Atlas Page 25
By Francis Meyers,
F. J. Broomfield and J. P. Dowling

The coach journey is drearily monotonous, but as the sun rises the landscape becomes more varied, glimpses are had of the timber belts and numerous cultivated patches near the banks of the Edward River, upon which is situated the thriving town of Deniliquin. Here spreads a vineyard, there a cornfield; grapes —large, luscious, good as any produced in Australia abound; for Nature has been bounteous in this locality, though hard and protracted have been the struggles to obtain land. Pastoral lessee has fought selector, and many a fat lawsuit has been the result. Fortunately for all parties concerned, the warfare is now almost concluded, and save that an occasional squabble occurs over some reserve, there is peace.

The border town on the Murray nearest to Deniliquin is Moama, formerly known as Maiden’s Punt. A railway bridge now spans the river to Echuca, a town on the Victorian side, which has wholly outstripped its northern rival. Moama has a large dock, and takes an active part in the shipping trade, and, being on the border, has its customs-house. But it is on the wrong side of the river for trade, and the country behind it is more used for pasture than for tillage. There is sonic cultivation done, and it has a store of wealth in its large forests of redgum trees, which, however, are now strictly conserved for future use.

Down the Murray from this point, there are several pastoral centres. Euston, six hundred and fifty miles south-west of Sydney is a crossing-place, and has a customs station, but Wentworth is the principal town of this far-distant quarter of the colony. Here on the banks of the Darling, near its confluence with the Murray, and over seven hundred miles from the metropolis, is a flourishing settlement. Being close to the borders of South Australia, there is regular communication with Adelaide, and it is expected that both Victoria and South Australia will stretch their railways as far as Wentworth. It is probable that some time in the future the south-western line of this colony may be extended so far, but, in the absence of railway lines, Wentworth has an extensive steamboat trade.

Up the Murray from Moama is the delightful little centre, Corowa, which is four hundred miles from the metropolis and forty miles west of Albury. This is one of the most fertile parts of the Murray valley —a perfect paradise for agriculturists a place with a great future, pasturing at present about a million head of stock, much of its progress being due to the efforts of the local agricultural society. Over the Murray, half a mile off, there is a railway station which affords cheap communication with Melbourne.

From this point a northerly course to the Murrumbidgee leads over a pastoral country of first-class quality. En route is Urana, distant seventy-six miles from the main railway line at Wagga Wagga, and only seventeen miles from the Jerilderie branch line. Around the small lake, from which the town takes its name, about one million sheep are pastured. The farmers are increasing in this locality, the soil being as good as any in Riverina, though, as in the case of many other districts, it is a difficult matter to obtain land. It is now seen that it would have been more conducive to the prosperity of New South Wales if the public land had not been so freely parted with by the State at a time when there was only a pastoral demand for it. The opportunities afforded to acquire large estates tempted many capitalists to invest to an extent which made borrowing a necessity. Bad seasons and high rates of interest have placed a heavy handicap on the large freeholds. Hence springs the hope that the time is not far distant when Riverina will have more farms than sheepwalks, and export as many hogsheads of wine as bales of wool; for high prices are required to keep the bank balance of squattages on the right side.

When travelling through New South Wales, the visitor will be impressed by the number of towns and villages; the proportion of these being somewhat great when the total population is taken into consideration. Despite the fact that nearly one-third of the million of people who form the latter is massed in or around the metropolis, there are in the country about five hundred centres which have about them the material necessary to support a much larger number of workers than are at present available. The south especially is very thickly dotted over with small towns, and this spreading of business depots is a healthy sign There is at least, in an industrial sense, the framework upon which may be reared a. large edifice. Regarding the present, however, it is to many puzzling how some of the towns manage to exist. The proprietors of inns and stores must have customers, or the shutters would not be down, and the blacksmiths and wheelwrights need occasionally to work. It is necessary to explain to the inquirer that the business done in most of these centres is of the intermittent class —that there are seasons during which a flood of business covers the settlement.

In July the shearers are on their way to the stations to gather the great wool harvest; in September they are either going home or they are bound for other localities in which the clipping is not begun until later in the year. The teamsters, too, are passing, so that they may take part in conveying the fleece to the coast. The wool season lasts for more than a quarter of the year, and before it has closed there is work to do in the cultivation paddocks. The hay and wheat crops are ready for the reaping machine, and the threshers follow in its wake. The nomadic workers who assist farmers and woolgrowers are not economical in the matter of disbursing their earnings; they spend their wages freely —in some cases lavishly. Thus the towns have the harvest of the harvests. Each place with any pretension to importance has its jockey club and its agricultural society, which provide the annual shows lasting three or four days, and during which the inns are crowded. In a few years, when population increases, the towns will have business of a more solid character —vineyards and orchards will occupy spots where now are to be seen only flocks of sheep there is plenty of material to work upon, and the towns in their present condition may be regarded as the survey marks which usually precede extensive settlement.

