Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/106

 northern pioneers with the means which subsequently enabled them to improve and stock their pastoral holdings.

There seems no end to the splendid sheep country of the north, and the tenures are easy and the runs of vast extent. For plucky young men with money, who will make up their minds to face a tropical climate with very few tropical advan­tages on the prospect of doing well in a few years out of wool, this fly-tormented region may present attractions, and there is this to be said for it, that droughts on the scale experienced in the other colonies are unknown, no such prolonged cessations of rainfall having been recorded as, say, in some of the best pastoral portions of Northern Queensland.

Mr. Brown was obliged to admit to me that the Geraldton district was practically a gameless one, with the exception of kangaroos, emus, wild ducks and wild turkeys, which latter he asserts to be the true bustard. There is not very much, there­fore, to tempt the sportsman. There had not been any rain to speak of when I left Geraldton on May 19th, 1891, since the previous October, so that I saw the country in its least attractive autumnal jacket. Mr. Brown said that the best season for far­mers was when the rain commenced on May 20th, and curiously enough, on the second day of our cross-country journey, down came the rain in torrents, very much to our discomfort in the open wagonette, but immensely to the joy of the whole country ­ side. We did the first 40 miles back to Dongara, on our way to Gingin, by the railway, which in this part of its course runs through the famous Greenough Flats, which the Agricul­tural Commission class amongst the richest agricultural land in all Australia. These flats, which run parallel, are severally about 25 miles in length, and about three-quarters of a mile to two miles in width. They are already taken up, so I only dwell on their deep loamy richness, averaging wheat crops of 30 bushels per acre, because they may be regarded as samples of a good deal of the best land on the Upper Irwin River further south, which will shortly be at the disposal of the Midland Railway Company to alienate as they will. The journey across the sand plain after leaving Dongara was dreary