Mr. Carruthers' agreement to take charge of the sheep until they arrived
at their destination having expired, my uncle wrote me to take over the
station, and advised that if I remained in charge, he would increase my
salary to £200 per year. As Carruthers was anxious to return to his
station, I accepted the former, but replied that unless the pay for
managing was increased to £300 per year, to send someone at once to take
my place.
In the meantime, the blacks had come into Canobie at night, and attacked
three men who were camped on the river, within sight of the station.
They killed two, and the third was left for dead. He was found to be
alive, and afterwards recovered from the severe battering he received.
Palmer sent word asking me to send all the men I could spare to come
over to assist in hunting the murderers. I did so, Carruthers taking
charge of the armed party.
A few days previous to this occurrence I had visited an out-station to
count the sheep, taking a man with me to help in repairing the yard.
On returning after dark we passed a billabong, from which a very strong
stench, as if from decomposed vegetable matter, arose. The following
morning we both felt unwell, and vomited a good deal. The man with me
was much older than I, and succumbed to the sickness in nine days.
After the party had left for Canobie, I was completely prostrated, and
had no medicine on hand except Epsom salts. During the night we (the
cook, a new-chum Cockney, and myself) heard voices down at the
water-hole, which we took as from a party of travelling Chinamen. In
the morning we found that, some of the blacks who were implicated in the
murder had doubled back, and had taken away every article of iron they
could find, our camp oven included, and my clothes, which had just been
washed. This so preyed on my mind that when the party returned, they
found me delirious.
Mr. Carruthers, seeing the helpless state I was in, and the condition of
affairs generally, engaged Mr. Reg. Uhr to take charge on my behalf,
whilst he took me down to Burketown, distant 155 miles, in a cart, with
two horses. The road was almost deserted, and the blacks were very bad.
Carruthers would boil his billy at water-holes in the afternoon, and go
out to the centre of the plains to camp, with no bells on the horses. As
for myself, I was sick and weak. Not being able to eat damper or meat, I
was almost starved, lost all vitality, and cared little whether I
survived the trip or not. We had to cross the "Plains of Promise." These
consisted of an uninterrupted run of about 30 miles of devil-devil
country. It was a succession of small gutters and mounds, which, to a
sick man in a cart without springs, was intolerable. We arrived at
Burketown about November, 1866, and the public house was the only place
in which I could get accommodation. There I suffered all the nightly
noises incidental to a bush shanty.
Burketown at this time was an almost new settlement, with a population
of about 50 whites, but the number of graves of those who died within
its short life from fever was more than twice as many, and increasing
daily.
The Burketown fever was more virulent than any other I had hitherto or
since come in contact with, and was supposed to be a kind of yellow jack
fever, introduced by some vessel from Eastern countries.
The danger of a second introduction of the same, or perhaps worse,
epidemic does not appear in these days to be realised in Australia.
There was no doctor in the town, but a chemist named Peacock was
practising as one. Just as I arrived, Captain Cadell, in the old
"Eagle," arrived to send despatches of his explorations of the rivers on
the west coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, where the party had seen
numerous herds of buffaloes.
Mr. Carruthers heard that there was a doctor with the expedition, and on
his interviewing him, the latter said he would see me, provided I paid
the fee to the resident doctor. This professional etiquette was agreed
to. The doctor took great pains in diagnosing my case, which he called
something between a gastric and jungle fever, and prescribed five grains
of calomel every night. This I found later to have loosened my teeth,
and 15 grains of quinine daily seriously affected my hearing. The local
chemist was then sent for. He felt my pulse, looked at my tongue, and
prescribed a box of Holloway's pills. I paid him his fee of one guinea,
but almost needless to say which advice I followed.
I remained in Burketown about a fortnight, slowly recovering. Before
leaving I purchased a microscope which was for sale, and presented it to
the doctor of the expedition with sincere thanks for saving my life.
During the time I was in Burketown, Mr. Sharkey, Lands Commissioner,
came over from Sweers Island, and offered to submit my name for the
Commission of Peace, and said Mr. Landsborough, the Police Magistrate,
would swear me in. I declined the honour.
When returning to Clifton Station we spent a week at Floraville Station,
on the Leichhardt River. Here I purchased stores for the station from
Mr. Borthwick, who was managing for Mr. J. G. Macdonald. At this station
there was a water-hole 25 miles long, and in bathing one would see
crocodiles basking on the rocks and bank, but they appeared to be
harmless. At the lower end of this hole there was a perpendicular drop
of over 40 feet, with a very deep hole at the foot, infested by sharks
and alligators. The tides came to this point.
We called at Donor's Hill Station, where I first made the acquaintance
of the Brodie brothers, one of whom afterwards managed Nive Downs for a
number of years. The other--his twin brother--died in New South Wales
not long since, after a long and successful business career. At this
place I visited a cave containing many skulls of blacks, who had been
dispersed by the whites, after committing a series of depredations in
the district. I was told the cave was so dark that matches were lighted
to allow of aim being taken at the blacks during the dispersal.
