THE MANATEE, OR DUGONG.
"Very good sport can be had in Northern Queensland in hunting the dugong, or sea-cow. This animal abounds along the coast of that region; its flesh is not bad eating, and its oil was formerly in demand as a substitute for cod-liver oil, but some of the fishermen got to mixing it with shark-oil and other abominations, so that its good name was ruined. If you have a taste for turtle-catching, it can be accommodated. We supply the Sydney and Melbourne markets with green turtle, and also put the soup and meat into tin cans and send it to England. There are numerous fishes, some good to eat, and others worthless as articles of food but with all the colors of the rainbow. We have sharks of the largest size, and the stranger should be careful about venturing into the water for a bath."
Their new acquaintance had a great deal to say about the northern part of Queensland, whose praises he was never weary of sounding. He declared that within a very few years Queensland would consist of two colonies instead of one, as the north was inclined to cut loose from the south and set up a government of its own. He thought it did not receive its fair share of the public money, and having paid its proportion of the taxes, it had a right to grumble when the south received all the appropriations for railways and other costly improvements.
On his arrival in Sydney Doctor Bronson called at once on the gentleman who had invited the party to see the interior of New South Wales. Arrangements were made for immediate departure, and at nine o'clock on the following morning they were off for the upper country.
So far as their experiences of cattle and sheep stations were concerned, they were practically a repetition of what they had gone through in Queensland. A new feature of the trip was a kangaroo hunt to which they were invited, and of which Fred gives the following account:
"You must know that this is the land of marsupials, or animals which carry their young in a pouch until they are able to take care of themselves. Nearly all the animals of this country belong to this family; and geological researches show that there were once some marsupials here that equalled if they did not exceed in size the rhinoceros and hippopotamus. But these big fellows are all extinct; there are one hundred and ten species now, and the largest of them does not exceed two hundred pounds in weight.
"The largest of the marsupials is the kangaroo, and the next in size is the wallaby. There are eight species of large kangaroo, inhabiting different parts of the country, the prince of them all being the red kangaroo of South Australia. Then come seventeen species of small kangaroos (Halmaturus) weighing from ten to fifteen pounds; and then three species of silky-haired kangaroos (Onychogalea), inhabiting the interior of the continent. They weigh eight or ten pounds, and are about the size of a common rabbit; then come five species of hare-kangaroos, five of jerboa-kangaroos, and then the rat-kangaroos, the bandicoots, opossums, 'rabbit-rats,' and numerous other small animals. We'll go back to the large kangaroos, where we began.