56 GLADSTONE SETTLEMENT. 



even in apparently uninhabited places; and such 

 watchfulness soon becomes habitual, and at length 

 ceases to be u-ksome. Next day we returned to the 

 ship, more than ever convinced of the comparative 

 uselessness of the country which we had g-one over 

 for agricultural or even pastoral purposes, except on 

 a very small scale. On our way back we met with 

 two horses, both in good condition, which had been 

 left by Colonel Barney's party. 



On another occasion Mr. Huxley and myself 

 landed at the site of the settlement of Gladstone, 

 and were picked up in the evening by Capt. Stanley 

 in one of the surveying boats, on his return to the 

 ship. It is difficult to conceive a more dreary spot, 

 and yet I saw no more eligible place for a settle- 

 ment on the shores of the harbour. A few piles of 

 bricks, the sites of the tents, some posts, indicating 

 the remains of a provisional " Government-house," 

 wheel-ruts in the hardened clay, the stumps of felled 

 trees, together with a goodly store of empt}- bottles 

 strewed about everywhere, remained as characteris- 

 tics of the first stage of Australian colonization. 

 Within 200 yards of the township we came upon a 

 great expanse of several hundred acres of bare mud, 

 glistening with crystals of salt, bordered on one side 

 by a deep muddy creek, and separated from the 

 shore by thickets of mangroves. The country for 

 several miles around is barren in the extreme, con- 

 sisting* for the most part of undulating, stony, forest 

 land. I have heard, however, that there is much 



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