Returning to Junee junction, from which point the branch to Hay went off with its sub-branch to Jerilderie, the main line to the frontier has to be followed. Its course is nearly south, over a level fertile country, till it strikes the Murrumbidgee, which is crossed by a costly bridge —one of the principal engineering works which hindered the extension of the southern line. The main channel of the river is spanned by two continuous wrought iron lattice girders of six hundred and forty feet each, the supports being cast iron cylinders, nine feet in diameter. On the north side there are two hundred and fifty-seven spans of thirty feet each, and on the south, fifty-six spans of the same width, so that in the event of floods there may be a good outlet for the powerful stream, the river here being wide and deep, and having gained much force and volume on its western course from Gundagai. The necessity for precautions of this kind was forcibly illustrated some years ago when the mountain waters came down with force and made a huge gulf in the railway embankment close to Cootamundra, thus causing the wreckage of a passenger train. To the right, on a level which is considerably lower than that occupied by the railway line, stands one of the most important towns of the south, whose name, Wagga Wagga, is not unfamiliar to dwellers on the 4 other side of the globe.

Its fame, indeed, is wide spread, it having been the place in which the claimant of the great Tichborne estates was twenty years ago unearthed. On the 26th of July, 1865, there appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald an advertisement offering a handsome reward to any person who would furnish information which would lead to the discovery of the fate of one Roger Charles Tichborne, a young gentleman who had sailed from the port of Rio Janeiro twelve years before in a ship named "La Bella." It was thought that this vessel was wrecked, and that a number of her passengers had been picked up and brought to Australia. The Tichborne which the advertisement sought was described as being about thirty-two years of age, and of a delicate condition. He was heir to all the estates left by his father, Sir James Tichborne, Bart. It happened that there was residing at Wagga Wagga a rough, burly butcher known as Tom Castro, and a sharp solicitor —with the keenness for which the legal profession is remarkable —discovered in this vendor of chops, steaks and sausages, the identical scion of English nobility to whom the advertisement referred. The announcement took Wagga Wagga by surprise —even the most intimate friends or most liberal customers of Castro had not entertained he faintest idea that they had been so highly honoured. He was not a scholar, but he had certain birth marks, and remembered particulars which so far impressed his discoverers that he was sent to England, where, after some delay, he waited upon the venerable lady whose maternity he claimed. The genuineness of his claim was, however, disputed by those in possession, and a case, the most remarkable which has occupied the attention of the English courts for many years, was the result. The claimant was condemned for perjury and cast into an English prison, where he remained for many years.

Although the country around Wagga Wagga for the greater part is devoted to grazing, the farmers are not without representation, nearly thirty thousand acres being under cultivation, and over a million and a half sheep, with about twenty thousand head of cattle and horses, being pastured in the district. The grazing properties of this portion of the Murrumbidgee are held in high estimation by capitalists, and between the years 1872 and 1880 many of the stations were sold at high prices. Seasons of drought hive, however, much affected the district during the past five years, but it is now again in a prosperous condition.

In sporting matters Wagga Wagga has a strong lead, its jockey club being the most enterprising of its class, and the first to offer large sums as prizes for principal races. Besides the racecourse there is close to the town a large show-ground recently occupied by the local agricultural society. The shipping trade of the river is now but very small, Wagga Wagga having good facilities for the transit of goods by rail to Sydney and Melbourne. In consequence of having a good water-supply it is probable that this town will shortly become the site of extensive railway works, and a proposal has been made that a branch of the southern line should be extended from this point of the Murrumbidgee in a south-easterly direction to Tumberumba, near the upper part of the River Murray.

Passing south from Wagga Wagga the line runs to Albury, a frontier town on the Murray, and the head of the navigation. No section of the colony is better suited for the breeding of high-class horses, cattle and sheep, than the district between these two towns; indeed the latter are remarkably well favoured by the climate, and produce fine wool of a superior quality. Pure bred shorthorn cattle, of which there are several herds, thrive and help to swell the amounts which change hands at the annual stock fairs. A few miles out in an easterly direction at Tarcutta, there are several reefs from which large quantities of gold are regularly obtained, and farther along in the same direction there is, in the heart of a good agricultural tract of country, the busy little settlement of Germanton. The grape vine flourishes here, and although the vineyards are not large, they give profitable employment to many hands. The nearest railway station is Culcairn, about half way between Wagga Wagga and Albury.

