Atlas Page 20
By Francis Meyers,
F. J. Broomfield and J. P. Dowling

AT this point begins the great railway work of surmounting the bold front of the Liverpool Range. Beyond Murrurundi, the line, sweeping with a rising gradient round the face of the enclosing hills, pierces the mountain with a tunnel over five hundred yards in length. On emerging, a new kind of country is disclosed —a great squatting area, a vast tract with marvellous resources as yet undeveloped. Its virgin harvest, and little more, has thus far been reaped. It is the country of the Liverpool Plains, the Cobbon Comleroy of the natives, ten million acres of rich volcanic soil sloping away from the coastal range towards the Darling River.

The first station of any importance after entering this northern district is Quirindi, situated on the Quirindi Creek, a little village of some three hundred inhabitants. But though itself insignificant, it is surrounded by a splendidly fertile country capable of producing in a propitious year a hundred thousand bushels of various kinds of grain, and which supports numerous flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. To the east, in an almost direct line, are Nundle, Hanging Rock and Dungowan; to the west, a line of villages ending with Warkton and Coonabarabran.

A few miles beyond Quirindi is the station of Werris’ Creek, from which branches off in a northwesterly direction a line through rich level country. The greater part of the journey is along the edge of a treeless plain, twenty-four miles in breadth. Here the mirage is a common phenomenon, and north of Maitland there is hardly a more beautiful vision than this vast expanse, a sea of green in spring, of yellow in autumn, whose boundaries are woods so distant that they appear in a purple haze below the line of the dark blue mountains against the pale blue sky. The railway passes through the little villages of Gap, Breeza and Curlewis, but the first considerable stopping-place is Gunnedah—a town of about a thousand inhabitants, situated at the junction of the Mooki Creek with the River Namoi—which, being the centre of a district already prosperous, and destined soon to support a larger population, promises to be an important market town. The surrounding country grows large quantities of excellent wheat, over five thousand acres being under tillage. Far westward is the little village of Baradine, the terminus of a coach service from Gunnedah. Farther on along the line is the small settlement of Boggabri, surrounded by rich alluvial plains, well fitted for the production of various kinds of grain. Passing through Baan Baa and Turrawan, the line terminates at present at Narrabri, though it is intended to continue it to some point on the Darling.

Narrabri, the second town of importance on the northwestern line of railway, is situated on the creek of the same name and contains nearly nine hundred inhabitants. The soil is very fertile, but is occasionally submerged by the floods that rush down from the ranges. There are, however, vast tracts of rich land on the hill slopes that are altogether out of danger of inundation, and these are being rapidly settled by pioneer farmers, whom the opening up of the district by railway extension has induced to migrate from the country traversed by the longer established routes.

Due north from Narrabri is the little pastoral village of and farther north again the slightly more important one of Moree, from which latter, travelling in a westerly direction, the border town of Mungindi is reached. It stands on the New South Wales side of the River Barwon, and is a most important frontier settlement and river crossing for travelling stock. The main roads from Sydney and Maitland pass through it, and a great quantity of South Queensland wool crosses the river at this point on its way to Sydney. Mogil Mogil, Wee Waa, and Pilliga are outpost villages to the west and northwest, connected with Narrabri by various Postal and stock-travelling routes.

This is the borderland between grazing and agriculture occupations, and only the uncertainty of the rainfall and the limited market prevents the latter from winning the victory. A few years ago the district was all pastoral, and nothing more than a little cultivation for station supplies was thought of. The map beyond was then "all white," but now every inch of available country to the west has been taken up, and naturally looks for its supplies of produce to the agricultural district which is near it. In good seasons the frontier farmers have the advantage of supplying the back settlers, but when through drought their harvest has failed, wheat, hay, bran and potatoes have to be brought up by rail from the country lower down, or even from Newcastle. The squatter can stand dry weather better than the farmer, but even the squatter has often been sorely punished.

Notwithstanding the richness of the soil, therefore, and the facilities offered by the railway, the dryness of successive seasons has kept agriculture back. But the farmers have got a footing, and will keep it; though as yet they have not changed the dominant pastoral occupation of the country; indeed, the Liverpool. Plains still constitute one of the finest squatting districts of the colony. On this volcanic soil the grass is always sweet, and after the most devastating drought the face of the country is changed in a week by a good fall of rain. The rapidity of the transformation is almost magical. Over an immense area, looking just before as bare as a road, there is green grass, and in a few weeks it will be waving like a field of young wheat. In many places it will shoot up as the cane growth of a tropic swamp; a horseman may take some of the longest seed-stems and knot them above his head. Cattle are hidden in it, and sheep have to be taken back to and poorer feeding. A stranger looking at this magnificent growth of grass could hardly believe that a few weeks or months previously animals were dying for want of food. It is one of the troubles of the Australian squatter that he is treated alternately to a feast or a famine. Nature is profuse at intervals, but has also her seasons of niggardliness. What man has to do in these climates is to learn the art of storing the surplus of good years, and making it provide for the wants of scanty years. Nature here teaches the lesson of forecast and prudence, and it is because this lesson has been so insufficiently learned that there have been so many reverses of fortune—that Australia has been alternately praised as a land of plenty, and denounced as a land of barrenness. Enough has already been done by irrigation in some districts to show that by a moderate outlay in preserving water, and pumping from the rivers, sufficient hay could be grown at a reasonable price to save from destruction the choicest portions of the flocks. In a climate where the rainfall is so uncertain, permanent and productive settlement can only be secured by the storage of water and the storage of food, and this is the double problem that lies before the settlers of the future.

