The towns named are the most important on the coast-line of sub-tropical Queensland. There are also the thriving little towns of Bundaberg, at the mouth of the Burnett river, the outlet for a rich tract of agricultural land, and Gladstone, a few miles to the south of the mouth of the Fitzroy. The last-named township is next after Brisbane the oldest settlement in Queensland, but it has never prospered. Hidden away at the head of a great land-locked sheet of deep water—probably after Sydney the finest natural harbour on the east coast of Australia—it slumbers peacefully without any visible trade: a bush village, supported by the stockmen employed on the neighbouring cattle stations, and occasionally galvanised into life by a promising discovery among the rich but fragmentary and erratic mineral lodes found in the volcanic country in its vicinity. These constitute all the coast towns worth mentioning.
Inland, on the line of trunk railway running westward from Brisbane, are Ipswich and Toowoomba, both agricultural centres, but the latter the more important of the two, with a population of eight or nine thousand people. Just beyond Toowoomba, a branch of the railway curving to the south runs to Warwick, another pretty country town of some four thousand people, surrounded by rich soil and thriving farmers, and enjoying, from its elevation, a pleasantly cool climate. Continuing, the branch railway reaches Stanthorpe, near the border, mentioned elsewhere, and the line is being continued to effect a junction with the New South Wales railway system. After leaving Toowoomba, the main line continues in a nearly direct line westward, passing through Dalby, a rather stagnant little bush town of some two thousand people, set down in the midst of vast plains more suited by reason of the climate for pasture than agriculture. These plains may be regarded as the limit of the Darling Downs. Beyond them the railway runs through a desolate tract of scrub—not the fertile jungle of the coast districts, but an arid tract closely filled with stunted trees, hard and gnarled by their long struggle for existence. Emerging from this belt, the railway reaches another open tract, consisting of the true pastoral downs country, and runs into the pleasant little town of Roma, where from three to four thousand persons find employment in supplying the wants of the surrounding pastoral region. Still continuing, the railway is being pushed on westward towards the great pastoral area of the interior—the fertile wilderness which Burke and Wills first traversed, and where they died, which now is being filled by millions of sheep, and adding rapidly to the wealth of the colony. There are bush townships in the track of the advancing railway which will no doubt become towns, but as yet they are in no way noticeable. The same may be said of the townships reached by the Central Trunk Railway running westward from Rockhampton and its branches. The country through which it runs has not a climate very suitable for agriculture—at least no agricultural settlement has taken place—and with the exception of Clermont, a little town of about two thousand inhabitants, which grew into some importance by means of mineral discoveries in its vicinity, there are only bush townships of varying sizes in the central districts. The thriving town of Gympie, with five thousand inhabitants, the second gold-field of Queensland, and also the centre of a thriving and spreading agricultural settlement, lies about seventy miles to the south of Maryborough, with which it is connected by railway.
The line of the Tropic of Capricorn runs close to the town of Rockhampton; sub-tropical Queensland ends there. The first place of importance on the coast going north is Mackay, a town of some three or four thousand people, supported by a small rich district which has become the chief centre of sugar cultivation in the colony. The Mackay district is in a sense isolated, having little or no trade connection with the interior. Next after Mackay comes Bowen, a sleepy, decaying settlement of some one thousand inhabitants, occupying a most beautiful site on a sheet of water land-locked by a ring of picturesque islands. There is no prettier town on the coast of Queensland, no place which seems more fitted for the site of a great city than Bowen; but trade left it soon after its foundation, and it has mouldered half-forgotten ever since.
