​ ​

AUSTRALIA is the largest island in the world, so large that it is more correctly described as an island-continent, situated between the 10th and 45th degrees of south latitude, and the 112th and 154th degrees of longitude east from Greenwich. It may be said to be nearly three thousand miles from west to east, and two thousand miles from north to south, of a nearly square form, were it not for the deep indentation formed by the great Gulf of Carpenteria. But this superficial extent, which is sometimes compared with that of other continents, affords no true index to the area really available, or ever likely to be available, for colonisation. A great portion of the interior is more hopelessly barren and impassable than the deserts of Africa, being in dry weather a hollow basin of sand, in rainy seasons a vast shallow inland sea, alternately and rapidly swelled by tropical torrents, and dried up by the tropical sun.

Comparisons are frequently instituted between the relative areas and populations of Europe and Australia; but nothing can be more fallacious or dishonest.

The resources of Australia have been as yet barely discovered; a century of active colonisation can scarcely develop them to their fullest extent. Even without the appliances of science and combined labour a vast population may be subsisted in comfort; but, without some change more extensive and material than it is possible to foresee, there can be no such dense multitudes concentrated in Australia as are found in the more civilised states of Europe, and as may be found at some future period in North America. The absence of great rivers and the means of forming inland water communication, and the quality of a great proportion of the soil, settle this point.

The surface of this island is depressed in the centre, bounded by an almost continuous range of hills and plateaux, which, varying in height from one to six thousand feet above the level of the sea, in some places approach the coast and present lofty, inaccessible cliffs to the ocean—as, for instance, the heads of Port Jackson—and in others tend toward the interior of the country, at a distance of from twenty to eighty ​miles; but these elevations being all of an undulating, not a precipitous character, no part of the country can be considered strictly alpine.

The features on the exterior and interior of this range of hills differ so much as to present the results of climates usually found much further apart, especially on the eastern coast, where between the mountains and the sea—as, for instance, at Illawarra, Port Macquarie, and Moreton Bay—the vegetation partakes to a great extent of a tropical character; and on the rich debris washed down from the hills we find forests of towering palms and various species of gum-trees (Eucalypti), the surface of the ground beneath clothed with dense and impervious underwood, composed of dwarf trees, shrubs, and tree-ferns, festooned with creepers and parasitic plants, from the size of a convolvulus and vine to the cable of a man-of-war. These dense forests, through which exploring travellers have been obliged to cut their way inland at the rate of not more than a mile or two a day, are interspersed with open glades or meadow reaches, admirably adapted for pasturing cattle, to which the colonists have given the name of apple-tree flats, from the fancied resemblance between the apple-trees of Europe and those (Angophoræ) with which these glades are thinly dotted.

Within the ranges, on the other hand, are found immense open downs and grassy plains, divided by rocky and round-backed ranges of hills, and interspersed by open forest without undergrowth and detached belts of gum trees (Eucalypti acaciæ), presenting a park-like appearance, which, advancing towards the interior, are succeeded either by marshes, or sandy and stony deserts, perfectly sterile and uninhabitable, except by a few reptiles, and birds which prey upon them.

The rivers of Australia are few in number, and insignificant in a navigable point of view. The one series, rising from the seaside of the mountain range, flow deviously until they reach the coast, seldom affording a navigable stream more than twenty miles inland, usually rushing down with such rapidity during the rainy season as to fill up their sea-mouths with a bar which excludes all except boats of slight draught of water. The other series, falling toward the interior, are lost in quicksands, marshes, or shallow lakes, after a course varying from a score to many hundred miles of zigzag current, now flowing with a full, deep stream, and then suddenly diminishing to a depth of a few inches, or even totally and suddenly disappearing.

The Dutch colonists in South Africa have terms by which they express the exact value of flowing water, whether perpetual or intermittent, whether a mere rivulet or a deep stream; but there are no words invented in the English language which convey a correct idea of ​Australian waters. The two terms most in use are creek and river, the former being an arm or branch of the latter. But an Australian river, even when marked by an imposing coloured line on a map, giving according to proportion an idea of a Rhine, a Danube, or a Thames, is generally a chain of pools, varying in dimension from a few yards to a league in diameter, which are, with a few grand exceptions, according to their respective depth and proximity to mountains, reduced to an absolute or comparative state of mud in dry seasons, or united into a deep, still stream, or roaring torrent, after a few hours of tropical rain.