Tamworth or Armidale? Which is to be the greater of these northern towns? The question is one of local interest, and provokes some rivalry, not altogether unwholesome. Both show a closer resemblance to English county towns than do most of the inland cities of Australia. Both enjoy a fine and invigorating climate, both have about them fertile areas ample for the support of large populations. Tamworth was the first settled, and in respect to population still retains the lead. Like Maitland, it is a divided town—Tamworth East and Tamworth West. The western side is the first touched by the railway, and in the course of nature should have been the larger of the two, but the Peel River Company, an offshoot of the Australian Agricultural Company, possessed and used for pastoral purposes all the magnificent land to the south and west, and freehold farmers could get no footing there. No farmers, no town, is a law in these districts. Great squattages are not so favourable to the growth of inland towns as small farms are, because their business lies more with the commercial towns on the coast. Absentee landed proprietors, especially when they take the form of dividend-seeking companies, have no close sympathy with local movements; for while they favour some forms of enterprise, and often display a spirited application of capital in the way of improvements, they frequently block the natural course of settlement. Tamworth, cramped on the western side, spread to the east across the Peel River. Farmers searched out and took up tracts of country fitted to growing wheat, thus, finding ample means of subsistence, and a sure source of permanent prosperity.

Northward from Tamworth the railway route follows the general line of the old road along the backbone of the colony, which here spreads into a great tableland. Over the Moonbi ranges— terrible trial to teamsters in the old days—the line passes Bendemeer and Salisbury Plains, runs a few miles west of Walcha and through Uralla. For a space of about ten miles across the Moonbi a vast breadth of some of the grandest and most characteristic of Australian scenery is seen from the railway: great round hills, forest-clothed to their summit; crag-fronted mountains with deep-ploughed ravines on their sides; giant tree-ferns, seen palm-like in the water-fed nooks below; and the lords of the forest, the great blue gums of the mountains, towering (like the serried lances of the Miltonic host) above the bright blossomed odorous scrub growth. Occasionally the glint of a brook or the flash of a waterfall is seen, the black cockatoo shrieks as lie dies disturbed from his lofty eyrie, and the eagle hangs against the sky, apparently regarding even this most stupendous innovation of the human race with supreme contempt.

Uralla is situated on the Rocky River, and good gold has been found in the beds of ancient streams covered in many places by eruptive volcanic matter, or the detritus of ages, so that the town has been largely supported by miners. Fifteen miles beyond is the city of Armidale, at an elevation of over three thousand three hundred feet. This is the cathedral town of the Anglican bishop of the north, and sometimes his residence. The cathedral church of St. Peter’s is one of the finest brick structures in the district. The city, also the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, is the centre of a district of large and varied resources. The open downs invite the plough, and miners have found profitable scope for their labour within an easy distance. The soil and climate are especially adapted for orchards, the European fruit produced here being of first-class quality. Antimony exists in considerable quantities, and the ore is rich. Churches, schools, official and commercial buildings give indications of a rich, prosperous city. The post-office is a large and handsome structure, while the banks are built in a style showing unmistakably faith in permanent and profitable business. Armidale is also the centre of a district rich in natural beauty. A few miles from the town, the mountain chain rises-wild and picturesque, with precipitous heights and deep gorges, down which after summer storms and winter rains great bodies of water rush, producing the Dangar, Wallamumbi and many other lesser and unnamed cataracts. The Wallamumbi Falls are of peculiar beauty, especially at that hour, when the slanting sunrays, playing on the water mist, spans the twin torrents with a bow of prism tints. In ordinary seasons, however, water is as scarce here as in the gorges of the Blue Mountains, and only rivulets trickle through the ferns, and fall in spray-showers over the bare faces of the rocks.

