This division of Australia is more than five times as large as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, possessing a world of undeveloped resources of the most promising character. When the great central railroad shall be built,--and it is believed that it will soon be under way,--an immense impulse will be given to Queensland. The sun here shines with a more tropical ardor and a more genial warmth than in New South Wales; the trees are of more varied shapes and of richer growth,--similar, in fact, to those of Central America. The palm takes the place of the eucalyptus to a certain extent, and the woods teem with the bunya-bunya,--a very desirable and ornamental tree, which belongs to the pine family. Here also abound the tulip-tree, rosewood, sandal-wood, and satin-wood, with other choice varieties not found farther south. The tulip-tree and the sour gourd recall the vegetation of equatorial Africa, which many of the natural products here very closely resemble.
We have spoken of the bunya-bunya tree. When it is full-grown it towers two hundred feet in the air; but when young, it throws out branches all about its base close to the earth and to a distance of several yards. Above these, smaller branches rise in regular gradation to the top, forming a perfect cone of dense foliage. At maturity it produces annually upon its apex a large cluster of fruit, which is nutritious and palatable, being eagerly consumed by both the natives and the whites. This product is similar to the chestnut in taste and appearance, each tree producing a bushel or more at a time. The bunya-bunya has a sort of mysterious significance with the "black fellows" as the aborigines are called, and no one is permitted to cut down one of these trees. The laws of the colony also forbid its destruction.
The aborigines are oftener met here than at the south, as they prefer to live in the more temperate climate, and where they can have the country more to themselves. They are all nomads, and probably do not number over twenty-five or thirty thousand, slowly but surely decreasing numerically before the advance of the whites. Even when first discovered they were but a handful of people, as it were, scattered over an immense continent. They have still no distinct notion of the building of houses in which to live, or at least they adopt none, though they have the example of the whites ever before them. As a rule they are hideously ugly, with flat noses, wide nostrils, and deep-sunken eyes wide apart. A bark covering, much ruder than anything which would content an American Indian, forms their only shelter, and they often burrow under the lee side of an overhanging rock. Unlike the Maoris of New Zealand, they have no settled abode, and are more nomadic than the Bedouins of the Desert. The skill of this people in tracking game or human beings is nearly equal to that of the blood-hound. In the early days of penal servitude they were specially employed by the authorities for this purpose, and have been known to conduct a pursuit after an escaping convict for a hundred miles without once losing his trail, and finally leading to his capture. In the more modern conflicts between the Bushrangers and the authorities they proved of great value, not as fighters, but as trackers.