsley Strait, the air must
consequently be more pure. I found the temperature the same as at
Port Dundas, but the air is less debihtating along the coast of the
Cobourg Peninsula, thereby rendering the human frame less susceptible
of disease. In such a situation as Port Essington the mind is also more
pleasingly exercised than in Apsley Strait, which I consider another great
auxiliar}- to health.

" The tides in Port Essington rise and fall about ten feet at the full
and change of the moon ; their velocity is inconsiderable, except off
Malay Point. The currents in the open sea depend upon the monsoon,
but in-shore they are inliuenced by the tide.

"The aborigines around Port Essington and its \-icinity are the
same in appearance with those of Melville Island, but their habits are
somewhat distinct and their weapons a little different. They both go
naked, are alike addicted to pilfering, and display similar cunning : but

632 Genesis of Queensland.

I do not think the natives near Port Essington are so daring in their
enterprises. On the Cobourg Peninsula the natives have a fillet of net
work bound round the waist, and another round the head and arms,
with sometimes a necklace, and they paint their bodies as do those of
Melville Island. Such of their canoes as I saw were hollowed from the
trunks of trees, like those of the Malays, and were probably either left by
these people or stolen from them, for I do not think they have any means
of hollowing them themselves. Their weapons are spears and clubs ;
the spears are about ten feet long and lighter than those of Melville
Island, and their war spears instead of being barbed like a hook, are
serrated like a saw.

"I remarked one native burial place at Port Essington, it was near
Native Companion Plain. The grave was very simple, and pi iced under
a widely-spreading tree — the space occupied six feet long by three feet
wide, over which was formed an open frame-work of twigs, the ends
being inserted in the ground on either side. Upon the grave lay a skull
of a native, with a thigh or arm-bone ; the skull was coloured red with
some dye, and the teeth appeared as if they had been burnt.

"Raffles Bay is in the same parallel with Port Essington and
thirteen miles east of it. It was named by Captain King in 18 18. The
latitude is 11 deg. 12 min, 30 sec. S., and the longitude 132 deg. 26 min. E.
It is of a circular form, the diameter being about three miles. Both
Raffles Bay and Melville Island were abandoned in the year 1829, and I
shall conclude by offering a few remarks on the occupation of the north
coast of Australia. At present (1834) that part of the territory of this
extensive continent, extending from Moreton Bay on the east to Swan
river on the west, and embracing all that part of Australia to the north-
ward of 25 deg. of south-latitude, is not only without any single point of
it being occupied, but a great part of its coast, to say nothing of the
interior, still remains to be surveyed. This line of coast, measuring an
extent of upwards of three thousand one hundred miles, possesses no
good harbour, as far as has yetbeenascertained, with the exception of that
admirable one I have described on Cobourg Peninsula. This port is a
central situation for the extent of coast alluded to. It is the most promi-
nent port of the coast and the most northern point of Australia, Cape York
excepted, which is in latitude 10 deg. 37 min. S. The coast to the
west of it, as far as 20 deg. S., and even further, is a dangerous and
inhospitable one, on account of the many islands, reefs, and shoals
which lie along it, with extraordinary and perplexing currents running
amongst them, while the coast to the east as far as Endeavour Strait,
although more safely approachable, still presents no harbour of conse-
quence.

Port Essington is, there/ore, as the friendly hand of Australia
stretched out towards the north, openly invitiftg the scattered islanders

A Beckoning- across the Line.

. f'53

of the Javanese, Malayan, Celebean, and Chinese seas to lake shelter
and rest in its secure, extensive, and placid harbour, where they may
deposit the productions of their native inter-tropical isles, and receive
in exchange the more improved ?nanufactures of the natives of the
temperate zotie.

If Port Essington should ever be settled, it must eventually carry
on a conunercial intercourse with Asia, China, and the intermediate
islands; and if agriculture is carried on in the Cobourg Peninsula,
as it ivould be, provided Chinese and Malays were encouraged to settle
there, its productions being different from those of Europe, xuould
afford other exchangeable media for its 7nanufactures and productions .

2 s

APPENDIX H.

