PROSPECTING AND SQUATTING 259 



in general appearance, the trees growing in clumps and 

 groves rather than in woods ; but where it has not been 

 interfered with, there is always a wide belt of trees on the 

 banks of the rivers and streams ; and in the interior, 

 towards the north, several valleys of great width are 

 occupied with unbroken forests, some of which are more 

 than a thousand square miles in extent. 



In 1890 I joined a party of squatters on a prospecting 

 journey, with the view of examining the country lying 

 westward of the Burdekin River. Wide as the colony of 

 Queensland is, there was, even so long ago as 1891, but 

 very little good land unoccupied — at least in an accessible 

 position. Successful stock-raising requires wide areas of 

 ground in a country like Australia ; and this north-eastern 

 part of the continent is subject, in spite of the beauty and 

 fertility of a great portion of it, to disastrous droughts, 

 which try the capitalist severely. His best chance of 

 averting disaster in these times of trial lies in his having 

 extensive tracts to move his cattle over. Hence estates 

 of 60,000 acres are quite common, and this means that the 

 landed proprietor has, with back-runs and common rights, 

 something like 200,000 acres at his command. All his 

 days, however, are not passed in sunshine. Often, when 

 he begins to prosper, there comes along a peculiarly 

 wretched type of " squatter," who, taking certain advan- 

 tages of the land-laws, makes a claim of the choicest 

 portion of the stockman's back-run. This person has no 

 intention of setting up as a stockman himself; he has 

 neither the inclination for, nor the means of doing that. 

 What he wishes is to be " bought off" by the rich 

 proprietor, and bought off he invariably is. Then he 

 departs to practise his mean tactics in some other 

 locality. 



It was to prevent the possibility of such a black-mailing 

 interference that eight stockmen, of whom two were my 

 near relatives, undertook the expedition referred to above 

 The object was to secure, by a joint occupation, all the 

 good land lying behind the estates of three members of 

 the party. I joined the little band, as much for the 



