312 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE 



smoke, as indicative of the presence of the wandering abori- 

 gines, but in vain; for, excepting in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of a river of the larger magnitude, these vast solitudes 

 may be fairly saitl to be almost entirely without inhabit- 

 ants. AVe had now all the high grounds on our right hand, 

 or to the east of us, and before us at north, a level, wooded 

 country." 



Mr Cunningham's intention of reaching the parallel of 

 27^ S.j on the meridian he was travelling on, was frustrated by 

 the arid country he now got into, and after crossing the paral- 

 lel of 29^ S., he altered his course to the north-east and east- 

 ward, and shortly after crossed Dumaresq's river, which at 

 that point had a channel of from eighty to one hundred yards 

 in width, but the stream in its present state was diminished 

 to about thirty yards wide, and apparently very deep. It 

 was not until they had passed the meridian of 151° E., that 

 they came into a country capable of affording their nearly 

 famished horses a better means of subsistence, and on the 5th 

 of June they reached an extensive clear tract of country, 

 generally well watered, and affording apparently at all sea- 

 sons of the year, grass and herbage of an extraordinary 

 luxuriance of growth. These extensive tracts of clear pas- 

 toral country were subsequently named Darling Downs, in 

 honour of his Excellency the governor : they are situated about 

 the parallel of 28' S., and stretch east eighteen miles to the 

 meridian of 152^ E. They are watered by a chain of ponds 

 which in wet seasons become united, and form an auxiliary 

 to the Condamine river, which winds along their south-western 

 margin. The elevation of these downs above the level of the 

 sea is about 1800 feet. Other clear lands in the vicinity 

 were respectively named Canning's Downs and Peel's Plains; 

 and from a square-topped mount in the neighbourhood, the 

 view to the N.W. was over an immeasurable expanse of flat 

 wooded country, without the slightest eminence to interrupt 

 the common level, which, in consequence of the very clear 

 state of the atmosphere, could be discerned to a very distant 

 line of horizon verging on the parallel of 2V S. From the 



