In the early days, the blacks of North Queensland, and especially of the Peninsula, used to be troublesome to stock, and never failed to kill horses and cattle whenever a chance offered, cutting up and carrying away the carcase to the scrubs or ridgy country. Great numbers of stock were killed by them in the early days of settlement all over the Cook district. Even teamsters' horses have been known to be killed close to the road during the night, cut up, and carried away, or skinned of the flesh and the skeleton left entire. Not alone to stock did they confine their attacks, for many a white man and Chinaman, of whose death there is no record, fell before their spears, and it is maintained they ate their victims on many occasions. The usual war of reprisals went on between the intruders and the native race, and the latter soon went under, although the tribes inhabiting the country around the main rivers were numerous. In no district in Queensland have the blacks shown themselves more hostile to the settlers than in the Peninsula. The Jardine Brothers' journal of their trip to Cape York is a record of continued and unprovoked attacks by blacks on their little party. One of the early settlers, a Mr. Watson, was killed on his own verandah at his station on the Archer, and Gilbert, the naturalist belonging to Leichhardt's party, was killed in a night attack by blacks, not far from the Mitchell River. The lonely gullies about the Palmer hide the record of many a lost prospector done to death by the savages; while the sight of one of them was enough to cause a stampede among a camp of a hundred Chinese, for the poor Chinamen always fell easy victims to the blacks, as they would never show fight, and seldom carried firearms. It was a very common occurrence for the early settlers to bring in cattle to the yard for the purpose of drawing broken spears out of their sides. Horses were hunted down as readily as cattle, and this in a district noted for its native game. CHAPTER X. THE MEN OF THE NORTH.