THURSDAY ISLAND, the Ultima Thule of north Queensland civilisation, is not reached until Cape York has been fairly rounded and passed. The island, situated in the southern part of Torres Straits, is the site of an outpost rather than of a settlement. Its own resources are nothing. For the existence of the residents, it is dependent chiefly upon official and maritime resources. As a coaling station, a port of call, and a harbour of refuge, its importance can scarcely be over-estimated. It is also the head-quarters of the pearl-shellers, whose fleets of dapper little luggers and schooners resort thither for their periodical renewal of stores and their discharge of nacreous spoils. Hence, also, expeditions to New Guinea take ordinarily their final departure. The Queensland Government here maintains a police magistrate and a sub-collector of customs, each officer multiplying his functions; while the one acts as harbourmaster the other combines the duty of savings bank officer, shipping master, and registrar of the "district." A couple of hotels, the store of Messrs. Burns, Philp and Co., a firm almost, ubiquitous and omnipotent in northern Queensland and New Guinea coastal affairs, with two hotels, the official and a scattered sprinkling of other residences, constitute the town, such as it is —the nucleus possibly of the future great entrepot of Torres Straits. All steamers trading from eastern Asia, India, and Europe, to Australia, via the northeast coast, call here. It was hence that Sir Thomas M’Ilwraith, when Premier of Queensland, despatched Mr. Chester, the then police magistrate, to annex New Guinea to the British dominions. The situation on Vivian Point, the southwest extremity of the island, is picturesque; the climate is healthy, and the tropical situation assures regular alternation of seasons, the dry season lasting with the southeast monsoon —from March till December —and the wet season from December till March. Of the western coast of Cape York Peninsula, very little is known, and that little is piecemeal knowledge obtained by officers and crews of small vessels trading to the towns on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Occasionally, wood or water running short in such vessels, landings are made, but no published information respecting the character of the shores is existent, and on the maps the old names of the Dutch explorers still remain.

THE Gulf of Carpentaria is a tepid and shallow sea, which shelves very gradually to the land at its southern shores. The origin of the name is wrapped in some obscurity. General Carpenter, the Dutch Governor of Batavia in 1628, is usually alleged to have been sponsor; but Dr. Lang’s researches led him to conjecture that Captain Peter Carpenter, a relative of the governor’s and commander of an exploratory vessel, is entitled to share the honour.

The coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria is probably the most uninteresting portion of Australia, looked at from an artistic point of view. On the eastern side it presents, with the exception of Duyfhen Point, an almost unbroken line of low, swampy shores bordered by mangrove-trees. On the south, groups of islands, of which two —namely, Mornington and Bentinck —are of considerable size, relieve the prevailing monotony. Sweer’s Island, the south-easternmost of the Wellesley Group, though smaller than either of those just named, is nearly five miles long and from one-third to one and a half miles wide. Here, in the early days of Gulf settlement, a port of entry was established in view of the unwholesomeness of the ports on the mainland, from which and from the pastoral stations fever stricken patients resorted to the island as a sanatorium.

The Queensland towns in the Gulf are two, of which Burketown is the older. The first lodgment was made here in 1863, at which date the pastoral pioneers had pushed out from the south and overrun the magnificent country on the rivers flowing into the Gulf; but, beaten by the fall in the price of wool and the commercial crisis which supervened, they abandoned the country, and Burketown was in turn deserted. The town had, however, been already decimated by an epidemic introduced by a vessel named the "Margaret and Jane." In later years, the site was again occupied, and the town has sprung into renewed life; its situation on the navigable waters of the Albert River assures its permanence and growth.