The brother of the writer rode down, on an exploring expedition during a season of drought, with a fellow-squatter, in search of fresh pastures, and discovered a river, flowing bank high, as broad as the Thames at Richmond, winding along plains which, as far as the eye could reach, were covered with rich grass higher than the necks of their horses. As they rode along, ground pigeons, grass parroquets, and quails rose up in thousands; and from time to time flocks of emus thundered past, while kangaroos bounded swiftly away, and from the river rose clouds of waterfowl. There seemed game enough to feed an army, and grass enough for tens of thousands of live stock. Yet he lived to see within a few years the grassy plain burned to a sandy desert, and the great river shrink to a chain of shallow pools, in which it was difficult to find water enough for a hundred oxen.

The deep pools, called colonially "waterholes," and the winding course pursued by all the Australian rivers, economise the supply during the long droughts, and at the same time distribute it over a considerable part of the country. Thus the Hawkesbury, one of the earliest rivers navigated by the settlers, is not more than thirty-five miles in a direct line from Windsor, where it is navigable to Broken Bay, and where it flows into the sea; but its tortuous route is one hundred and forty miles, and higher up its windings are still more remarkably circuitous. The Murray, the greatest river of Australia, rising on the western flank of the Australian alps, after a course of fourteen hundred miles, in which it receives the waters of the Ovens, the Darling, and the Murrumbidgee, by which name it is known for part of its course, ends in the broad shallow lake of Alexandrina, in South Australia.

Until the later explorations of Mitchell and Leichardt hopes were confidently entertained of discovering an inland sea, and a great navigable river, flowing to the northward; but these hopes are now no longer entertained, and it is certain that on land conveyance the chief Australian communications must depend.

​A great diversity of climate prevails in Australia, varying with the latitude and the height from the sea. Van Diemen's Land, with its more isolated and more southern position, enjoys more rain and the irrigation of many streams. In certain districts of Australia, especially between the 25th and 35th degrees of latitude, the thermometer frequently rises to 110°, 120°, and even 130°, in the shade, while hot winds sweep over the country from the sterile, burning plains of the interior. This great heat is unaccompanied by night-dews; and droughts of many months' duration occur at uncertain intervals, and are of uncertain extent, during which rivers and waterholes are dried up. The settlers, who have not yet imitated the costly construction of tanks and aqueducts, or even the more simple and successful contrivances adopted in peninsular India and in Asia Minor for collecting and husbanding rain and spring-water, suffer dreadful straits. The pastures become parched deserts—the sheep eat the grass to the roots—the waterholes are poisoned by the bodies of cattle suffocated in sloughs when struggling for drink, and thousands of stock of all kinds perish either before moving or while on the road to districts which the drought has not affected. It is during these droughts that almost all the great discoveries of new pastures have been made by enterprising stockowners and their servants.

But after a time—which no man, white or native, can calculate—rains fall in torrents, grass springs up abundantly, "and the plains, on which but lately not a blade of herbage was to be seen, and over which the stillness of desolation reigned, become green with luxuriant vegetation." The rivers and creeks fill with marvellous rapidity; a roaring flood rushes down the lately dry bed of a stream, overflows the banks, and carries all that impedes its progress in white foam before it. On such occasions the Hawkesbury has risen, between precipitous cliffs, ninety-five feet in a few hours. In 1851, in the Maneroo district, the sites of townships recently laid out for sale by the government surveyor were converted into deep lakes, and a whole camp of aborigines were drowned.

The ravages of the drought and flood are quickly replaced in a climate so favourable to the increase of live stock, and in a very short time the losses and the dangers are forgotten. These afflictions were of a more serious character in the early years of the first colony, when but a comparatively limited part had been explored. At present plenty in one colony or one district counterbalances the droughts or floods of another.

At a height of two or three thousand feet above the level of the sea ​a temperate and even cold region is to be found, where the vegetables, fruits, and grain of northern Europe nourish, and the settler or traveller finds the necessity of warm clothing, and the comfort of blazing fires.

