Pioneering Days: Thrilling Incidents

We were now nearing the sea coast and at the end of our tether to secure decent, healthy sheep country. Landsborough some time before when on a searching expedition for Burke and Wills spoke very highly of the Barclay Tablelands, so our boss of the party thought that was the locality to make for. The idea was, as a settlement was forming on the Albert River, that the Gulf would open up a large trade with Batavia and other northern places, in wool, corned meat, &c. So far this never happened, worse luck. The Herbert River (now the Georgina) was a long way off, no road or track to follow, nothing but Landsborough's diary and steer by compass a good part of the way when there was no watercourse to follow. However, the venture was decided upon and a start made with the best intentions and ardent hope of success.

Further on than Lara was Canobhie, owned by Mr. Edward Palmer. Most of the run was on the lower Cloncurry, Dalgonally higher up, owned by Duncan and Donald MacIntyre--both cattle. There was also on the Flinders a run newly taken (at the junction of the Cloncurry) by Mr. Murdoch Campbell, which he called Sorghum Downs, but afterwards owned by Mr. Walker, Messrs. Jack and Tom Brodie settled down on Donnor's Hills and Mr. Halloran (who lost most of his sheep in the desert through poison bush) still lower down towards the coast. We turned off the Flinders before reaching Donnor's Hills and steered across for the Leichhardt River. The whole country between the last station mentioned and the Gregory River was occupied by Captain Towns and J.C. Macdonald--thousands of square miles and known as the "Plains of Promise," the homestead camp being on the Leichhardt Falls. They also owned Inkerman, Jarvisfield and other stations on the Burdekin, Carpentaria Downs &c., on the Gulf waters. Mr. Macdonald did a lot of exploring. He came to grief like many of the early pioneers, and had to accept a police magistrate's position.