The mineral enterprise of the New England district finds its larger development more to the north in the neighbourhood of Glen Innes, Tenterfield and Inverell, the two former towns being along the route of the railway to the Queensland border. Inverell lies to the west of Glen Innes, and is to be connected with the main line by a branch railway. Many settlers from the Scottish Highlands were attracted to this district by the congenial climate and have fastened on the country some old familiar names—Ben Lomond, Oban, and Glencoe. Ben Lomond is the summit of the range, the railway track reaching at this point an elevation of four thousand five hundred feet; after passing the summit the line runs down to Glen Innes, a prosperous town of two thousand people, in a fine invigorating climate. Tin mining has added greatly to the prosperity of the place, the metal having been discovered in large quantities at Vegetable Creek, twenty-eight miles in a northerly direction. Many of the deposits were profitably washed out by the primitive appliances of the first discoverers, but claims more difficult to deal with have since been successfully worked by elaborate machinery. Inverell is also the centre of a tin-producing district, and the country lying between it and the town of Glen Innes contains a large breadth of agricultural land. The vine flourishes here, and is extensively grown. Where the soil invites to farming and the climate is favourable, mining often leads to permanent settlement. The mineral is the magnet that draws the people who searching for subterranean treasure, are struck by the richness of the easily worked soil, and many adventurers throw aside pick, shovel and sluicing-gear for plough-share and reaping-hook. The miners furnish an immediate market for the local produce, and even if the mining industry should fall off, the farmers stick to their land and look for customers farther afield. This has been the history of many a settlement in Australia which began with one industry and finally gravitated to another.

Tenterfield, the border town, is also to some extent agricultural, though the country is granitic and the soil shallow. Minerals of several sorts have been traced about the mountain spurs and the river beds that lie to the east and north. Gold, silver, and tin have all been discovered in payable quantities. Some of the richest ores, however, are rather untractable, and those which could be most easily worked are in somewhat inaccessible positions. The thorough development of the wealth of this district awaits the right combination of skill and capital. The next township to the north, Stanthorpe, the centre of the Maryland tin-fields, is within the Queensland territory. On the borderline is the junction of the railway systems, a break of gauge necessitating a stoppage and a transfer.

This high tableland, along which the northern railway runs, will always be the home of a robust population. To the west, the ground slopes away, and as the rainfall becomes smaller and smaller, agriculture gradually ceases, till pastoral occupation holds almost undisputed sway. And this is mainly the character of the large triangular tract of country lying to the west of the Great Northern line; of which Tenterfield and Munginell may be regarded as the extreme points of the base and Tamworth the apex, while the two railway routes bound it on either side. Within these lines cluster a number of villages more or less important. The principal are Yetman, Warialda, Emmaville, Stannifer, Tingha, Bundarra, Bingera and Barraba. None of all this number has, however, arrived to the rank of a town; they are merely mineral or pastoral villages, whose growth and whose future hang upon the caprices of climate and the success which may attend the enterprise of mining speculators.

The high tableland, on which Glen Innes and Tenterfield stand, lies between the great pastoral slope towards the west and the rich agricultural province on the east. The elevation of the tableland makes the descent to the coast necessarily steep, and for this reason the connection between the two is difficult and expensive. In early days a bullock-track was cleared up the ridges from Grafton to the high land; later a coach road was made, and the streams were crossed by substantial bridges. But even this road is a severe one for traffic, and the inhabitants both of the highlands and the lowlands have been pressing for a railway. Such a line, it is said would not only give to the table-lands the quickest access to the sea, but it would also facilitate an interchange of the semi-tropical coast produce with the wheat of the colder climate of the plateau. Two different routes have been surveyed; one goes from Grafton to Glen Innes, the other starting from the same point passes through the Richmond River district to Tenterfield; each has its local advocates. The latter route would passthrough the townships of Casino and Tabulam.

Casino is ninety miles from the sea, at the head of the navigation of one of the branches of the Richmond River. In early days it was a rendezvous for stockmen, squatters and drovers, who sent their fat mobs across the river, where now stands the largest timber bridge in Australia. The whole of this district is a fine grazing country, and the rearing of cattle for the market was its primitive industry. To this was added timber-cutting for the cedar, especially on the lower lands, grew luxuriantly. Timber-getters drew their logs to the water’s edge and floated them in rafts down the river. All the best trees within easy reach of the water have now been cleared away; but as one pursuit decayed, a new one arose to take its place. The advent of sugar growing altered the industrial character of the district, and enabled agriculture to replace the earlier pastoral occupation. The rich flats were eagerly taken up for planting purposes as soon as it was found that sugar would grow and that sugar would pay. Thick scrub, which it was not profitable to clear for pastoral uses, disappeared under the woodman’s axe, and the rich soil became available for tillage. The population around Casino rapidly increased, and the town has now fifteen hundred inhabitants, with churches, schools and a hospital, while the stores and shops along the broad main street give evident signs of a healthy commercial development.

