It is impossible for the city dweller to form any idea of the utter desolation and misery wrought by the drought in Queensland. East from Clermont to Aramac, across fiery sandhills on which the spinifex is burnt black; north to the Burde kin ; south to the Dawson, and west to Nebo and St. Lawrence, it is all the same – one long stretch of withered wilderness. Miles of parched desert, empty creeks and water-courses, shrivelled scrub and stunted trees, under which famine stricken sheep and bullocks grotesque, blear-eyed, loony-looking beasts-stagger pathetically while the hateful crow clamours in fiendish exultation, and skeletons and scattered bones are to be seen every where. The strings of motherless calves following the pads out of the empty water-holes tell their own tale. The stations are deserted save for a manager and a black boy or so. All the Downs country is now a howling wilderness. Lake Elphin stone, which should be seven miles in circumference, has hardly any water. Everyone is making for the coast and northwards. At intervals you meet men in small parties grim, sullen, hopeless-looking men shouldering heavy swags and carrying large water-bags and billies, some almost bootless in the blistering sand, looking for a job they have no chance.of getting.
]]>