The party, under General Fielding’s leadership, started from Roma, and went by way of Victoria Downs and Yo Yo to Biddenham, on the Nive, thence by Lansdowne and Barcaldine Downs to the Aramac, and on to Mount Cornish, delays occurring along the route for repairs to waggonettes and harness, and for the purpose of exchanging horses or buying new ones. Following down the Upper McKinlay, they reached the Cloncurry on October 7th, and were joined there by the Government Geologist, Mr. R. L. Jack. More delays occurred here for the want of stores, and it was not until November 1st that all the members of the expedition reached Kamilaroi station, on the Leichhardt River; Gregory Downs was reached on the 7th, and Point Parker on November 15th; the expedition having camped sixty-seven times. On the night of their arrival at Point Parker, the natives surrounded the camp at midnight. There were about a hundred of them, but they left when three shots were fired over their heads; no one was hurt on either side, and this was the only demonstration made by the aboriginals.
Point Parker is described as having a very limited area for settlement, only about 7,000 acres being available. The Government schooner “Pearl” was waiting here, and after a careful survey of Point Parker and Point Bayley, they visited Bentinck and Sweer’s Islands and Kimberley (now called Karumba), at the mouth of the Norman River. Finally, on November 13th, they sailed up the Batavia River in the “Pearl” for about forty miles, and explored it still further in the boats, thence on to Thursday Island on December 4th, 1882. In General Fielding’s opinion, the country traversed on his route may be divided into sections; the first part between Mitchell and Malvern was neither fitted for pastoral purposes nor for agricultural settlement; thick scrub, bad soil, and poor timber prevailing. Between the Ward and the Nive, and thence to the Barcoo, Thomson, and Diamantina Rivers was first-class sheep country, requiring a good deal to be done in the way of providing water to enable the country to be fully stocked. The country between the McKinlay and Fullerton Rivers is subject to flood. Approaching the mining district of Cloncurry, the country is not so favourable for sheep, and is better adapted for raising cattle and horses. From the Cloncurry through the Gregory to the Nicholson River is all good cattle country, but the grass seed along the banks of the watercourses, and the flooded nature of parts of the country in the rainy seasons, render it unfit for profitable sheep-farming. From the Nicholson to the Gulf at Point Parker, the country is described as particularly useless. The formation is desert sandstone overlaid with nodular ironstone conglomerate; the vegetation dense, chiefly ti-tree scrubs growing upon spuey or rotten ground, together with spinifex, saltpans, and marshes. Such was General Fielding’s estimate of the country through which the line was to pass. Captain Pennefather of the “Pearl” schooner had been surveying the waters between Allan Island and Point Parker. He was very reticent as to the qualifications of the place as a port; but looking at the soundings, and the open nature of the anchorage, coupled with the utterly valueless nature of the soil surrounding the place for over one hundred miles, the less said about it as a shipping port the better.
The whole scheme was condemned by Parliament, and the general election of 1883 returned a majority against the principle of land grant railways. One of the first reform acts of the new Parliament was to repeal the Railway Companies’ Preliminary Act. No doubt, had the scheme been favoured by the people of Queensland, a great impetus would have been given to settlement by the introduction of so much private capital into the colony, while the large annual payment of interest on borrowed money would have been avoided to a great extent. At all events, there is no transcontinental railway as yet, and when it does arrive, Point Parker will not be chosen as the terminus. Mr. Frank Hann, a brother of William Hann, the discoverer of the Palmer Goldfield, accompanied General Fielding as pilot. Hann is a first-class bushman, as hard as nails and full of energy. He was for many years the owner of Lawn Hill, situated on a western tributary of the Gregory River, but ticks ruined his herd. He is now in Western Australia.
The first surveyor appointed by the Queensland Government in the Gulf was Mr. George Phillips, lately the member for Carpentaria. He surveyed and laid out Burketown, Carnarvon, on Sweer’s Island, and Normanton, on the Norman River. In company with W. Landsborough, in 1866, he explored and named the Diamantina and other western rivers. The former was named after Lady Bowen, the Governor’s wife, whose Christian name was Diamantina Roma. The party passed close by the spot where Winton now stands, and by Kynuna, and from the head waters of the Diamantina they struck across via the heads of Rupert’s and Alick’s Creeks to Minamere (then Sheaffe’s), thence to the Flinders, and on to Burketown. There were no signs of settlement between the Thomson River at Mount Cornish, and where they struck the Flinders River. Mr. Phillips and Mr. Landsborough were the first to navigate the Norman River, and they chose the site for the township.
The writer met this party coming down the Flinders on their way to Burketown, in which place he had been laid up for several weeks with the Gulf fever; he was then on his way back to Conobie, more dead than alive. This was in the early part of 1866.
CHAPTER V.
PIONEERING WORK IN QUEENSLAND.
The narrative of the pastoral industry in Queensland is almost the history of North Queensland itself. The outward flow of that restless and progressive industry can be traced from its infancy, when Mr. Patrick Leslie, of Collaroi, in the district of Cassilis, New South Wales, moved his stock northwards, and after first exploring the country by himself and a man named Peter Murphy, placed his sheep in June, 1840, and formed the first station in Queensland on the Darling Downs (discovered by Allan Cunningham 13 years before). He called this first station Toolburra, and afterwards selected Canning Downs station also. The stock consisted of nearly 6,000 sheep, two teams of bullocks and drays, one team of horses and dray, ten saddle horses, and twenty-two men, all ticket-of-leave men, pronounced by Mr. Leslie to be the best men he ever had in his life. The town of Warwick is built near this classic spot, where first the pioneers of the squatting industry pitched their original camp. The next to reach the Darling Downs were Hodgson and Elliott, who occupied Etonvale in September, 1840. No white man had settled on Darling Downs previous to Patrick Leslie in 1840. After Hodgson, King and Sibley were next to hold Gowrie, and these were followed by others, until in 1844, there were thirty stations formed and occupied in that district, the stock mostly coming from the Hunter River district of New South Wales.
In 1843, the first station on the Burnett River was formed by Russell and Glover who took up Burrandowan, and they were soon followed by other settlers, occupying all the beautiful country on the Upper Burnett and Mary Rivers. Here the soil is rich, the surface water abundant, the climate equal to any in Australia; and thus a rich territory was added to the young colony.