Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/455

 islands, with excellent anchorage for the largest fleet of ordinarily sized shipping, and a depth of twenty-seven feet of water. The port was discovered only in 1860, during a coasting search for the mouth of the River Burdekin. This fine stream was found debouching near Cape Cleveland, but with a branch, previously known as the Wickham, entering the sea near Cape Upstart. As these outlets proved to be subject to the mischance common to so many Australian rivers, of having bars that impede navigation, the discovery of Port Denison a little to the southward was all the more important to the settlers, who have already begun a rush with their flocks into the vacant neighbourhood. Bowen was commenced about a year before our travellers arrived, and has already a presentable array of buildings, including of course public houses, blacksmiths' forges, and general stores. Whether that very early necessary of a colonial town, a daily local newspaper, had yet appeared we are not told, but "our own correspondent" for somewhere else was already on the ground some months before the expedition's arrival, and in writing, on 27th May, 1862, to a Rockhampton paper, this universal and aimable inconnu describes the little township as having been first settled about ten months previously, and as possessing already a population of 120, of all ages, whose numbers are steadily