In later years, I have often thought what fortunes might have been won,
or lost, or the settlement of Western Queensland been advanced by years,
had the early seekers for pastoral country but known what was west of
the so-called desert country, and south of the Flinders. This could only
be learnt by forcing a way through the desert to the west instead of
skirting its edge and going north. As it was, we, in following the
Flinders down, were traversing some of the finest sheep country in the
world, and did not realise there were millions of acres lying to the
south, unknown, unowned. Ultimately, settlement of the west was affected
more from Rockhampton than from northern ports; extending as it did from
Springsure towards Tambo, Blackall, and thence north and north-west.
It seems, however, the irony of fate that Townsville, which did little
or nothing towards the exploration or development of the country south
from the Flinders, has obtained the trade of that portion of Queensland.
But this is anticipating.
Mr. J. F. Barry, who first took up the country on the head of the
Western River, was laughed at by residents of Blackall, when he rode in
to have his application registered, and described the country. So that
it might be recorded that his statements as to its quality would prove
correct, he called the country "Vindex," by which it is now known as one
of the finest sheep properties in Queensland.
But let me quote from "_The Polar and Tropical Worlds_," written by two
scientists, one apparently a German, the other designated "Scientific
Editor of the American Cyclopedia." The book was published in 1877,
eleven years or more after the north-western country was becoming
occupied.
In alluding to the great deserts of the world, these authorities
say:--"Perhaps the most absolute desert tract on the face of the globe
is that which occupies the interior of the great island, or as it may
not improperly be styled, 'Continent of Australia.'
"The island has an area of something more than 3,000,000 of square
miles, nearly equal in extent to Europe.
"For the greater part of its circumference, it is bounded by a
continuous range of mountains or highlands, nowhere rising to a
great height, and for long distances, consisting of plateaus or
tablelands.
"There is, however, a continuous range of water-shed, which is
never broken through, and which never recedes any great distance
from the Coast.
"The habitable portions of Australia are limited to the slopes of
the mountains, and the narrow space between them and the sea. The
interior, as far as is known, or as can be inferred from physical
geography, is an immense depressed plain more hopelessly barren and
uninhabitable than the great desert of Sahara."
These authorities say more on this imaginary desert, but the quotation
is sufficient to show that even scientists do not know everything,
although one might believe that they did.
I have not learnt that either Messrs. Landsborough or Phillips, who were
on the Diamantina in 1866, and crossed from that river over to the
Flinders, commented on the quality of the country through which they
travelled, and I can only explain that its naturally waterless state up
to early in the eighties prevented its value becoming known.
During these years immense sums of money were spent in water
conservations by the Government of the day and Victorian investors, and
in a large measure without meeting success.
When I went to Townsville in 1868, the principal, and also the first
carrier there, was a man named Courtney, who owned eight bullock teams.
He had been taking stores to the different stations on the Flinders as
that country was opened up. In conversation one day, he informed me that
some two or three years previously his bullocks had strayed many miles
across the downs from Richmond Downs. Seeing the beautiful sheep country
still extending to the south, he determined to explore it to learn if
there were any good water courses. Taking a pack horse with rations, he
started on a S.W. course until he found a large river running in a
southerly direction. A few miles further north the river runs from west
to east. He marked a tree with his initial C., and this was found long
afterwards to be on a water-hole between Kynuna and Dagworth. He
expected to realise money on his exploration, but the Diamantina country
was, as I have previously remarked, occupied by people coming from the
Central district. The route from Townsville through long stretches of
dry country was out of the running.
In after years Courtney took to drink. Finally, after one of his bouts,
on leaving Normanton in an intoxicated condition, he camped at a
water-hole 10 miles out. His clothes were found, but not the body. It
was supposed that he had gone in for a swim, and that alligators, which
swarm in these holes, had taken him. I could not learn if he had given
any information as to the country, but I have no reason to doubt his
statements.
After my return to Clifton, I was kept busy preparing for lambing. This
did not turn out very successful. The hot, scorching sun so scalded the
backs of the lambs, that the growth of wool was greatly retarded.
After a month's hard work, I found myself so weak and depressed from the
fever that I decided to return to England. In the meantime, Carruthers
had left for his station on the Auburn River.
I was relieved in mind, by a letter from my uncle, who informed me that
my request for a salary of £300 a year was exorbitant, and that he was
sending a Mr. Hawkes to take the station over from me.
Soon after I was pleased to welcome this gentleman, and left for inside
with a young fellow named Carolan, who had been working on Canobie. My
uncle visited Clifton late in 1867, and decided to have the sheep boiled
down at the works owned by Mr. Harry Edkins, on the Albert River.
During his stay at Burketown he became the guest of Mr. Surveyor Sharkey
on Sweers Island, and met Miss Huey, sister of Mrs. Edkins, late of
Mount Cornish Station, who became the second Mrs. Corfield. His first
wife was a Miss Murray, sister of the highly-respected Police
Magistrate, who died in Brisbane a few years ago, and also of the late
Inspector Fred Murray. Her death on Teebar, in 1853, so affected my
uncle that he sold the property for a nominal sum to his head stockman,
John Eaton. He then took up and formed Gigoomgan, which he soon after
sold to Anderson and Leslie. He afterwards bought Stanton Harcourt from
W. H. Walsh, of Degilbo Station. There I joined him in 1862.