WIDE BAY, when expanded into Hervey’s Bay, receives the waters of several minor streams in addition to those of the Mary. The Burrum flows through a tract of coal measures of great value and is connected with Maryborough by a railway. The Isis is a lesser stream, but the Burnett is one of considerable volume, and navigable for coasting steamers for nine miles from its mouth to the little town of Bundaberg. This pretty village is the centre of a district rich in sugar and maize plantations. Thence extends a line of railway to the little mining hamlet of Mount Perry, sixty miles distant, in the heart of a district mineralised to an extraordinary degree. Copper is the principal metal in the lodes, which, though ordinarily small, are rich, and are so numerous that it has been affirmed by persons intimately acquainted with the locality that there are scores of square miles of granite country, over the face of which, were a plough to be drawn at right angles to the general trend of the lodes, indications of a vein of ore would be exposed at almost every hundred yards. The country round Mount Perry is, however, generally of a broken and rugged nature, and the scenery exceedingly picturesque.

The shallow and tepid waters of Wide Bay and Hervey’s Bay constitute a favourite haunt of one of the most curious and interesting of marine mammals —the dugong, the Halicare Australis of Cuvier. This singular creature has a number of congeners in tropical regions throughout the globe. The manatee of the West Indian Seas differs from it but slightly, and wandering individuals of that species have been washed ashore in the Firth of Forth and at Dieppe. But it is in the Indian Ocean, the Malay Archipelago, and on the Australian coast that it chiefly abounds. In the last century it was plentiful at the Mauritius. A score of years ago, dugong were not infrequent in Moreton Bay, where even now occasional stragglers make their appearance; but Wide Bay is at present their best-known resort, although they abound also in many of the shallow estuaries northward to Cape York. The dugong belongs to the class of mammals styled cetacea, to which family the whale likewise pertains. The latter, however, is carnivorous, whereas the dugong is herbivorous, and the principal animal of that subdivision. In form, it somewhat resembles the porpoise, except as regards the head, which is that of an animal, not of a fish. It differs also from the porpoise in having no dorsal fin. The ears and eyes are very small, and the latter deep-set. The tail is crescent shaped, like that of the whale, and constitutes its principal means of propulsion, the pectoral fins being insignificant in, proportion to the body of the animal, which attains a length of from seven to eight feet, with very portly bulk. It is a harmless and inoffensive creature, nature having denied it any weapons of offence or defence. Its food consists of marine plants, and especially of a sort of submarine grass which grows abundantly on the shallow bottoms near the embouchures of rivers on the Queensland coast. This herbage is readily cropped by the large, gristly lips with which the animal is furnished, and the mouth is curiously lined with circular tufts of short, bristly hair, which assist in the retention of the slippery fodder prior to its partial mastication and conveyance to the stomach, which is precisely similar to that of land ruminants.

It has been conjectured, with some probability, that the dugong is identical with the behemoth mentioned in the Bible. The Egyptian word "be-he-mo-ut," from which that name is derived, and which signifies water ox, is alleged to support the idea of identity. This is certainly open to dispute, as the hippopotamus is more likely to have been familiar to the dwellers on the Nile. But stronger ground is found in the poetic description of the behemoth: "He eateth grass as an ox, and his bones are like bars of iron." In the last respect, the dugong certainly approximates to the description. Its bones are, without important exception, solid, even the ribs being of texture as dense as ivory, which substance the bones of the dugong generally resemble in specific gravity and in adaptability for taking a high polish; consequently they are in demand for industrial uses, ranking as equal to ivory, for a variety of purposes. The singular quality of the dugong is that no portion of it frame is without sterling use. Its skin is capable either of being boiled to a jelly, palatable and nutritious for even children and invalids, or of being tanned into leather of great stoutness and excellent quality. Treated in the latter fashion, it resembles hogskin, save that it is much thicker. Its flesh is the most extraordinary part of its body. Every part is not merely edible, but extremely appetising and from the one carcase can be satisfied the preferences of half a dozen different gourmands. Sir Stamford Raffles, who partook of dugong, at Singapore, wrote of it as resembling "excellent beef." Dr. Hobbs, of Brisbane, spoke of a similar dish as "splendid veal cutlets." Mr. Edward Wilson, writing from Cleveland, Moreton Bay, to the Melbourne Argus, records that he ate a rasher of what he believed to be capital bacon, and was somewhat startled to learn that the dish had been smoked "yungun," the aboriginals name for dugong. A French author, who feasted on the flesh at the Mauritius, describes it as "well-fatted pork of a pleasant flavour." From personal experience, we are able to reconcile these apparent incongruities of palate by explaining that flesh resembling pork, beef, and veal may be cut from the same carcase, different parts of the animal furnishing the different meats, and the sex and age of the specimen accentuating the differences. There is nothing fishy or repulsive about the flesh; on the contrary, it is pure and delicious, with a richness seldom me with in the primest land animals’ flesh. The abundant oil to which this richness is attributable has a peculiar value. Its bland and delicate flavour renders it remarkably acceptable to delicate stomachs. More than a score of years ago, Dr. Hobbs, of Brisbane, having observed that aborigines resorting to Moreton Bay from the interior, in a condition of emaciation due to various ailments, and sometimes apparently to tuberculous affections of the lungs, rallied under a course of dugong diet, and became fat and hearty, was struck with the apparent value of the article as a therapeutic agent. He employed it in his private practice, with result’s so satisfactory that he communicated its merits to the medical profession throughout the world. A demand for the oil sprung up in consequence, and assumed such proportions that, although a dugong fishing-station was established at St. Helena Island, in Moreton Bay, the supply fell utterly short of the demand. Unprincipled dealers took base advantage. Shark oil and various other abominations were sold as dugong oil, with effects so disastrous to the victims of the imposture that the genuine article became discredited, and the demand was almost extinguished.

