Before the settler can begin either cultivating the soil or raising cattle, there is much preliminary work to be done. A large part of Eastern Queensland is covered with forest or scrub, which must be cleared by cutting down and burning. Here we have a settler starting operations in a rough camp: he seems to have 19 a difficult task before him. Here he has reached the stage of a permanent hut, with a small area of cultivated land round it, and 20 beyond, roughly fenced pasture with the remnants of the forest showing in it. Here again are the cattle feeding in pasture 21 where the trees have been ringbarked and so partly destroyed. To destroy, cut down, and burn trees which may yield valuable timber may seem an extravagant method, but the settler here has even less choice than in the Grafton district of New South Wales, where we saw the same methods employed. The timber is certainly valuable. Here are specimens of the hardwoods which we use for street pavements and railway sleepers, and for other purposes where great strength and endurance are needed; these are the blackbutt and Queensland Karri pine, and there are many other 22 varieties. The difficulty is to get them to the markets where they are wanted. Here we see one method; a trainload of sleepers 23 is leaving the sawmills, bound for India; but the railways are few and in many districts the logs must be dragged at a slow rate by bullock teams to the banks of the nearest creek, where they lie perhaps for months until there is enough water to float them down to the larger rivers and so to a seaport. This method is commonly used for the cedar which grows near the coast, and we have already seen it in New South Wales. Except in a few places easily accessible, the natural forest wealth of Queensland is as yet hardly touched.