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The Schollicks still retained Oondooroo; Elderslie was held by Sir Samuel Wilson; Dagworth, by Fairbairns, who shortly afterwards sold out to Macpherson and Co.; Bladensburg, by John Arthur Macartney; Sesbania, by Manifold, Bostock and Co.; Manuka, by Anderson and Nicol, who sold out to Baillie, Fraser and Donald; Ayrshire Downs and Cork, by McIlwraith and Smyth.
There are the starry clematis, cream-coloured or white, and the manuka, with tiny but numberless flowers. The yellow kowhai, seen on the hillsides, shows the russet tint of autumn at the height of spring-time. Yet the king of the forest flowers is, perhaps, the crimson, feathery rata. Is it a creeper, or is it a tree? Both opinions are held; both are right.
Griffith and Dickson were treated to a wine party in Winton. There was but little enthusiasm shown at the meeting, the majority of those present being strong McIlwraithians. Mr. Fraser, the managing partner of Messrs. Baillie, Fraser and Donald, of Manuka Station, had been in the army, and had served through the Indian Mutiny.
The bracken and manuka with which the farther slopes were clad might remind them of the fern and heather of old England, but their gaze would be chiefly attracted to an isolated hill of no great height which rose steeply from the sea on the left side of the little bay.
This section when completed brought the line from Watten to Manuka, or, as the station is now called, "Corfield." The second sections of the railway from Hughenden to Winton were constructed by the late Mr. G. C. Willcocks, and in a record time. He had to carry ballast and water along the whole construction of 132 miles from the Flinders River at Hughenden.
How and when the forests disappeared, whether by fire or otherwise, and how soil so peculiarly sterile could have nourished the finest of trees, are matters always in dispute. There is little but the resin to show the locality of many of the vanished forests. Where they once were the earth is hungry, white, and barren, though dressed in deceptive green by stunted fern and manuka.
We took the road up Rockwood Creek to its head, and crossed the same divide as the road party were going, only farther north, striking the head of Manuka Creek, which we ran down to its junction with Mill's Creek. This we followed to the present site of Winton, which we reached at the end of October.
If the seats were the joints of a whale's backbone, there was always food in plenty, washed down with grog or tea made from manuka sprigs. Whale's heart was a delicacy set before guests, who found it rather like beef. Maoris, sharks, and clouds of sea-gulls shared much of the flesh of the captured whales' carcasses. Maori relatives learned to envy and, to some extent, to copy what they saw.
I submitted the information as being strictly confidential to Fraser, of Manuka, who, as chairman of my supporting committee, would at his discretion disclose the matter to such as he might consider reliable.
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