From Bowen northward the coast of Queensland is sheltered by the line of the Barrier Reef and a long chain of romantic and beautiful islands. The traveller on this coast enjoys a perpetual feast of the eye. On the one side the islands in the line of reef present every variety of form and colour—the green of the timber or vegetation clothing them, the varying lines of their fantastic, weather-beaten, rocky cliffs, and the dazzling white coral sand of their beaches. On the other side, the mountains of the coast range approach closely to the shore, sometimes apparently springing upwards from the very beach; and their imposing masses, clothed with dense vegetation to the very summits, smile rather than frown on the blue sparkling wavelets of the sheltered water, which seems to lave their feet. At various points the mountains fall back, opening, as it were, avenues to the interior of the country. At the entrance to one of these openings is Townsville, the chief commercial centre and the virtual capital of the north. This fast-growing city is built on the actual sea-coast; and though to some extent sheltered by islands, its harbour is shallow and exposed. A breakwater, however, is being gradually made, and in various ways an artificial harbour is being formed. Townsville, which now contains probably a population of nine or ten thousand people, is the terminus of the Northern Trunk line. Immediately to the west of it are the great gold-fields of Charters Towers and Ravenswood, and the railway is being pushed far to the westward, traversing the northern portion of the pastoral plateau of the west, and tapping the verge of the great plains which slope gradually to the shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Townsville promises to be a very fine city; and, although it is too new a settlement to contain many buildings of special note, it will not long be without them.
Townsville, North Queensland.
Still following the coast, and passing the little mountain-bound port of Cardwell, which nestles at the feet of great hills which, by cutting it off from inland traffic, have stunted its growth, and by the ports of Cairns and Port Douglas, which dispute between them the lucrative position of outlet for the mineral fields on the elevated mountain plateau lying just behind them, we come to Cooktown. This town, built at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on the spot where Captain Cook careened his vessel after the discovery of Australia, was called into existence by the great gold rush of the Palmer, described elsewhere. Its fortunes waxed with the rush, and waned as the alluvial field became exhausted; so that its population, Chinese and European, is now probably not more than two thousand souls. There is, however, a future before it, because a railway, now in course of construction, will soon link it with the Palmer gold-field, where there are hundreds of gold-reefs awaiting cheaper carriage and more certain communication with the coast for their full development. In the meantime Cooktown is becoming a centre for the nascent New Guinea trade, and a certain amount of settlement is taking place in its vicinity. This is the best port on the mainland of the Cape York peninsula, but at its extremity there is the port of Thursday Island, a shipping centre, and the northern outpost of Australia. At Thursday Island there is a Government resident, charged with the control of the pearling fleet, which has its head-quarters there, and the government of the scattered islands in Torres Straits, which are under the jurisdiction of Queensland. Thursday Island is a port of call for all vessels passing through Torres Straits, and several thousand tons of coal are always stored there.
On the Gulf of Carpentaria are two small ports. The principal one, Normanton, on the Norman River, is a growing town of over a thousand inhabitants, and will probably be the terminus of a line of railway. Burketown, on the Albert River, is a place which is reviving after a strange history. About twenty years ago, when the pioneer squatters first drove their herds into the Gulf country, a township was located there; but the settlers formed their settlement and lived in such reckless defiance of all sanitary rules that a fatal fever broke out, which decimated them. The place was after this entirely abandoned, and the grass hid the rotting posts of the mouldering houses, which rapidly decayed in that hot, moist climate. A few years ago, however, the attempt to form a town was renewed, and this time with more care. Burketown is now quite as healthy as any tropical settlement; and as it is surrounded by vast plains of exceptional fertility, abundantly watered by flowing streams, it will probably become a place of some importance. This completes the list of towns on the coast of Northern Queensland.
Queensland is pre-eminently the cattle colony, possessing no less than 4,266,172 head of horned stock in 1884. Experience has shown that sheep do not thrive in the coast districts, especially in the north. The merino breed of sheep will thrive, in spite of an exceedingly high summer temperature, provided the heat is dry, but not when the warmth is accompanied by moisture; so that in Queensland sheep-raising is practically confined to the table-lands of the interior. Cattle, on the other hand, do as well on the short scanty grasses, and in the dry pure air of the uplands, as on the rank luxuriant herbage and in the steamy atmosphere of the great plains which lie sweltering in the sun round the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The whole colony is therefore available for cattle, while probably not more than half, or at the utmost two-thirds, can be used by the sheep-grazier. It is not possible, however, to lay down any definite boundaries between the sheep and cattle countries, because at many points the one melts insensibly into the other, and prolonged experience is sometimes required to fix the dividing line with any degree of accuracy.