guilty of negligence: I forget my luff, and a passing squall takes a mean advantage of my preoccupation. There is no harm done, but no thanks to Numbers One and Two, who leap to their feet and do their utmost to ensure the capsize of which they are in mortal dread. To shorten the story of my humiliation, they do not rest until sail is taken in. The contemptuous disgust of the blacks is openly expressed. They are indeed on the verge of rebellion at the prospect of pulling three miles that might have been flown over under canvas, but they forget their grievance in their keen relish of the merciless chaff which Numbers One and Two are forced to endure as they sit crest-fallen and ashamed in the boat. The chicken-hearted conduct of these white-fellows impresses them deeply, and we afterwards learn that they describe the craven fear of Numbers One and Two and the courage and anger of the Admiral in mirth-moving terms. Days after we happen to be passing a group of aboriginals of which King Brady is one, and pointing to my friends, I sarcastically say, "Down sail, Brady, down sail," whereupon Brady and all his cronies grin, roar, and writhe with laughter. They know all about it, it is clear.

At certain seasons of the year these lakes are covered with black swans, wild duck, and teal; and parties go out to capture the cygnets before they are strong enough to fly. Hundreds of black swans are killed, shot or knocked on the head, for the sake of the breast, which is covered with a fine down. The black swan is not so regal in bearing, nor in any way so majestic, as its tame brother; but it is a fine bird nevertheless, and in its sable garb, relieved by scarlet bill and cere, and white undertrimmings to the wings, sits and moves upon the water with a gracefulness all its own. Occasionally, the swans leave these Noosa lakes for a season or two, and they are absent now for the first time for seven years. We see, perhaps, only a dozen pairs, and they are evidently breeding, as are the ducks, of which we accordingly shoot not more than what we absolutely require for table purposes.

The most remunerative sport, I may here mention, is with the fishing rod. My first venture is a fat spotted eel, of five pounds weight, caught with gut bottom and small hook. Catfish of equal weight we catch in abundance. Spite of the frequent assertion that these slimy ugly creatures are admirable eating, we cannot bring ourselves to use them; but they afford a treat to the kings, who cook them to a turn in the ashes and gorge upon them. The black-fellow is a natural sportsman: Brady after one lesson can tell, by the working of the top of the rod, whether catfish, eel, or bream is coming up, and should the lethargic movements be of the former, VOL. CCXLVII. NO. 1795.

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his white teeth stand out like tombstones. The bream are very plentiful, and they yield excellent sport. We often pull across to the shaded waterway previously referred to, moor the boat to a broad-leaved cotton tree, smoke our pipes, listen to the scrub birds, give Brown and Brady permission to roam the forest in quest of 'possums or any feasible game, and catch bream ad libitum, frequently giving up from sheer surfeit. The bream, however, are not nice to eat. They are the black bream, which in salt or even in brackish water eat white, firm, and sweet; here, where the water is fresh, they are flabby and tasteless. The eels, however, and the whiting are well flavoured; and as Number One, at fish-cooking, is as sound in practice as in theory, we are seldom without a dish of fish wherewith to flank our cold meats and bread.

During our stay in the district, I learn a good deal of its timber resources. In Queensland we have up to the present time 230 known timber-yielding trees, and amongst the most important is the Dammara Robusta, commonly known as the Noosa pine. One day we sail across to the Cootharaba mills, and, while Numbers One and Two devote themselves to pelican-shooting, I accept the invitation of the resident partner in the Firm to ride up into the scrub and see the habitat of the tree by which the district is becoming famous. The limits of the Noosa-pine-bearing district are not precisely known, but it is supposed that they are confined to a coast-line of 60 miles northward from Noosa heads, and a belt not exceeding ten miles wide.

We ride from Cootharaba mills towards the scrub, first over sandy country; then over black, treacherous, clayey land; next over sandy loam where the bracken thrives luxuriantly, and in which the dogwood is gay with yellow blossoms. This feathery-foliaged tree is not of good repute; as firewood, it gives forth an evil odour ; and, as a living thing, it is said to sour the grass and monopolise too much space. My companion is, as he need be and should be, learned in the timber of the locality. He points out the Swamp Mahogany, sometimes called the Apple Tree, excellent for piles and sleepers, by reason of its powers of resistance against a dirty white worm called the cobra, which, in Queensland waters, is terribly destructive to woodwork. Bridges, piles, and boats are honeycombed by them in an incredibly brief space of time. The Swamp Mahogany has a fuller foliage than most of the Eucalypti, and grows on low flat country.

Soon we cross a creek, on the further side of which, as is the frequent rule here, the character of the country changes. It is a

change for the better, as trees and grass signify. En passant, I am told that the Moreton Bay Ash rots within six months after being felled, and that it must not be confounded with a mountain ash: superior to everything as dray-building material. The bullock and horse dray is the settler's great stand-by, and the severe strain sometimes put upon it could only be possible with the toughest of wood and strongest of work. The Mountain Ash is, therefore, held in high regard. We see specimens of the true Queensland Apple Tree, which bears no apple but whose blossoms and foliage do bear a distant resemblance to the English tree. Its timber makes the best of flooring; it is, as the saying goes, white as a hound's tooth; but the sawyers declare that it exudes an acid which plays havoc with the teeth of their saws.

