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pioneers of the district, marked out their boundaries with an eye to 

 securing the most eligible properties. This will be apparent from 

 the notes that have been made by surveyors, who have made them- 

 selves acquainted with the quality of the country that is held under 

 grazing tenure. In the other colonies, with their larger popula- 

 tions and smaller territory, the class interests of squatter versus 

 selector have excited a spirit of antagonism, and the cry, " Unlock the 

 lands ! " has led to the progress of land settlement, only after many 

 a hard and bitter battle in the legislative chambers. Happily, in the 

 magnificent range of this colony, there has been ample room for 

 both the pastoralist and the producer, who, as a rule, have main- 

 tained amicable relations with each other. 



A glance at the good country, or some of it, that lies outside 

 the blocks surveyed and set apart for the farmer at Meckeririg, 

 Tammin, Doodlekine, and Bainding, which may be deemed to 

 have received sufficient description in the foregoing pages, will be 

 instructive. The observations are the outcome of a tour through 

 the several districts referred to by the special correspondent of the 

 West Australian, and bear the impress of personal knowledge of a 

 division of the colony that is but little known by the people of 

 Western Australia, for before the goldfields' era few travellers had 

 penetrated into what were commonly regarded as the waterless 

 fastnesses of Yilgarn. To show that the country is not pictured in 

 rose colors by the writer, his melancholy description of what he 

 calls '' The Great Lone Land," a desert 40 miles long and 12 wide, 

 which he met with near Mooranoppin, would be worth quoting. 

 This place of desolation is one of the largest sand plains in the 

 eastern division. It is only relieved by one patch of rich salmon 

 gum country. To the north of the Tammin agricultural area, 

 which has practically all been taken up, there is a fine forest of 

 about 3,000 acres, the bulk of which has also been selected. A 

 creek at the foot of Cunderin peak, and on towards the Cunderin 

 railway station, runs for seven miles through very fair land, which 

 improves as the railway station is approached. Adjoining the 

 station is a small but high-class gimlet wood and salmon gum 

 forest, portion of which has been set apart as a water reserve. 

 " One day in the winter of 1895," says the traveller, 4< I stood 

 on the summit of the Toapin rocks, near Dangin, and obtained 

 a tine view of the excellent country which abounds in that locality. 

 The rains had been fairly abundant and the grass was growing 

 healthfully, so that the surroundings were viewed under favorable 

 circumstance^. Acres upon acres stretched before the view, and 

 but a slight fund of imagination would have been necessary for the 

 observer to have peopled these fertile plains with budding home- 

 steads and yellow wheat fields. With but a trilling exception the 

 whole of these rich lands were untilled, unused and unpeopled. 

 The rich, red soils, possessing all the elements of fertility, seemed 

 to beg in mute eloquence for the transforming power of the human 