Thursday, 12th May, 1842. (Sydney Gazette.) ''His Excellency
the Governor has, in a proclamation inserted in Tuesday's Govej-nment
Gazette, defined the boundaries of the Moreton Bay district to be as
follows : ' On the south by the ranges which separate the sources of the
rivers Brisbane and Logan from those of the Richmond and the Clarence;
on the west by the range dividing the sources of the rivers flowing into
the western interior from those which fall to the eastern coast ; on the
east by that coast ; and on the northward by the limits of colonisation,
until a more definite boundary shall be determined on that side.' His
Excellency has also appointed Stephen Simpson, Esq., INIoreton Bay, a
Commissioner of Crown Lands beyond the boundaries of location.' "

APPENDIX I

There are perhaps some who would he amused by the record ot
the first land sale — so long expected — of building alloimcnls at Hrisbanc :
many more who would marvel at what "separation" has done in alTecling
their present value. For this reason I am loth lo put aside what may
appear to most to be dry and worthless matter.

" On July 1 6th, 1842, Thursday, the sale was effected. The
allotments with a few exceptions, consisted of thirty-six perches each,
and the prices given exceeded our most sanguine expectations. The
eight allotments put up in Queen-street, realised collectively the large
sum of ;^i,340 ; the largest sum given for any one allotment being /^2^o.
The south side of the river did not go off so well, but considering the
inferiority of the situation the biddings were high. . . . The
allotments were put up at the minimum price of j^ioo per acre. No. I,
of Section I, was purchased by IMr. Dudley Sinclair for ^^230, ami
then other allotments were secured by the following: — W. S. Mouiry,
;^i35; Isaac Titterton, ;^i25 ; Benjamin and Moses, jC^y^'-
G. F. Wise, /155; G. S. le Breton, ^^200; D. Sinclair, /'250; (".
Mallard, ;^iio; W. Sheehan, ;^i05 ; Edmund Lockyer, ^^85; John
Panton, /80 ; W. Young, /70 ; J. Betts, /uo; T. Dent, /"los ; Evan
Mackenzie, /145; J. Betts, /115 ; W. B. Dobson, /125 ; David Jones.
/no; C. Mallard, i'no; J. T. Howell, ;^i 20.

" In South Brisbane, D. Sinclair, jC'^5°> C. Fitzsimmons, /70 ;
W. B. Dobson, ^75 ; John Woodhouse, /60 ; William Young, ^58 ;
John Graham, ^'57; INIoses Joseph, jC6s; Thos. Lenehan. ^46;

C. Fitzsimmons, ^33; Thos. Grenier, ;^33 ; John Bryden, /2y:
Martin Doyle, £26; George Thornton, /31 ; John Richards, /"So;
W. B. Dobson, ^52 los.; D. Sinclair, ^75; J. Panton, /"^o ;
T. W. Dent, ^44; P. B. Rogers, /'40 ; E. Mackenzie, jC^z ,
E. Mackenzie, ^34 ; D. Jones, ^38 ; P. B. Rogers, jC^g ; J. Betts, /6d ;
J. Betts, ^38 ; David Bunton, ^48 ; A. Gore, £60 ; Robert Rowland
/27; L. O'Brien, ^32; P. B. Rogers ^33; Moses Joseph, ^^35;

D. Jones, ^34; P. B. Rogers, /40 ; Moses Joseph, jC^o:

E. Mackenzie, /"sS ; J. Betts, ^cj. . . . Respecting the sale of
land at Moreton Bay, called 'Eagle Farm," His Excellency directs
it to be notified that the sale of this land will take place in Sydne\-.
on Wednesday, the 7th December next." — Gazelle.

APPENDIX K.

Saturday, 24th September, 1842. (Sydney Gazette.) "The
steamer ' Shamrock ' arrived at this settlement (Moreton Bay) on Sunday,
the 18th instant, bringing with her a number of passengers, and the
entire horse, St. George (Messrs. LesHe, of Canning Downs), was landed
in beautiful condition. . . A party arrived on the i^th, having
made the overland journey from Sydney in twelve weeks, bringing with
them sixteen hundred head of cattle, in first-rate condition. The stock
is said to belong to Messrs. Suttor, Mocatta, and Lee (of Bathurst)."

TURNFR AND HENDERSON, PRINTERS, SYDNEY

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