96 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



of Carpentaria, his imagination, rather than his eyes, 

 saw stretching before him Made plains of verdure. 

 Excited by his reports, and spurred Mith the prospect 

 of huge financial gains, a large number of capitalists 

 (Sir John Robertson among them) spread over them 

 and towards the Queensland portion of the Gulf. It 

 was soon realised that they had not the pastoral value 

 they appeared to possess. The stock was brought back 

 and the stations abandoned. Sir John Robertson 

 might well say that his farms brought him in " infinitely 

 more than his stations." A substantial profit is infi- 

 nitely more valuable than a minus quantity. 



The settlement of the Northern Territory recapitulates 

 the settlement of the Southern provinces. The new 

 province was settled from Northern Queensland. The 

 first overlanders to arrive were D'Arcy Uhr with cattle, 

 and Dillon Cox with horses, both in 1872. Next came 

 Nelson and Giles — the four of them by the Roper 

 River ; then Wiltshire ; all of them taking up rich 

 land. Not a few died of starvation en route. Mobs 

 of cattle followed these pioneer squatters. By 1877 

 more than half of the land suitable was taken up, but, 

 as in Queensland, many of the runs were never, or not 

 for a long time, developed. Pastoral occupation ad- 

 vanced, and pastoral associations, like that of the 

 Musgrave Range, held immense areas all over the 

 Northern Territory. All the pastoral land, from Port 

 Dar\\dn east to the Roper River and the Gulf country, 

 was taken up and stocked. Some runs were 6,000 

 miles square, and carried 2,000 head of " fats." Fat 

 cattle were shipped, already in the eighties, from 

 Glencoe to Batavia and Singapore.* 



The pastoral advance follows the twofold line of 

 least resistance and most allurement. At first clinging 

 to the coast or creeping up the coastal rivers, it gradually 

 pushed inland and settled on the larger rivers or their 

 tributary creeks. Sometimes, and oftener than once, 

 it leapt over rich intervening country in order to gain 

 • Daly, Northern Territory, pp. 219-22, 2C3, 274-6. 



