Pioneering days of Miriam Vale and district', Queensland by W. G. Blomfield, 1946-1947 - Page 11
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the long grass was the trouble, he layed (sic) down & tried to flatten the grass down by rolling, & he rolled right onto a dead man, in his blanket.
It was then called dead man flat. Standish's Flat near SMITHFIELD was named after Miles Standish IRISH, who put in the Station diary, that he had seen about one cow on the flat. The others wanted to know what size mob "about one cow" was.
A boat used to come into PORT (as GLADSTONE was then called) about once a week, & when they wanted to know when the boat would be in port, they used to ask the abos to let them know, & they were always right when they indicated where the sun would be the boat reached Port. They knew by the smoke signals. Passengers on the boat used to have bets as to who would see the smoke signals ahead first. It came natural for Abos to work stock, as they had to surround Kangaroos, quail, fish &c. to kill for eating. On one occasion when all of the usual boys were away at the BUNYA mountains, for the nuts, they saddled up a quiet horse