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Updated: June 11, 2025


I mention this singular contraction, because a similar peculiarity was observed to occur at almost every junction of considerable channels, as that of the Suttor and Burdekin, and of the Lynd and the Mitchell. I named the river, which here joins the Suttor, after Mr. Cape, the obliging commander of the Shamrock steamer.

Fifteen of their number had been murdered by blacks in less than a fortnight, and the bones of half a dozen more, who had succumbed to exhaustion or thirst lay bleaching on a strip of desert country between the Cloncurry and the Burdekin River.

The cooee of natives had been heard only once during our journey along the banks of the Burdekin; and the traces of their former presence had not been very frequently observed. Large lagoons full of fish or mussels form a greater attraction to the natives than a stream too shallow for large fish, and, from its shifting sands, incapable of forming large permanent holes.

Travelling along the basin of the head-waters of the Nogoa, which, however, turned too much to the eastward for his purpose, crossing the Claude and the fine country known as Mantuan Downs, Mitchell ascended a dividing range, and struck the head of the Belyando one of the main tributaries of the Burdekin so lately discovered by Leichhardt.

W. B. Clarke of Paramatta, who has been, and is still, most arduously labouring to elucidate the meteorology and the geology of this part of the world. About three miles above the junction, a creek of considerable size joined the Burdekin from the northward. Wherever the ridges approached the banks of the river, gullies which were scrubby at their heads, became numerous.

Dalrymple penetrated the coast country north of Rockhampton, and discovered the main tributaries of the Lower Burdekin, the Bowen and the Bogie rivers. They followed down the Burdekin in 1859, and discovered that its EMBOUCHERE was much higher up the coast than was supposed.

E. Cunningham, who had then just formed Burdekin Downs Station. He tells, with much amusement, how the nature of the tracks puzzled himself and his black boy. The Burdekin pioneers of course did not expect M'Kinlay's advent amongst them, although they knew he was out west, and such an animal as a camel did not enter into their reckoning.

An illustration homely but graphic of climatic differences may be given. At the end of May on the Burdekin Delta 150 miles to the south the sugarcane was beginning to be affected by the hot, dry weather, and irrigation was about to be resorted to.

The valley of the Burdekin, and many of its tributaries were stocked with sheep by men of acknowledged experience. In a few years the error was found out, and sheep pastures were sought for only in the uplands of the interior. But the later explorations had done much good for the new colony of Queensland.

We re-crossed the river, which was not very deep, and travelled about nine miles N. 75 degrees W. The river flows parallel to a high mountain range, at about three or four miles from its left bank. I named this after Mr. Robey, another friendly contributor to my outfit. A large creek very probably carries the waters from this range to the Burdekin, in latitude 20 degrees 23 minutes.

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