Lammermoor
Located 52 kilometres southeast of Hughenden and 477 kilometres west of Mackay on Yirandali and Dalleburra country, Lammermoor Station was selected in 1863 by Robert Christison who documented over 500 words from the Dalleburra Aboriginal workers on the property.
Few were as systematic in winning the confidence of natives as Robert Christison of Lammermoor. Having captured one young man from the local tribe, Christison detained him at his homestead until each could understand the other's language, after which the Aborigine became an emissary to his people, explaining that portion of the run would be open to them as hunting-grounds go long as they speared no sheep or horses. A policy combining kindness and firmness apparently worked. Christison was not troubled by native depredations, and the Aborigines were protected from indiscriminate attack by white men. (G. C. Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away, p. 97)
Of another station famed for kindly treatment to the Aborigines — Lammermoor in Central Queensland — M. M. Bennett similarly observes that Robert Christison achieved discipline by a process of "wallopings for the naughty, tobacco and rations for the faithful blacks". Robert Gray wrote in 1913. "Christison was a very powerful man and had great influence amongst the blacks". (Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders and Kathryn Cronin, Race Relations In Colonial Queensland A History Of Exclusion, Exploitation And Extermination, citing M. M. Bennett, Christison of Lammermoor, London, Alston Rivers Ltd., 1927, p. 81; Gray, Reminiscences of India and North Queensland, London, Constable. 1913., p. 130.
In describing Lammermoor Station in north-west Queensland in 1868, built by his friend and neighbour, Robert Christison, Gray noted: "My friend had then a substantial and neatly erected log hut with loopholes for rifles". Owing to his prior military experience, Gray could be expected to know a functioning loop-hole when he saw one. (Heather Burke, Ray Kerkhove, Lynley A. Wallis, Cathy Keys and Bryce Barker, Nervous nation: Fear, conflict and narratives of fortified domestic architecture on the Queensland frontier)
Missing links:
Dalleburra