A procession of bullock drays, six in number, each drawn by sixteen bullocks, comes along. The Firm have much of their timber drawn by contract, and some of the bullock-drivers, rough in speech, rude in manners, and uncouth in habiliments, make a fair income by their downright hard labour. One of the half-dozen in question, a grizzled weather-marked man, owns a selection of 1,200 acres of good land. To this fact may be added others of a similar description, showing what the careful working man may do in Queensland. The obliging skipper of the "Alabama," for example, has a 500acre farm, and there are other workmen attached to the mills who have saved their two, three, and five hundred pounds.

The open forest, as we near the scrub, is gay with long-stemmed buttercups, and watered by creeks whose courses are marked by dense, dark foliage, and sometimes made known by sweet perfumes from climbing plants and native shrubs, meeting us a quarter of a mile off. For the first time I see the wild honeysuckle of the colony, a parasite on the Swamp Mahogany, bearing a red honeysuckle-looking flower. On the creek-margin there is a shrub spangled with jessamine like blooms. Quail rise out of the grass, and dart straight away with musical whirr. Blue mountaineers call shrill in the windy tree-tops. We ride into ravines rich with ferns. There are five-and-twenty square miles of this good forest land, but it is surrounded by country hopelessly impoverished with wallum brush, though, like other worthless soil, it grows wild flowers in unusual numbers and variety.

Through a narrow bridle-path we by and by enter a darkly shaded scrub, five miles deep. Dense thickets of prickly growth, the wyer cane predominating, forbid divergence from the path without aid of a tomahawk. Damp, cool mosses and beautiful ferns

The Firm is absolute owner

spring out of fissures at the tree-roots. or leaseholder of this grand district. Its members were its pioneers in days when the Wide Bay blacks were fiercely hostile. Not far from the scrub in which we are riding in Indian file, my companion, years ago, was kept prisoner for four-and-twenty hours in a hut surrounded by blacks lying in wait for his appearance but afraid to face his rifle. Those days of peril are gone never to return, and the timber-getters follow their callings in peace.

Through the festoons of vines and other creepers which make the scrub so funereal and cool, I espy a stately, round, smooth, straight, brown column, eighteen feet or thereabouts in circumference, and rising high above all surroundings. It is the Noosa pine. The eye follows this apparently finished piece of gigantic lathe work, seventy feet upwards, without a break or fault of any description, until it rests upon the branches of its head. We dismount, and, without moving from one spot, can count twelve of these grand pine trees. One is a patriarch that cannot be less than twelve feet in diameter at the butt. The barrel is somewhat short in proportion, the branches, so far as one can judge, being not more than sixty feet from the ground. These columns are of solid timber, and they taper very little; the wood is free from knots, handsomely marked, and capable of taking a high polish. It is largely used in Queensland, and exported to the other colonies for linings to houses-an important consideration, indeed, in a country which has not emerged from the wooden era of architecture. I have seen furniture made of Noosa pine equal in richness of marking to the finest bird's-eye maple.

The Noosa pine district and the Firm who is developing it are worthy of the space I give it, if only as an illustration of the manner in which colonies are made. When the companion of my ride was pioneering for his co-partners, the country was inhabited only by hostile blacks, with here and there a settler. The Firm now have their mills at Cootharaba, a dépôt at Tewantin lower down, and large mills fitted up with costly machinery in Brisbane. They run their own steamers and schooner, have laid down tramways from the scrub to the mills, and give employment to about two hundred persons. It is impossible to say how many of these noble pine-trees await the axe in the district; but the Firm once began counting barrels in the big scrub, and, having counted up to 500, relinquished the undertaking. An average-sized Noosa pine contains six thousand feet of timber; and latterly the Firm has produced close upon three million feet of timber per annum.

One pleasant night we spend at Cootharaba after breaking up

camp, and next morning we are homeward bound. Numbers One and Two elect to voyage in the gig down the chain of lakes and river to Tewantin, the bundle of skins we have secured not being sufficient to satisfy them. Kings Brady and Brown, however, have been improving the shining hour after their own fashion with illicitly procured rum. One is too drunk to take his place at the boat, the other sober enough to make a start. Having pulled in an erratic manner for a couple of miles he droops, and has to be revived by a dose of weak rum and water. Number One, who is toiling at the other oar, administers this mixture every half-hour. The sun is blazing hot the pelicans are wild and unapproachable. They accordingly have a trying time in the boat, and some eight miles out His Majesty swears he has pulled two thousand miles and collapses in the bottom of the boat. Number Two-who, from the stern sheets, has hitherto placidly surveyed the scene through his eye-glass, throwing in a word of advice and consolation now and then, and by his smiling nonchalance driving Number One to the verge of distraction-has now to finish the day at the oar, and pull hard too, until they catch the tide and subside into silent drifting.

The little "Alabama" departs in the afternoon, and I take passage in her, preferring the companionship of the skipper, his sharp blue-eyed boy, and the men and women who are going down to Brisbane to see the world. We, however, like our friends gone before, do not find everything plain sailing. The water in the lakes, since we have sojourned in the district, has fallen a few inches, so that when we reach the lower lake we begin to scrape the ground. We of the sterner sex get overboard and assist the "Alabama" over three sand-banks, and the skipper has to work like a slave, managing

engine, and piloting a couple of pontoons laden with sawn er. It is the mission of the useful little steam drudge to tow the uce of the scrubs to port in this manner, and the convenience of passengers is necessarily a secondary consideration. Towards k we run