At the Junction of the north and south arms of the river is the township of Coraki, and at the head of the navigation of the northern arm stands Lismore, the port of the big scrub and the outlet for a large timber trade. The timber-getters, forced to go further and further back, have often to cut; their own tracks-tracks so rough and steep that to bring the lumber down them would to the uninitiated seem impracticable. But bullocks are patient animals; a long team of them pulling together, guided and urged by a skilful driver, do wonders. Lismore is a town of a thousand people, and fully three thousand find profitable employment in the surrounding district. A fine iron bridge spans the river, and good roads are beginning to stretch out into the country, now being settled by industrious farmers. Down the Richmond River, at its southern bend, is the township of Woodburn, the centre of a large area of sugar-growing country and the point nearest to the Clarence River.

The seaport of the Richmond is Ballina, a small place at present, the land on the lower part of the river being poor and sandy. The bar is both difficult and dangerous, and, according to the engineers, to improve the entrance would be an expensive business. Whether to do this, or to connect the commerce of the Richmond with the Clarence by railway, is a local question not yet settled. The Clarence is the larger river of the two; its entrance is already the more available, and it can be the more quickly and economically improved. The basins of the two rivers put together constitute one of the fairest and richest provinces of New South Wales their great want is better communication with the metropolis.

Grafton is the capital of the Clarence district, and indeed may be regarded as the queen city of the north. It is the head of the navigation for large vessels, but small craft can ascend fifty miles higher; the town is laid out on both sides of the river, which at this point —forty-five miles from the sea is half a mile in breadth. It is in the centre of a sugar-growing district, while behind it lie prosperous squattages. In the creeks and mountains in the background many indications have been found of mineral wealth. Grafton, which with Armidale is the see of an Anglican bishop, is practically "the city" for a large number of people for whom the great metropolis is too far off. Hither they come to see and be seen, to buy their stores, spend their surplus, and see life. The surveyors laid out the town with streets of a width sufficient to let them be shady avenues as well as convenient routes for traffic. Trees have been planted, and are already well grown they give grateful coolness in the hot summer months and contrast pleasantly with the glistening fronts of the buildings. Of these the courthouse is the most considerable, though the banks are built substantially, and, taken as a whole, the city is not unworthy of its fine surroundings. The population is at present about five thousand, but Grafton is one of those cities which are destined to grow. When the river entrance is improved, and railway communication is open with the tableland and the rich coast country, the development of the district will be greatly quickened.

Around Grafton, and studding the Clarence between it and the coast, a number of thriving villages have sprung up. Chatsworth Island, lying at the mouth of the river, is an important maize and sugar growing locality. The soil is very rich, and produces large crops every year. There are here eight sugar mills, including the extensive works of the Colonial Sugar Company, employing some hundreds of hands. The population is over twelve hundred, and its prosperity is gradually increasing. Lawrence, a shipping port for a great deal of the Tenterfield wool, is another riverside village, and the site of three sugar mills. It is situated on the Clarence, about eighteen miles from the city. A little to the south, on the opposite bank of the river, is Brushgrove, a village with one sugar mill; and following the course of the Clarence, Ulmarra is reached, with a population of over twenty-three hundred and supporting four sugar mills. To the southwest of Grafton is the little mining settlement of Dalmorton.

South of the Clarence sugar growing is not profitable. The cane thrives luxuriantly enough and many settlers went into the cultivation with high hopes; but there is just enough frost in winter to spoil the sap, and after repeated experiments the attempt had to be abandoned. But both in respect to soil and climate’ the district is admirably adapted to the growth of maize, and this is the great support of the farmers, the market for the produce being principally in Sydney and Melbourne.

South of the Hastings lies the valley of the Manning—not so populous as the country to the north, but of a somewhat similar character. Wingham is the town, and it lies at the head of the navigation. There is fine timber in the district, and there are some mineral indications, but as yet no profitable mines. A number of settlements lie along the course of the Manning, among the more important being the little towns of Croki, Cundletown, Taree and Tinonce, with populations ranging from two to six hundred. The inlets on the coast, especially that at Camden Haven, are famous for oysters.

A large district, of which Port Stephens, with its town of Carrington, is the natural outlet, lies south of the Manning. Along the shore are the extensive Myall Lakes, on the banks of which are valuable forests. Stroud, the principal town, has a large sawmilling industry; farther north is Gloucester, and to the northwest is the gold-mining settlement of Copeland. In the county of Gloucester is the great property of the Australian Agricultural Company, but no corresponding development of the country has justified the policy of making such large grants. One or two small goldfields have been discovered, but as a whole the district has not been progressive.

These northern rivers in the coast district between Port Stephens and the northern border of the colony, constitute a very valuable portion of New South Wales, but as the communication with them is almost wholly by sea, and as all the rivers are bar-bound, progress has been greatly checked. A coastline of railway has been proposed, and should this be carried out the line of settlements along the northern coast will greatly increase in importance.

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