260 A LONG RAMBLE IN QUEENSLAND 



purpose of indulging my prevailing taste, as from the wish 

 to forward business. 



The rendezvous was beyond the river Burdekin at 

 Clark's station, the home of one of the overseers. Besides 

 the eight principals of the party, three stock-riders, and 

 four blackfellows, servants, were taken with us, forming a 

 well-mounted, well-armed party of fifteen persons, with six 

 pack-mules. 



The country around, and for sixty or seventy miles 

 inland to the west, was fairly well known to the riders at 

 the station, and several outlying parts had already been 

 established ; but it was our intention to push out consider- 

 ably beyond these, with the object of thoroughly examining 

 the country, and forming an opinion of its value as a cattle 

 run. There was known to be good grass land to the west, 

 but only surface water, with a few wells with wide intervals 

 between them. The real value of the land depended on 

 the discovery of permanent water, and as water in no 

 uncertain quantity is the first need of a stock-farm, the 

 time chosen for the journey was the winter, or wet season, 

 in order that we might judge what quantity of this 

 necessary would be procurable at the most dangerous 

 season of the year. The start was made on the 22nd 

 May. 



The country near Clark's station is level, and tolerably 

 rich in grass, and there is a fair sprinkling of trees, mostly 

 in clumps and small woods ; but the sides of some of the 

 gullies are thickly clothed with trees. The gigantic gums 

 of this district are not so gigantic as those of Victoria, 

 but they are fine specimens of their race ; and even here, on 

 the borders of the desert, there are some good examples 

 of the ficus genus, with most picturesquely twisted and 

 gnarled trunks. Nearer to the coast some of these fig- 

 trees grow to an enormous size and height, and are, 

 indeed, to be classed amongst the finest and grandest- 

 looking trees of Queensland. 



The first day we rode about thirty miles, and so 

 thoroughly had the kangaroos and wallabies been cleared 

 off the land, that we did not see a single animal of either 



