154 SETTLING IN QUEENSLAND, ETC. 



Burnett waters. The next station we passed was Mr. Pigott's 

 Auburn, but I need not here name the stations and occupants 

 between this point and Gayndah. What impressed me more, I 

 think, than anything else was the fact that, for the present at 

 any rate, I was right away from the terribly dry country of 

 which I had seen so much during the last two years. We had 

 heavy rain somewhere before we reached Gayndah, and the 

 granity country became about as boggy as rain could make it. 

 The roadway had been hardened by continual traffic, but when- 

 ever a horse took a step away from the beaten track down he 

 went to his knees in the yielding soil, and gladly enough he 

 made the solid road again. I remember that one night, after a 

 soaking day's rain, I sat in the tent before the fire trying to dry 

 my blankets and clothing. It was an all-night business, but I 

 made it a practice never to lie down for the night in wet clothes, 

 for this I had always been taught would certainly develop 

 rheumatism, or lumbago, or sciatica. My man slept in his wet 

 clothes as comfortably as though he occupied a feather bed, and 

 I honestly believe that fellow has never had a rheumatic twinge ; 

 I, notwithstanding all my efforts to stave off these things, have 

 had all of them ! The Boyne River — The Boyne it was called by 

 explorers who, when they came upon it, thought it was the 

 river near Gladstone, so named years before by Oxley, 

 and it is still The Boyne, the river properly so called 

 being allowed a secondary position as Oxley's Boyne. 

 The Boyne River, which is merely a tributary of the 

 Burnett and flows into it from the south, was running 

 pretty high when we came to it, but we crossed without 

 difficulty. The Burnett was more self-assertive, and not 

 caring to run risks that were unnecessary, from Gayndah, where 

 I had intended to cross, I followed the Maryborough road, 

 crossed Baramba Creek, with its almost upright basaltic columns, 

 passed Wetherton, then owned by the Moretons, and found old 

 friends in Mr. and Mrs. Walsh at Degilbo. While here I deter- 

 mined to further reduce the number of my horses, of which I 

 had sold a few along the road ; so I took them to Maryborough 

 and got rid of them there by auction sale. When I started 

 Northward again, Mr. Arthur Brown, of Gin Gin, was my com- 

 panion, and as the Burnett was still high, we made for Walla 

 where was a boat in which we crossed. Our horses we had to 

 swim one by one behind the boat, for the stream was swift and 

 the landing place narrow. Old .John Barker and his wife were 



