but acknowledge that the searchers had much justice on their side; but when we were discussing matters in rather a despondent tone, a new ally came to the front in the person of Jack Clarke, the horse-breaker. "Where do you propose going next?" he asked Dunmore. "We must search the ranges at the back of the township first, and another party must go up the Macalister River," was the reply. "Need both parties start at the same time?" "The chances of success would, of course, be greater if they did," replied the officer, "but still it is not absolutely necessary." "Well," said Jack, "suppose you take the pilot boat, and go up the river, which will take much longer to explore than the ranges; and, at the end of a week, we shall have got our own affairs pretty straight, and will beat all the country at the back, and join you on the Macalister. What do you think of that, mates?" he added, turning to the company. "Won't that suit us all?" "Capitally!" was echoed from every side, and after sundry drinks the party broke up; Dunmore and I hastening to make immediate preparations for our new trip. The Macalister River was at this time most imperfectly known; for, lying to the extreme north of Rockingham Bay, its fertile banks had hitherto attracted little or no attention; the great sugar industry being then comparatively in its infancy in Queensland. A dangerous bar at its mouth, over which heavy rollers were always breaking, made pleasure-seekers rather shy of attempting its entry, more particularly as the muddy mangrove flats held out small hope of aught save mosquitoes and blacks. Since then the sugar-cane has become one of the chief sources of wealth to the colony, and, in the search for land adapted to its growth, the Macalister was not likely to remain long in obscurity. Along its beautiful banks were discovered many thousands of acres of magnificent black soil country, without a stick of timber to impede the plough, over which a furrow, miles in length, could have been turned without an inch of deviation being necessary. Where the wretched bark 'gunyah' of the native stood, is now found the well-finished house of the planter; and where the savage pastimes of the 'bora' ground once obtained, and the smoke from cannibal fires curled slowly upwards to the blue vault of heaven, is heard the cheerful ring of the blacksmith's hammer, the crack of the bullock-whip, as the team moves slowly onward beneath the weight of seven-feet canes, and the measured throb of machinery from the factory, where the crushed plant is yielding up its sweets between the inexorable iron crushers. In this, our newest world, improvements when once set afoot, proceed with marvellous celerity, and a turn of Fortune's wheel may in a single year convert a howling wilderness into a flourishing township. But I find myself digressing