But despite all the varieties of temperature found in Australia, the climate is, with the exception of the burning plains of the interior, congenial to Europeans. Even the tropical regions of the coast are free from those fevers which decimate white men visiting the Indian seas and the African coast.

The soil of Australia varies even more than its climate. Of the whole extent a very large proportion is hopelessly barren, but still enough remains capable of supporting a very numerous, and in some districts a dense population. There are no data for calculating with such a degree of accuracy as would be useful the proportions of available land in the occupied districts. It will be safe to assume that only two-thirds of the land worth occupying is, or ever will be, fit for pastoral purposes, and can no more be profitably cultivated than the limestone hills and moors of Wales, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Gloucestershire, or the Highlands of Scotland.

Of land fit for agricultural purposes, and sufficiently clear of trees to be put under plough at a reasonable expenditure of labour, there is enough to support a population to be counted by millions, but continually intersected by barren ranges and forests of scrub, which can never be of any value except for firewood.

On the coast to the northward, between Port Macquarie and Moreton Bay, are vast tracts of well-watered land, on which the soil is excellently adapted for various crops, but so covered with heavy timber that nothing less than the old system of convict-clearing gangs, or of free grants to clearing parties, will bring them into cultivation in this generation, although well placed for water conveyance to the seaport towns. On the other hand, in Port Phillip there are plains on which the plough might be driven for one hundred miles in a straight line, turning up a furrow of rich mould along the whole tract; and the other two colonies can present similar instances, although not to the same extent, or so near the seacoast.

The soil of Australia presents as many anomalies as its configuration and its animal and vegetable productions.

In other parts of the world the most fertile tracts are generally found near the mouths of rivers; in Australia the greatest fertility usually commences where the navigation ceases. In Europe the valleys will generally be found full of rich soil; in Australia some of the richest mould is to be found on the tops of hills. The low hills formed ​on the banks of rivers above the navigable waters are often unequalled in richness, while the valleys are composed of a soft clay, producing a rich coarse herbage, very fit for pasturing horned cattle, but unsuitable for cultivation.

The neighbourhood of the first settlement, west and south-west of Sydney, is chiefly composed of sandstone and unproductive clays. The first good land was found in patches on the River Hawkesbury; and on the alluvial flats formed by the overflowing fresh-water rivers the richest cultivable land is to be found. Works for draining or irrigating can only be attempted where damming a valley or draining a high-lying marsh can produce a great effect at a moderate expense. For half a century the progress of colonisation in Australia has rested on its pastoral resources, which are of the very first order, as regards soil, climate, and arrangement of territory.

From the level of the sea to the summit of the highest mountains pastures are to be found extending for hundreds of miles,—now undulating smoothly and almost imperceptibly, then extending in broad, flat plains, or over a succession of round-backed hills, broken with rocky ranges, and ending in deep gullies. Over these the flockmaster may, if needful, drive his flock for days, nay, for weeks, without meeting any serious interruption to his progress, or without failure of the pasture on which sheep thrive.

The districts which, from their dampness and rankness of the vegetation, would be unsuitable for sheep, are available for cattle, which in certain regions, in default of grass, find good feed on the tender branches of a species of primrose.

Agriculture has hitherto been but rudely pursued in Australia, with rare exceptions. To gentlemen of capital it is not, and is not likely to become, a profitable pursuit; for this reason, a prejudice against the agricultural capabilities of the colonies has been entertained and sedulously encouraged among the pastoral interest, who, dreading the prospect of a class of yeomanry which might encroach on their sheep-walks, can with difficulty be induced to admit that there is any fertile soil to be found—a prejudice which must always be taken into consideration in estimating the value of colonial evidence on such subjects. It is quite certain that ignorant cultivators have successfully cropped farms on the Hawkesbury, the Hunter, the Macquarie, year after year, without manure, and without any sensible diminution in the returns. As to quality of grain, the wheat imported into this country from South Australia, Port Phillip, and Van Diemen's Land, has been pronounced equal to any ever exhibited in Mark-lane for weight, size, and flavour. ​ ​ ​

NEW SOUTH WALES and the new province of Victoria have so recently been divided, and are geographically so completely united, that it is difficult to describe the principal rivers or mountains of the one without referring to the other. The reader must therefore study the colonial divisions of Eastern Australia with a map.

