The line of the Tropic of Capricorn runs close to the town of Rockhampton; sub-tropical Queensland ends there. The first place of importance on the coast going north is Mackay, a town of some three or four thousand people, supported by a small rich district which has become the chief centre of sugar cultivation in the colony. The Mackay district is in a sense isolated, having little or no trade connection with the interior. Next after Mackay comes Bowen, a sleepy, decaying settlement of some one thousand inhabitants, occupying a most beautiful site on a sheet of water land-locked by a ring of picturesque islands. There is no prettier town on the coast of Queensland, no place which seems more fitted for the site of a great city than Bowen; but trade left it soon after its foundation, and it has mouldered half-forgotten ever since. From Bowen northward the coast of Queensland is sheltered by the line of the Barrier Reef and a long chain of romantic and beautiful islands. The traveller on this coast enjoys a perpetual feast of the eye. On the one side the islands in the line of reef present every variety of form and colour--the green of the timber or vegetation clothing them, the varying lines of their fantastic, weather-beaten, rocky cliffs, and the dazzling white coral sand of their beaches. On the other side, the mountains of the coast range approach closely to the shore, sometimes apparently springing upwards from the very beach; and their imposing masses, clothed with dense vegetation to the very summits, smile rather than frown on the blue sparkling wavelets of the sheltered water, which seems to lave their feet. At various points the mountains fall back, opening, as it were, avenues to the interior of the country. At the entrance to one of these openings is Townsville, the chief commercial centre and the virtual capital of the north. This fast-growing city is built on the actual sea-coast; and though to some extent sheltered by islands, its harbour is shallow and exposed. A breakwater, however, is being gradually made, and in various ways an artificial harbour is being formed. Townsville, which now contains probably a population of nine or ten thousand people, is the terminus of the Northern Trunk line. Immediately to the west of it are the great gold-fields of Charters Towers and Ravenswood, and the railway is being pushed far to the westward, traversing the northern portion of the pastoral plateau of the west, and tapping the verge of the great plains which slope gradually to the shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Townsville promises to be a very fine city; and, although it is too new a settlement to contain many buildings of special note, it will not long be without them. [Illustration: TOWNSVILLE, NORTH QUEENSLAND.]