182 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



the landscape — creeks, rivers, or lakes, hills and ravines. 

 Their task accompHshed, they set out on their return 

 journey, and on the way they ballot for special bits of 

 land or tracts suitable for runs. Finally, they rush 

 for the metropolis, fearing to be forestalled, and take 

 out licences for their finds at the Crown Lands OflBce. 

 There may be rival expeditions in the field. Two 

 parties may aim at taking possession of the same tract 

 of country. War may then break out, with its strategy 

 and manoeuvres and casualties. Or the leader of an 

 expedition may have descried a fine country in the 

 distance, but concealed his discovery. Then auto- 

 cratically diverting his party on another track, he would 

 return, organize a fresh expedition, and set out a second 

 time to secure the Promised Land (the land he had 

 promised himself) he had descried from Mount Pisgah. 

 But still another party might be organized by a member 

 of the first band to go in quest of the country he had 

 only suspected to exist, and this party too would find 

 the desired track. Then there would be a race between 

 the rival parties for the priority in gaining the licence 

 to hold the run at the Crown Lands Department. For 

 in those days runs could be held without being stocked. 

 They were therefore taken up by stockless and money- 

 less persons, who speedily sold them for a few hundreds 

 of pounds to intending squatters. Thus the prospecting 

 for runs became a speculation and almost a gamble. 

 It served an end, however. As squatters could not 

 obtain runs close at hand unless they would pay foi 

 them, they went further afield, and discovered fresh 

 country. Thus the whole province, and ultimately all 

 Australia, have been opened up. Nowadays the 

 pioneering prospector, like the pastoral stage itself, 

 over a large area, has been superseded by the railway, 

 which has opened up hundreds of miles of country, 

 where scores of runs can be formed.* 



* Alexander C. Grant, Bush Life in Queensland, chs. xxi- 

 xxii. Edward Palmer, Early Days in North Queensland, p. 91, 

 Haygabth, Bush Life in Australia. 



