DALRYMPLE'S EXPEDITION 419 



in the ENDEAVOUR RIVER in the afternoon of 24^ October, and the 

 Australasian Steam Navigation Company's Steamer " Leichhardt" 

 (Captain Saunders) steamed into the harbour next morning. 

 (SEE MAP E.) 



The "LeiMardt" brought 



"A complete Government staff of police to be stationed at the Endeavour 

 of the Goldfields Department, for the new diggings, in charge of MR. HOWARD ST. 

 GEORGE, Gold Commissioner, who till then had been Goldfield Warden at the 

 Etheridge; and of Engineers of Roads under the able leadership of MR. A. C. 

 MACMILLAN, charged on this occasion with the responsible duty of finding and making 

 a road to the diggings. Some seventy hardy miners accompanied them, the expedition 

 being under the immediate charge of LIEUTENANT CONNOR, R.N., of H.M. Surveying 

 Schooner ' Pearl: " 



"Official correspondence," continues Dalrymple (par. 282), "informed me that 

 since my departure from the settlements, the continued gcod reports from the Palmer 

 diggings and the imminence of an immediate ' rush,' calculated greatly to magnify the 

 distress and danger which it had been part of the duty of my expedition, co-operating 

 with MR. SELLHEIM, to make provision for, had called forth immediate executive action 

 to provide for all possible emergencies." [Mr. Sellheim had been instructed to mark 

 a line of trees from the Palmer to Cooktown. He was appointed Goldfield Warden 

 for the Palmer in July, 1874. He was subsequently Under-Secretary for Mines. 

 R. L. J.] 



No time was lost in commencing the erection of dwellings for 

 the newcomers. 



" On the day before [Friday]," says Dalrymple (par. 283), " we had sailed into a 

 silent, lonely, distant river mouth, with thoughts going back a century to the arrival 

 of the brave navigator [Cook], its discoverer, and his people, in knee breeches, three- 

 cornered hats, and small swords, pigtails and silver shoe-buckles. On Saturday we 

 were in the middle of a phase of enterprise peculiarly characteristic of the present day 

 of a young diggings township men hurrying to and fro, tents rising in all 

 directions, horses grazing and neighing for their mates, all around us the shouts of 

 sailors and labourers landing more horses and cargo, combined with the rattling of the 

 donkey-engine, cranes and chains." 



Dalrymple left on $ist October, observing (310) : 



" The ' Leichhardt ' steamed out of the Endeavour, leaving a lively little seapcrt 

 under her starboard quarter, gleaming with white tents and noisily busy with \vcrkmen, 

 where a week before we found a silent wilderness." 



In his report, dated 23rd February, 1874, Dalrymple observes 

 that 



"Already, in the short space of four months, COOKTOWN and the PALMER RIVER 

 DIGGINGS have acquired a population of some 3.000 souls, and some 60 vessels are 

 about to be ' laid on ' for the Endeavour from the Australasian ports at the termination 

 of the rainy season." 



Within three years 



" About 15,000 white men and 20,000 Chinese landed at the foot of Grassy Hill, 

 on the way to the Palmer River Goldfield. And so Cooktown continued to progress, 



