Eventually a shipping trade in cattle was opened up with Singapore from Port Darwin; a company built special steamers for carrying stock and passengers to the northern ports. The results have proved satisfactory, as the s.s. "Darwin" lately (1897) took a cargo of 190 head of fat bullocks on board, this being her forty-second trip. The Cape York Peninsula, within which was found the rich Palmer diggings, came in for a share of settlement between 1875 and 1880. The first of the early pioneers to take up a cattle run on the Mitchell River was Mr. A. C. Grant, now of Messrs. B. D. Morehead and Co. He left the Bowen River with three hundred fat cattle from Havilah station for Messrs. Skene and Henderson, and took up Wrotham Park in 1873, situated between the Mitchell and Walsh Rivers, on Elizabeth Creek, 120 miles N.N.E. from Georgetown, a nice open piece of country, consisting of black soil flats and ridges. The cattle he took up realised £11 5s. per head cash all round; beef was then selling on the field at 1s. per lb. Mr. Patrick Callaghan held a few blocks of country along the Mitchell River, chiefly as a depôt for bullocks for sale on the various diggings, as he became a large buyer of cattle from the local market in conjunction with F. Leslie, J. Edwards, and J. Duff. The transactions and profits of this enterprising firm were on a very large scale, one partner travelling outside buying cattle, another superintending the supply to local butchers, and the other two attending to the gold buying, slaughtering, and financial business of the concern. The next to take up country for pastoral purposes on the Mitchell water was Edward Palmer (the author of these notes), who, in conjunction with John Stevenson and Walter Reid, took up and stocked Gamboola in 1879 with cattle from Ravenswood and Mount McConnel runs. The extent of good pasture land on the Mitchell waters, or anywhere on the Peninsula, further north, is limited. When the Palmer goldfield was opened the farthest outstation stocked on the overland route was Mount Surprise, on Junction Creek, held by the Firths, and this was over 200 miles from the diggings by the nearest practicable road. The road was opened by drovers taking stock, and carriers and miners passing northwards with their faces set direct to the wonderful land of gold. The road crossed the Tate, the Walsh, and the Mitchell Rivers, and then followed up the Palmer River through some of the roughest country in North Queensland. When Cooktown was opened as a port for the diggings, the overland route was abandoned for dray traffic, and droving stock alone used it. The consumption of beef on the field for several years demanded an average annual supply of from 15,000 to 20,000 head, most of the cattle realising from £7 to £10 each. The stock came from coastal runs mostly, Dotswood and the Burdekin country supplying much of it, Bowen Downs and Aramac[E] also sending in many large mobs. Very few breeding cattle were