Our first port of call is Gladstone, nearly three hundred miles north of Brisbane, on the landlocked inlet of Port Curtis, one of the finest natural harbours on the whole coast. Here is a view of 14 the bay and the jetty. As we see, there is no very great trade 15 at present, no line of wharves and warehouses; the importance of Gladstone is in the future; its chief business at present is the shipment of meat and cattle. A short railway journey takes us to Rockhampton, which lies some distance up a river, the 16 Fitzroy; in this it resembles Brisbane. Near Rockhampton we find 17 a steamer loading frozen meat from the factory. From Rockhampton the central railway runs nearly due west for over four hundred miles, to the Thompson River on the Bowen Downs. There is also a railway along the coast to Brisbane, linking up the various 18 small seaports; but this line is a late construction. The typical railway of Queensland starts from the coast and runs directly inland; and the development of the country follows the same course.
As we follow this inland line, in the wetter districts near the coast we find cattle everywhere. Further west, where the rainfall grows less, there are more sheep; but the area of considerable rainfall is much greater than in the districts further south, owing to the broadening out and irregularity of the eastern highland mass. The whole of this moist area is particularly suited to cattle.
Before the settler can begin either cultivating the soil or raising cattle, there is much preliminary work to be done. A large part of Eastern Queensland is covered with forest or scrub, which must be cleared by cutting down and burning. Here we have a settler starting operations in a rough camp: he seems to have 19 a difficult task before him. Here he has reached the stage of a permanent hut, with a small area of cultivated land round it, and 20 beyond, roughly fenced pasture with the remnants of the forest showing in it. Here again are the cattle feeding in pasture 21 where the trees have been ringbarked and so partly destroyed. To destroy, cut down, and burn trees which may yield valuable timber may seem an extravagant method, but the settler here has even less choice than in the Grafton district of New South Wales, where we saw the same methods employed. The timber is certainly valuable. Here are specimens of the hardwoods which we use for street pavements and railway sleepers, and for other purposes where great strength and endurance are needed; these are the blackbutt and Queensland Karri pine, and there are many other 22 varieties. The difficulty is to get them to the markets where they are wanted. Here we see one method; a trainload of sleepers 23 is leaving the sawmills, bound for India; but the railways are few and in many districts the logs must be dragged at a slow rate by bullock teams to the banks of the nearest creek, where they lie perhaps for months until there is enough water to float them down to the larger rivers and so to a seaport. This method is commonly used for the cedar which grows near the coast, and we have already seen it in New South Wales. Except in a few places easily accessible, the natural forest wealth of Queensland is as yet hardly touched.