Sir Thomas Mitchell, as Surveyor-General, was in 1827 entrusted with the task of surveying and dividing that district into counties, and the laying out of towns, roads, and reserves for public purposes. In this work, now complete, he has been zealously engaged for twenty-six years. He has cut all the passes that lead through mountains to the interior country, planned two hundred towns and villages, and reported (without success) in favour of several roads and public works, which would have conferred the utmost benefit on the colony.

The following sketch is taken by permission of the author from a manual of Australasian Geography, prepared by Sir Thomas Mitchell for the use of colonial schools.

New South Wales is divided into sixty-seven counties -- formerly into ninety -- but twenty-three have been cut off by the act which erected Australia Felix, under the name of Victoria, into a separate colony.

"The nineteen counties," frequently referred to in colonial documents, are those which were first proclaimed by "Letters Patent." The principal rivers falling to the eastern coast are the Shoalhaven (on which the township of Braidwood stands), the Hawkesbury (on which there are the townships of Penrith, Castlereagh, Richmond, Windsor, and Pitt Town, all in the county of Cumberland, and Emu and Wilberforce, in the county of Cook), and the Hunter. The Hunter receives from the south the waters of the River Wollombi; from the north the rivers Page, Paterson, and Williams; its most western source is the Goulburn. The following townships are on the northern tributaries of the Hunter: Muscle Brook, on the northern branch of the Hunter; Murrumndi, on the Page; Dulwich, on Glendon Brook; Paterson, on the navigable branch of that name; and Clarence Town, at the head of the navigation of the William.

​

Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
1. Cumberland	Sydney (City)		Hawkesbury	1445
	Paramatta		Nepean
	Windsor		George's
	Richmond		Paramatta
	Liverpool		South Creek
	Campbelltown
	Castlereagh
	Appin
	St. Leonards
	Pitt Town
	Penrith
	Longbottom
2. Camden	Berrima	Kenbla	Shoalhaven	2188
	Kiama	Keera	Wingecarrabee
	Wollongong	Mittagong	Wollondilly
	Wilton	Jellore	Nattai
	Picton	Pianeng	Warragamba
	Camden	Nundialla	Nepean
	Murrarnba, &c.	Corrimal	Bargo
		Razorback, or Mount Hymettus	Kangaroo
			Cataract
			Paddy's River
3. St. Vincent	Braidwood	Budawang	Shoalhaven	2667
	Broulce	Currocbilly	Deua
	Kioloa	Cooyoyo	Moruya
	Ulladulla	Diddel, or Pigeonhouse	Clyde
	Huskisson	Jillimatong	Endrick
		Noura	Mongarlow
4. Northumberland	Newcastle	Meruben	Hunter	2342
	East and West Maitland	Calore	Wollombi
		Yango	Macdonald
	Greta	Werong	Hawkesbury
	Wollombl	Finch
	Gosford	Collabeen or Corraban
	Singleton	Sugarloaf, &c.
5. Durham	Paterson	Mount Royal	Hunter	2117
	Seaham	Hudson's Peak	Paterson
	Clarence Town	Carrow	Williams
	Dungog	Cabre-bald	Allyn
	Leamington	Pyraman
	Merton	William
	Muscle Brook	Allyn
	Aberdeen
6. Hunter	Jerry's Plains	Monundilla	Hunter	2056
	St. Albans	Nullo	Goulburn
		Coricudgy	Wollombi
			Capertee
			Colo
			Macdonald
7. Cook	Hartley	The Blue Mountains.	Nepean	2665
	Emu	Clarence	Warragamba
	Bowenfells	Hay	Cox's
	Rydal E.	York	Capertee
		Walker	Colo
		King George's Mount
		Mount Tomah
		Honeysuckle Hill

