QUEENSLAND. 125 



which has its head-quarters there, and the government of the scattered islands 

 in Torres Straits, which are under the jurisdiction of Queensland. Thursday 

 Island is a port of call for all vessels passing through Torres Straits, and 

 several thousand tons of coal are always stored there. 



On the Gulf of Carpentaria are two small ports. The principal one, 

 Normanton, on the Norman River, is a growing town of over a thousand inhabi- 

 tants, and will probably be the terminus of a line of railway. Burketown, on 

 the Albert River, is a place which is reviving after a strange history. About 

 twenty years ago, when the pioneer squatters first drove their herds into the 

 Gulf country, a township was located there ; but the settlers formed their 

 settlement and lived in such reckless defiance of all sanitary rules that a 

 fatal fever broke out, which decimated them. The place was after this 

 entirely abandoned, and the grass hid the rotting posts of the mouldering 

 houses, which rapidly decayed in that hot, moist climate. A few years ago, 

 however, the attempt to form a town was renewed, and this time with more 

 care. Burketown is now quite as healthy as any tropical settlement ; and as 

 it is surrounded by vast plains of exceptional fertility, abundantly watered by 

 flowing streams, it will probably become a place of some importance. This 

 completes the list of towns on the coast of Northern Queensland. 



Queensland is pre-eminently the cattle colony, possessing no less than 

 4,266,172 head of horned stock in 1884. Experience has shown that sheep 

 do not thrive in the coast districts, especially in the north. The merino 

 breed of sheep will thrive, in spite of an exceedingly high summer tem- 

 perature, provided the heat is dry, but not when the warmth is accompanied 

 by moisture ; so that in Queensland sheep-raising is practically confined to 

 the table-lands of the interior. Cattle, on the other hand, do as well on 

 the short scanty grasses, and in the dry pure air of the uplands, as on the 

 rank luxuriant herbage and in the steamy atmosphere of the great plains 

 which lie sweltering in the sun round the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. 

 The whole colony is therefore available for cattle, while probably not more 

 than half, or at the utmost two-thirds, can be used by the sheep-grazier. 

 It is not possible, however, to lay down any definite boundaries between the 

 sheep and cattle countries, because at many points the one melts insensibly 

 into the other, and prolonged experience is sometimes required to fix the 

 dividing line with any degree of accuracy. 



The sheep-owner comes when the wilderness has been partly subdued, 

 the blacks tamed and reduced to idle drunken loafers, and the facilities and 

 cost of carriage greatly reduced. He must either be a capitalist or have 

 the command of large sums of money, for he has to subdivide his country 

 with great paddocks inclosed by wire fences ; he must supplement the 

 natural stores of water by scooping out reservoirs, sinking wells, or damming 

 creek channels ; and he must erect costly buildings as wool-sheds, stores, 

 huts, &c. The term squatter is quite misapplied to the wool kings of the 



