88 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



gradually " enveloping the upper tributaries of the 

 DarHng in its folds," says Mr. Favene, " till they 

 gradually united above Fort Bourke." Eastern New 

 South Wales was, for the most part, taken up ; pioneers 

 had to look outside of it for further conquests. An 

 inborn restlessness possessed them and urged them as 

 the gadfly urged Europa from land to land. " Where 

 shall we go ? " was Arthur Hodgson's daily and nightly 

 vigil, we are told, in (Austrahan) New England, about 

 1840. Circumstances co-operated with the inward 

 impetus. The cold winters of the highlands hindered 

 the breeding of merino sheep and the production of fine 

 wool. They soon found out whither to go. Patrick 

 Leshe was no Columbus of Southern Queensland ; he 

 was rather the Cortez or Pizarro of a new Mexico or 

 Peru, who conquered new lands and, he too, made head 

 against hostile natives. He had in his mind the report 

 of Allan Cunningham, who, thirteen years before, in 

 1827, had been the first white man to descry and explore 

 the afterwards far-famed Darhng Downs. From Cun- 

 ningham's hands he received helpful notes of his journey, 

 but a promised map of the district never arrived, and 

 Leslie had to feel his way. His portrait has been 

 sympathetically drawn by men of his own type, who 

 followed in his tracks and received a portion of his 

 spirit. They describe him as a man of restless activity, 

 overflowing mth energy, " the prince of bushmen and 

 good fellows." An educated man, we judge from the 

 chastened diction of his diary,* as also in after-years 

 from the wording of his vigorous protests against the 

 questionable Dr. Lang. Of Scottish origin, he must 

 have been a scion of those " bonnie Lesleys " who, in 

 Scottish ballad, " gaed ower the Border" — namely, 

 between Scotland and England, and this was exactly 

 what the pioneer squatter of Queensland did when he 

 crossed over into the future colony. 



He had a long journey before him and took just one 

 companion — a convict named Murphy, sentenced to be 

 * In Russell's Oenesia of Queensland, pp. 164-71. 