​

Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
8. Westmorland	O'Connell Plains	Murruin	Campbell's	1592
		Collong	Fish
		Stromlo	Cox's
		Blaxland	Wollondilly
		Square Rock	Kowmung
		The Peaks
9. Argyle	Goulburn	Marulan	Shoalhaven	1951
	Marulan	Towrang	Wollondilly
	Bungonia	Mount Macalister	Boro
		Mount Hobbs	Cockbundoon
		Mount Filton
		Wayo
		Allianoyonyiga
10. Murray	Yass, S.	The Gourock Range	Shoalhaven	2248
	Queanbeyan	Bywong	Queanbeyan
	Bungendore	Talyrang Peak	Yass
	Larbert	Cowangerong	Murrumbidgee
		Wollowolar	Boro Creek
		Ellendon	Molongolo
		Yarrow Pic
		Tinderry Mounts, or the Twins
11. King	Gunning	Bowning Hill	Boorowa	1781
	Yass, N.	Mundonen	Narrawa, or Lachlan
		Dixon's
		Chaton	Crookwell
		Cullarin	Yass
		Darling
12. Georgiana	Buckburridgee	Lawson	Crookwell	1924
	Cook's Vale		Lachlan
			Abercrombie
			Campbell
			Isabella
13. Bathurst	Bathurst	Evernden	Macquarie	1860
	Blaney	Three Brothers	Belubula
	Carcoar	Lachlan	Lachlan
		The Canobolas
14. Roxburgh	Kelso	Durambang	Macquarie	1519
	Rylstone	Mount Ovens	Fish River
	Rydal, W.	Blackman's	Cudgegong
		Crown	Turon
		Honeysuckle Hill
		Marsden, or Clandulla
		Tayan Pic
15. Phillip	Cooyal	Rumker's Pic	Cudgegong	1618
		Brace, or Tongongwell	Goulburn
		Cox's Crown
		Willworril
		Nullo Mountains
		Pomany
16. Brisbane	Scone	The Liverpool Range	Hunter	2344
	Murrurundi	Temi-Tinagroo	Page
	Merriwa	Towarri-Terell	Isis
	Ailsa	Murulla	Dart Brook
		Warandie	Goulburn
			Krui
17. Bligh	Casilis	Macarthur (a. Moan)	Mummurra	1683
		Diehard	Krui
		Wingeworra	Goulburn
			Cudgegong
			Macquarie
			Erskine, or Talbragar
			Coolaburragundy
18. Wellington	Wellington	Canobolas	Cudgegong	1656
	Mudgee	Guannahill	Macquarie
	Orange	Bocoble	Bell, Turon
		Galwadyer	Pyramul
			Meroo

​

Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
19. Gloucester	Raymond Terrace		Williams	2930
			Karuah
	Stroud		Macleans
			Manning
			Gloucester
			Barrington
			Myall
			Chichester
20. Macquarie	Port Macquarie	Kippara	Manning	2000
	Wingham	Sea View	Hastings
	Kempsey	Cockamerico	Wilson
	Marraville	Brokenbago	M'Leay
		Cago	Lansdowne
		Tinebang	Maria's River
		Culapatamba
		Idalkangara
		Arakoon
LIST OF NORTHERN COUNTIES.
Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
1. Stanley	Brisbane	Flinders' Peak	Brisbane	1724
	Ipswich	Goolman	Stanley
		Cotton	Logan
		Gravatt	Bremer
		Petrie	Caboolture
		Sampson	Pine
		Vane
		Tempest
2. Canning	Toorbul	Glass Houses	Brisbane	1575
		Mount Brisbane	Stanley
		Lister Peak	Caboolture
			Moroochydore
			Mooloolah
3. March	Maryborough		Mary	1925
			Wide Bay River
			Moroochydore
4. Lennox		Boorgoone		2300
		Seven Hills
5. Fitz Roy			Dawson	2225
			Yarook or Stuart
6. Cavendish			Brisbane	2081
7. Aubigny	Drayton		Condamine
8. Churchill		Flinders' Peak	Brisbane	1174
		Mitchell	Bremer
		Cordeaux
		Frayer
		Forbes
		Edwards
		Goolman
		Paget
		Wilson's Peak
		French
9. Merivale	Warwick	Mitchell	Condamine
		Cordeaux
		Wilson's Peak
		Leslie