A formidable rival, however, exists in Normanton, on the Norman River, the most promising for shipping among all the streams discharging into the Gulf. The usual bar exists some three miles to sea, but inside this there are fine reaches stretching inland from fifteen to twenty miles, with an average width of half a mile, and depth ample for vessels of large tonnage. The town itself is fifty miles up the stream, and accessible only to vessels of light draught. With a population which in 1887 already exceeded one thousand, Normanton bids fair to become the capital of the Gulf country. It is the outlet not only for a wide expanse of pastoral country, but for the Cloncurry district, where exist deposits of copper which are said to rival in richness and extent the greatest mines now worked in the whole world. Cloncurry is also a considerable goldfield, but has recently been eclipsed by the brilliant promise of the Croydon field, to which, also, Normanton is the nearest port, and where literally hundreds of reefs yielding gold freely have been superficially laid bare. From Normanton a railway has been commenced towards Cloncurry, and the first section is already constructed. This seems destined to become in later years, when extended to the south, the main trunk line of Queensland, the railways from the coast joining it at right angles, and thus establishing a complete connection between the various fragments of the Queensland railway system which at present are detached.

The only other point on the Gulf coast which calls for special mention is Point Parker, where there is some elevation of the land abutting the shore, and where channels of deeper water than ordinary afford access to vessels of burden. This spot was indicated as the probable ocean terminus of the transcontinental railway once projected. Since the abandonment of that project, Point Parker has remained unnoticed, and perhaps unvisited.

OUR sketch has thus far treated almost exclusively of the coastal districts and towns; the bulk of the immense territory. Comprised within the boundaries of Queensland yet remains to be dealt With. By exempting the Cape York Peninsula from consideration, a rule fairly general may be stated. The country is ordinarily uneven on the shorter streams which, having their sources in the coast ranges, run briefly to the sea, and also in the lower portions of the longer rivers which, heading from what is termed the Dividing Range, fall into the Pacific. This part of the colony is well supplied with subsidiary streams and creeks; it is heavily-timbered and better suited for cattle than for sheep. Close to the coast, and in other occasional parts of these tracts, there are deposits .of very rich alluvial soil. The tracts which are drained by the heads of rivers flowing south, and of which the waters ultimately discharge into the Great Australian Bight in South Australia, and the extensive areas on the watershed of the Carpentarian rivers, consist to a very great extent of rolling downs and plains of rich soil, deeply covering the strata. Such also is the character of much of the country on the headwaters of the longer class of rivers which run to the Pacific on the east coast. Thus the Dawson, the Isaacs, the Nogoa, and the Comet, heads of the Fitzroy, and also the Belyando, the Suttor, and the Cape, heads of the Burdekin, water much "downs" country. In these instances, the open patches are interspersed with heavy masses of brigelow scrub, a species of eucalyptus which grows in close and practically impenetrable masse —the haunt of dingoes and wallabies, the refuge of hunted blacks, and latterly, the retreat of herds of wild cattle and horses. The country, traversed by the heads of southern rivers generally less undulating and more free from heavy scrub, while the Carpentarian plains are of vast extent, level, and as devoid of trees as the prairies of North America, which, allowing for differences of climate, they much resemble. All these open tracts are clothed with a carpeting of richest grasses, replete with nourishment for stock, and with herbs of great value for the same use. The saltbush, of which there are several varieties, growing chiefly on the margin of scrub, has an attraction for sheep, and a hygienic influence upon them of unspeakable value.

The Darling Downs, Cunningham’s early discovery affords a familiar example of this quality of country, of which it is a tolerably fair sample, although not now a favourable one, the infinite variety of indigenous herbs and grasses having been to a great extent eradicated by overstocking, too frequent burnings, and other causes. From a scenic point of view, a fairly typical representation of this country is to be seen in views of Westbrook station, one among many sheep-runs equally famous in the colony.

It may be broadly affirmed of the territory of Queensland that it offers a curious balance of compensations. The worst country is generally that which has the best supply of water. The scarcer the natural runs and reservoirs of water, the better the soil and grass. In those cases where the country —rugged, barren, and almost impenetrable —seems totally useless for pastoral or agricultural occupation, rich treasures of mineral wealth may be almost certainly assumed to exist.

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