In Wide Bay, nevertheless, the dugong fishery continued long to be carried on, and has recently been revived. The multitude of dugongs which exist there would appear fabulous were it not vouched for by most authoritative testimony. Mr. E. Thorne, who was personally engaged in the fishery in its early days, seriously records that, his boat being on one occasion anchored in a channel down which the dugongs were returning with the ebb tide, according to their habit, after feeding on the upper flats during high water, for between three and four hours a continuous stream of these mammals passed underneath like cattle rushing out of a stockyard. Some thousands, he asserts, must have gone out with that tide. One of the Wide Bay fishermen told the same writer that he had seen a mob which crowded an area about half a mile wide by three or four miles long, and seemed to fill the water with their bodies. The dugong may be captured in the same manner as its relative, the whale. It is pursued in a boat with harpoon, line, and lance. The oars are muffled and strict silence observed, as the sense of hearing of the prey is exceedingly acute. The harpooner is generally an aboriginal, whose training with the spear easily renders him expert with the dart. The harpoon once fast, the line is paid out, and if necessary quitted an oilcan or other buoyant article being attached. Guided by this, the oarsmen follow the course of the wounded animal, and when it rises to blow it is harpooned afresh or despatched with the lance.

This process, although furnishing sport, is not so businesslike as the alternative of netting, which had been practiced by the blacks before white men intruded into their waters. Flinders found near Bribie Island some nets of strong cord and large meshes which exceedingly puzzled him. These were undoubtedly dugong nets. Similar nets are now employed; they are secured by stakes across the submarine channels through which the animals pass to and from their feeding grounds. Becoming entangled, the mammals speedily drown, and their carcases are then easily recovered. Further north, the dugong is said to be even more abundant than in Wide Bay —a source of industry and wealth which awaits intelligently directed enterprise to possibly throw into comparative insignificance the cod-fishery of Newfoundland and the herring-fishery of the North Sea.

Emerging from Hervey’s Bay, the mouth of the Kolan River, a stream on whose alluvial banks considerable plantation settlement exists, is passed. Only such vessels as have entered Wide Bay pass thus close to the mainland. Steamers bound from Brisbane direct to northern ports keep outside of Frazer Island, skirting Breaksea Spit, and generally sighting Lady Elliot’s Island —a low key of sand, clothed with a few bushes, and the site of a Lighthouse. This islet was discovered in 1818 by the ship "Lady Elliot." Bustard Bay and Rodd’s Bay, visited by Cook and Flinders, and later inspected by Oxley, are passed ere arriving at Port Curtis, the scene of Colonel Barney’s futile attempt to form a north Australian colony of "exiles." The entrance to this harbour is intricate, but, once in, the port is magnificent, fenced from the ocean and from the blasts by Facing Island and Curtis Island. Cook passed the opening during the night, and to Flinders is attributed the discovery of this, one of the noblest harbours on the Australian coast, which he ‘named after Admiral Curtis. The magnificent landlocked sheet of water remains unvisited by fleets. Near the mouth of the Boyne River stands the pretty town of Gladstone, a shipping port for the district of cattle-runs chiefly. The town is yet in the primitive stage, despite its early foundation; but improvements in the processes of treating auriferous ores have recently imparted fresh vitality to the gold reefs of the Calliope in its neighbourhood. From this circumstance, and the fact that the country is rich in minerals of all kinds, it may be reasonably anticipated that Gladstone, so long stagnant, may before long enter upon a period of progression. It is noteworthy that Oxley during his visit discovered indications of copper ore on Curtis Island. This early observation no one seems to have sought to verify. Curtis Island remains undistinguished for any particular attraction, but may be regarded as interesting as the scene of the first years of the married life of Mrs. Campbell Praed, now a shining light in London literary circles. Mr. Campbell Praed was a squatter; Curtis Island formed his "run," and the station homestead facing the mainland was the dwelling to which he carried his young bride.

The island is separated from the continent by a channel which in places contracts to inconsiderable dimensions, but has ample depth and scope for the passage of large vessels, save at one spot, where a natural causeway of rock supplies a ford which cattle can cross at low water, and which consequently bars the channel against shipping. Voyagers are thus compelled to submit to a long detour by the exterior of the island, skirting the ocean marge of its rugged and mountainous length. From the heights of its spinal crest a long spur projects seaward, and meets the swell of the Pacific with a bold and bluff promontory named by Cook, Cape Capricorn, because it lies almost precisely, under the tropic line so styled. A light-house now crowns the bluff, and constitutes a leading landmark, signalising approach to Keppel Bay, into which the great Fitzroy River —formed by the union of the Mackenzie and the Dawson with their network of tributary streams, draining the whole of the Leichhardt district —discharges its burden of turbid waters. At the present day, as the traveller glides up the bay between shores studded with beacons and through channels defined by buoys, he finds it difficult to realise that the early voyagers who explored this estuary failed to perceive that it received the tribute of a great river; and it is apt to excite a misplaced smile to read that the outflow of the discoloured stream past the anchored vessel of one of these experienced investigators was by him attributed simply to the efflux of the tide and the troubling of the water by natives.

Large disbursements have been made by the Queensland Government with the view of improving the navigation of the Fitzroy River, originally very much impeded by numerous shoals; much still remains to be done, and although this stream is of imposing width —quite eclipsing the river Brisbane in that respect —the navigable channel is tortuous, difficult, and shallow.

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