​

Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
10. Bentinck			Macintyre Brook
11. Buller		Wilson's Peak	Clarence	2345
		Leslie	Richmond
		Clunie	Cataract
		Barnay
		Lindsay
12. Ward		Flinders' Peak	Logan	1686
		Kent's Peak	Albert
		French	Teviot Brook
		Greville	Barrow
		Wilson's Peak	Perry
		Barnay
		Lindsay
		Knapp's Peak
		Ginbrokin
		Gippo
		Wangalpong
		Clunie
13. Rous		Warning	Richmond	1772
		Gippo	Tweed
			Brunswick
14. Richmond		Double Duke	Richmond	1435
15. Drake		Capoombeta	Clarence	1220
		Ben Lomond	Mitchell
			Cataract
16. Clive		Capoombeta
		Joublee
17. Gough		Capoombeta	Severn
		Joublee	Macintyre
		Ben Lomond
18. Hardinge			Bundarra
			Rocky
19. Gresham		Ben Lomond	Mitchell	1695
		Chandlers Peak	Boyd
20. Raleigh		Camelback	Mitchell	1780
		Amindrus	Boyd
			Clarence
			Orara
			Bellingen
			Cold Stream
			South Boyd
21. Clarence	Grafton	Whoman, or Peaked Hill of Captain Cook	Clarence	1215
			Orara
		Elanie	Cold Stream
		Double Duke	Woolii Woolii
			Landon
22. Dudley		Imbo Peak	Macleay	2075
		Yarrahapinni	Nambucca
			Bellingen
			Odalberree
			Dyke
23. Sandon	Armidale	Ben Lomond	Macleay	1740
		Chandler's Peak	Dyke
		Duval's Mount	Apsley
		Black Note
24. Vernon		Kipparah	Macleay
		Black Note	Apsley
			Tia
25. Inglis	Tamworth	Purrenbyden	Peel
		Danglemah	Cockburn
		Gulligal	Macdonald
		Ballemballa
		Moonboy
26. Darling			Namoi
			Manila
			Macdonald
27. Pottinger		Benelong	Conadilly
			Namoi

​

Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
28. Buckland		Moan	Peel	1484
		Terell	Conadilly
		Towari
		Tingaroo
		Turi
		Temi
29. Parry	Tamworth	Hanging Rock	Peel	1240
		Muc	Cockburn
		Royime
30. Hawes		Werekimbe	Hastings	1450
		Hanging Rock	Barnard
		Muc	Manning
		Royime	Wargo
		Sea View
		Basaltic Rock
		Woolumbland
		Currakabah
COUNTIES SOUTH AND WEST OF THE MIDDLE DISTRICT.
Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
1. Napier		Gotta Rocks	Castlereagh
2. Gowen		Warrabangle Range	Coolaburragundy
		Moorogan
		Bengal
		Bourgen
		Toondooran, or Vernon's Pic.
3. Lincoln	Dubbo		Macquarie
			Erskine, or Talbragar
4. Gordon	Kurea	Harvey's Range	Macquarie
		Three Brothers	Bell
		Arthur	Little
		Coutombals	Bogan
5. Ashburnham		Nangar	Lachlan
		Canobolas	Belubula
		Marga
		Mandadgery
6. Monteagle	Mulyan	Widdin	Lachlan
		Congo	Boorawa
		Mannar
		Jimalong
7. Harden	Binalong	Bundango	Murrumbidgee
	Murringo	Congo	Yass
	Bookham		Boorowa
	Bowning
	Jugion
8. Clarendon	Gundagai		Murrumbidgee
	Wogga Wogga		Tumut
9. Wynyard	Gundagai	Tarcatta	Murrumbidgee
	Wogga Wogga		Tumut
10. Goulburn	Albury		Murray
11. Buccleugh	Tumut	Talbingo	Tumut	1350
		Bogong	Goodradighee
		Majongbury	Goubaragandra
		Junil	Murrumbidgee
12. Cowley		Murray	Goodradigbee	1300
		Centry Box	Murrumbidgee
		Clear	Cotter
		Tonnant
		Pabral
		Snowy

