Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/69

 Burdekin was made on 5th July in about 19° south latitude and 145° east longitude; at which point it presented a fast running stream twenty yards wide, and knee-deep of water. Following its course, a party of natives are disturbed in the act of cooking food, which consisted of roasted roots and a kind of fruit. The deserted board was promptly cleared by our travellers, who, by this time reduced to horse and camel, found the native larder fully as attractive as their own.

The marks of dray-wheels and bullocks' feet—those sure indications of pastoral settlement, were repeatedly passed as the travellers descended the Burdekin; but, although cheered by the knowledge that they were once more amongst the habitations of their countrymen, they were never fortunate in coming upon any station, and they were unwilling to deviate from the direct course for any special search. It was only after leaving the river at the point where it makes its great sweep from a south-east to a north-east direction, that in their course for Port Denison they at length descried one of the pastoral homesteads. This station was about seventy miles from the port, and belonged to Messrs. Harvey and Somers, who received the party with the full measure of squatting hospitalities. The new seaport settlement of Bowen, upon Port Denison, is for the