18 J. A. Gil ruth : 



Unfortunately at the time of my visit to Darwin there was no means 

 enabling: me to reach Pon Essinsjton. so that an examination of the 

 descendants of the original cattle, interesting: and important as such 

 an examinatiiin would ha^e l)een, was impossible. 



But that this importation alone would not account for the spread of 

 ticks through tropical Australia I am convinced, for the reason that 

 the natural spread of ticks is by cattle, and rarely by other a<jencies. 

 We may look to another and later importation of Brahma cattle as in 

 all probability the true source of our trouble. Mr. H. AV. H. Stevens. 

 who was at that time connected with the British Australian Cable 

 Company, infoi-ms me that in August, 1872, the settleme-nt at Darwin, 

 then Palmerston, being short of meat, the Company's vessel, the 

 Investigator," landed from Batavia twelve native cattle (eight cows 

 and four bulls), and that some of these escaped. Some time after they 

 were mustered by Mr. Stevens and taken to the Adelaide River, where 

 they bred up to six or seven hundred head. This is confirmed by Mr. 

 W. S. Stretton, Collector of Customs at Darwin, who was present at 

 their landing, and who, in fact, afforded us the first definite informa- 

 tion regarding this important fact. Furthermore, that Brahma cattle 

 must at one time have been imported there I can personally testify, for 

 on the Adelaide River I saw their crossbred descendants, amongst 

 which was one old cow that might readily have passed as purebred 

 Brahma. Mr. Lawrie, the owner of the station, very kindly had two 

 of these crossbred Brahmas shot for me. They were well covered with 

 ticks, and exhibited a large number of worm nodules, in the usual 

 regions. As corroborative evidence incriminating this importation, 

 what I have been able to ascertain regarding the appearance, and early 

 spread of tick fever in the north is important. For this information 

 T am largely indebted to Mr. Alfred Giles, who has been in the Terri- 

 tory for forty years, and has a diary covering the whole period, and 

 to Mr. W. Lawrie, who has been for thirty years intimately connected 

 with the live stock and meat trade, and to otficial records. 



The first cattle to reach the northern part of the Territory were 

 bix)ught from Queensland overland via the Roper River in 187'2 by Mr. 

 D'Arcy Wentwoi-th. The mob consisted of about 400 liead, which were 

 taken to the Peninsula opposite Port Darwin, and ultimately all 

 slaughtered for beef. There is no evidence that any of these cattle 

 were affected with redwater or other serious disease. 



The next cattle to arrive was a mob of fat bullocks from the 

 Macdonald Ranges, In-ought by Mr. T. Nelson in 1876, and owned by 

 Mr. Abbott, a Port Darwin butcher. There is no histoiy of redwater 

 or ticks. Messrs. Giles arrived at the Katharine River in 1879 with 

 2000 cattle and 12,000 sheep for the purpose of stocking land acquired 

 by the late Dr. W. J. Brown, of Adelaide. .\t that time both ticks 

 and redwater were unknown in that district. 