​

Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
13. Beresford	Cooraa	The Brothers	Murrumbidgee	1770
	Bunyan	Coolringdong	Bredbo
		The Peak	Bigbadja
		One Tree Hill	Umaralla
		Blue Peak	Kybeyan
		Cooma Hill	Queanbeyan
		Bigbadja Hill
14. Dampier		Dromedary	Shoalhaven	1700
		Mumbulla	Moruya
		Bigbadja Hill	Dry
		Ajimgagua	Deua
			Bermaguee
15. Auckland	Eden	Mumbulla	Broga	1920
	Boyd	Nimmitabil	Bemboka
		Wolumla Peak	Rega
		Imlay	Towamba
			Panbula
			Genoa
16. Wellesley	Bombalo	One Tree Hill	Snowy	1700
		Mount Cooper	M'Laughlin
		The Telegraph	Delegete
		Bell's Peak	Little Plain
		Bungees Peak	Coolumboca
		Bare Hill	Bombalo
		Coolangubra
17. Wallace		Table Top	Snowy	1970
		Bull's Peak	Encumbene
		Ram's Head	Crackenbac
		Snowy	Jacobs, or Tongaroo
		Mowamba
		Wulwye	Gungarlan
		Jinny Brother	Moyangul
		The Peak	Ingegoodbee
		Bald Hill
		Gygederick Hill
		Bobundara Hill
		Round Mountain
		The Pilot
VICTORIA, OR PORT PHILLIP DISTRICT.
Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
1. Follett			Glenelg	1040
2. Normanby	Portland	Napier	Glenelg	1920
	The Grange	Eeles	Wannon
		Eckersley	Grange Burn
		Kincaid	Stokes
		Richmond Hill	Crawford
			Eumaralla
			Fitz Roy
			Surrey
3. Dundas	The Grange	Dundas Group	Glenelg	2000
		Bainbrigge	Wannon
		Abrupt	Grange Burn
		Sturgeon	Korite Rivulet
		The Grampians
4. Villiers	Belfast	Rouse	Hopkins	1660
	Warnambool	The Grampians	Merri
		Sturgeon	Eumaralla
			Moyn
			Shaw

​

Counties.	Provincial and other Towns.	Mountains.	Rivers.	Contents in Square Miles.
5. Ripon		The Grampians	Hopkins	1825
		The Pyrenees
		Mount Sturgeon
		Mount Abrupt
		Mount Cole
		Dahcorumbeet
		Misery
6. Hampden		Shadwell	Hopkins	1420
		Clerke
		Noorat
		Warnambool
7. Heytesbury			Hopkins	1160
8. Polworth		St. George	Barwon	1276
		Meuron
		Langdale Pike
9. Greenville		Gellibrand	Yarrowee	1470
		Hesse	Woody Yalock
			Barwon
10. Talbot		Buninyon	Yarrowee	1194
			Werribee
			Loddon
			Colliban
11. Dalhousie	Mitchell Town	Macedon	Goulburn	1185
	Seymour		Campaspie
			Colliban
12. Bourke	Melbourne	Macedon	Werribee	1530
	Williams Town	Wilson	Macedon
	Warringal	Blackwood	Saltwater
	St. Kilda	Holden	Plenty
	Bulla Bulla		Yarra Yarra
13. Grant	Geelong	Station Peak, or Anyaghe Yowang	Barwon	1440
			Moorabool
		Colite	Werribee
			Yarrowee
			Little
14. Anglesey	Seymour	Trawoul	Goulburn	1780
		Torbreck	Devil's
		Mowende
15. Evelyn		Peak Hill	Yarra Yarra	1030
		Mowende	Plenty
		Tingalaragin
		Kiddell
		Steel's Hill
16. Mornington		Paradise Hill		1194
		Arthur's Hill
		Martha
17. Bass		Hoddle	Franklin
		Wilson
18. Douro	Alberton	Tom's Cap	Albert
			Tara Rivulet
19. Haddington		Baw Baw	Tarngill
		Useful	M'Alister
			Thompson
20. Bruce		Wellington	Mitchell
		Kent	Avon
		Valencia	M'Alister
		M'Mellan	Tarngill
		Ben Croachan
21. Abinger		Tanbo	Tanbo
		Hopeless	Nicholson
		Fainting Range
22. Combermere		Cobboras	Native Dog
		Delegete Hill	Tornginbooke
			Jingalala, or Deduc
			Bendoc
			Snowy
			Ingeegoodbee
23. Howe		Genoa Peak	Genoa
		Canawurra

​Port Jackson is the fittest centre from which to take a survey of the settled and inhabitable districts in Australia, being not only the finest harbour and the port of the greatest Australian city, but the inlet and outlet for commerce, having settled on its shores the wealthiest and most dense population in the whole island.

