The narrative of the pastoral industry in Queensland is almost the history of North Queensland itself. The outward flow of that restless and progressive industry can be traced from its infancy, when Mr. Patrick Leslie, of Collaroi, in the district of Cassilis, New South Wales, moved his stock northwards, and after first exploring the country by himself and a man named Peter Murphy, placed his sheep in June, 1840, and formed the first station in Queensland on the Darling Downs (discovered by Allan Cunningham 13 years before). He called this first station Toolburra, and afterwards selected Canning Downs station also. The stock consisted of nearly 6,000 sheep, two teams of bullocks and drays, one team of horses and dray, ten saddle horses, and twenty-two men, all ticket-of-leave men, pronounced by Mr. Leslie to be the best men he ever had in his life. The town of Warwick is built near this classic spot, where first the pioneers of the squatting industry pitched their original camp. The next to reach the Darling Downs were Hodgson and Elliott, who occupied Etonvale in September, 1840. No white man had settled on Darling Downs previous to Patrick Leslie in 1840. After Hodgson, King and Sibley were next to hold Gowrie, and these were followed by others, until in 1844, there were thirty stations formed and occupied in that district, the stock mostly coming from the Hunter River district of New South Wales. In 1843, the first station on the Burnett River was formed by Russell and Glover who took up Burrandowan, and they were soon followed by other settlers, occupying all the beautiful country on the Upper Burnett and Mary Rivers. Here the soil is rich, the surface water abundant, the climate equal to any in Australia; and thus a rich territory was added to the young colony. The names of the early settlers and pioneers of this country are as well known as the stations they formed. The Healeys of Tabinga were settled not far from Burrandowan. Over the Brisbane Range, John Eales, from the Hunter, was the first settler with stock in the Wide Bay District. The Jones', of merchant fame in Sydney, were also among the first over the range at or near Nanango. The course they followed took them down Barambah Creek to Boonara station. All the centre of the Burnett district was occupied by squatters coming by this line, while the upper, or Auburn portion, from lower down by Burrandowan. Lawless Bros. took up Boobijan; Anderson and Leslie occupied Gigoomgan; whilst McTaggart, H. C. Corfield, Perrier, Forster, Herbert W. H. Walsh, Dr. Ramsay, E. B. Uhr, and others followed soon after.