The capital of the southern colony had thus, in the matter of railway communication with Albury, a long start of Sydney; indeed, prior to 1883, the Murray valley was considered more Victorian than otherwise. The distance to Melbourne being less than one hundred and ninety miles, naturally caused the greater part of the trade to gravitate southwards and all business connections were with the southern port. Nor were these much disturbed by the opening of the Sydney line, the distance —nearly three hundred and ninety miles to Port Jackson —proving a handicap on the latter city’s trade. But cheap rates and special concessions on the part of the railway authorities had the effect of turning the attention of the borderers to the northern capital. The Victorian tariff, too, being inimical to the interests of the Murray agriculturists, lost Melbourne many friends.

Each side of the river has its customs-house, with active officers, who are careful that no smuggling takes place on the dividing line. The railway-station and its numerous buildings were constructed regardless of cost, and occupy an area over three-quarters of a mile in length, and nine chains in width, the main building extending in one direction over three hundred feet. The New South Wales trains run through to Wodonga; Victoria returns the compliment by sending her trains to Albury, the break of gauge necessitating a change of carriage and a transfer of goods.

It is predicted, with some confidence, that Albury will, at some time in the future, rank as a great city. The present rate of progress favours the view that ere long the population, now about seven thousand, will reach the five-figure standard. The vineyard interest can be largely expanded, the latest departure in this direction being the successful establishment of champagne making at one of the principal vineyards. The sparkling wines of Albury are sold mostly in London, where they command prices which bear comparison with those obtained for the medium qualities imported from France.

As an instance of the changes which railways bring about, it may be mentioned that some years ago one of the wool-growers of the Murray sent his clip to Sydney with directions to the teamsters to return as speedily as possible with stores. After the drays had set out, the woolgrower left for England, which he reached safely, and had actually returned to Albury in time to meet his drays with the Sydney supplies —it had taken half a year to do what is now commonly accomplished in less than a day.

River traffic at this part of the Murray is now but of very slight importance. The trip down to the point of debouchure in Lake Alexandria, eighteen hundred miles distant, is tedious, though interesting. But it is beginning to be seen that the great value of the river lies in its supply of water for irrigating purposes. In years to come, when the efforts of the Water Conservation Commissioners —now industriously employed in gauging the great stores of wealth which are wastefully poured into the Pacific Ocean —have taken effect, the water will be distributed over the soil, and the banks of the Murray, as well as much of the back country, will yield immense quantities of cereals and wine. Australia will then take a share in supplying food to countries less favoured by nature, and the occupiers of its soil will learn how to combat with adverse seasons.

The description which has been given of the towns of the colony and the rural districts of which they are centres, will have shown plainly that up to the present time the inland districts have been only very partially developed. The metropolis is disproportionately large as compared with the population of the interior, and even of the rural districts the coast-line has been much more thickly settled than the country west of the main range. This is incidental to the development of the colony. Its basis as a commercial community lay in the production of Wool. The pioneer squatters overspread the country and turned the natural grasses to good account. Wealth was thus created with great rapidity, and in a quantity surprisingly large compared with the amount of labour and capital employed. Perhaps there is no part of the world where early colonisation was carried out with so little difficulty and with such good financial results as on the western slopes of New South Wales. The country was accessible, the native population offered but little or no resistance, and the natural herbage was immediately available. But though wealth was rapidly accumulated, this sort of occupation did not lead to any large settlement of population. Few forms of industry demand comparatively so small an amount of labour as that of pastoral husbandry. Shepherds, hutkeepers and shearers, with a few drovers and overseers, constitute the industrial staff; while a few townships on the main highways, with their public-houses, stores, blacksmiths’ forges, and a small official staff to carry on the business of government, do not materially add to the population. The first invasion of the pastoral solitudes was made by the miners. Wherever a goldfield was discovered there was a rush of population. Diggers are an exacting class which pushes every other aside, and the grazing right of the squatter had to retire before the demands of the invading miner, except in those few cases in which the grazier had been beforehand, and had secured a freehold. Where the goldfield was at all durable a township was established, and though these roughly improvised settlements have often failed to realise first expectations, still no mining township once established has ever altogether disappeared. A farming population, too, always clusters round a goldfield as an immediate market for vegetables, bay and dairy produce, and the demand for these commodities is sure to create the supply. Mining, although a fascinating pursuit, is very uncertain in its rewards, and considerable experience has shown that in the long run it pays better to supply the miners with food than to dig for the precious metal.