The usual course to Sydney for sailing-vessels is through Bass's Straits; and in fair weather, with a favourable wind, ships frequently pass sufficiently near the shores to afford an agreeable but very tantalising view of the scenery.

"The shore is bold and picturesque, and the country behind, gradually rising higher and higher into swelling hills of moderate elevation, to the utmost distance the eye can reach, is covered with wide-branching, evergreen forest trees and close brushwood, exhibiting a prospect of never-failing foliage, although sadly monotonous and dull in tone compared with the luxuriant summer foliage of Europe. Grey rocks at intervals project among these endless forests, while here and there some gigantic tree, scorched dead by the summer fires, uplifts its blasted branches above the green saplings around."^[1]

Approaching Port Jackson, the coast line consists of cliffs of a reddish hue. Where the land can be seen, shrubs and trees of strange foliage are found nourishing on a white, sandy, barren soil, destitute of herbage.

The entrance to the port is marked by the north and south heads, about three quarters of a mile apart. On the southern head a stone lighthouse, bearing the often-repeated name of Macquarie, affords a revolving flame at night and a white landmark by day to the great ships from distant quarters of the globe, and to the crowd of large- sailed coasters which ply between innumerable coast villages and Sydney.

Steering westerly, the great harbour, like a landlocked lake, pro- tected by the curving projecting heads from the roll of the Pacific storms, opens out until lost in the distance, where it joins the Paramatta River. The banks on either hand, varying from two to five miles in breadth, are sometimes steep and sometimes sloping, but repeatedly indented by coves and bays, which, fringed with green shrubs down to the white sandy water-margin, when bathed in golden sunlight, present dainty retreats as brilliant as Danby's Enchanted Island.

On one of the first and most romantic coves stands Yaucluse, the marine villa of William Wentworth.

​Five miles from the heads, on "Sydney Cove," is the city of Sydney, the head-quarters of the Governor-General, the residence and episcopal city of the Bishop of Australia, and the greatest wool port in the world. The still waters, alive with steamers passing and repassing, with ships of English and American flags, and a crowd of small craft, yachts, and pleasure-boats, betoken the approach to a centre of busy commerce, even before the church spires show themselves against the sky. In this city, which has been too often described to need any detailed account here, every comfort and every luxury of Europe is to be obtained that can be purchased with money.

The entrance to Port Jackson is so safe and easy that the American surveying ships ran in at night without a pilot; and when the inhabitants rose in the morning they found themselves under the guns of a frigate carrying the stripes and stars.

Vessels of considerable burden can unload alongside the quays.

Sydney Cove is formed by two small promontories, between which the rivulet flows which induced Governor Phillip to choose this site for his settlement, as it possessed a safe harbour, wood and water, three essential points, although not alone sufficient to support a flourishing colony. The first harbour is of little value, unless it is the outlet to a country capable of producing some exports.

Tanks were cut for storing the water of the fresh-water stream during the summer; but the increase of the town having rendered this supply insufficient, water was brought from Botany Bay; and recently further extensive works have been executed, by which an aqueduct is brought from Cook's River, where a dam has been built to exclude the salt water.

Along the hollow formed by the two promontories or ridges, where the native track through the woods formerly led down to the water's edge, George-street extends, and holds in the colonial metropolis the relative ranks of the Strand and Regent-street. There, until recently, stately plate-glass shops were to be found side by side with wooden huts.

The harbour of Port Jackson affords an almost unlimited line of deep water, along which, when needed by the extension of commerce, quays and Avarehouses may be erected at a very trifling expense. Many of the coves in Port Jackson are even now as much in a state of nature as when Captain Phillip first discovered it. As a central point for the commerce of the Australian seas, it is not probable that it can ever be superseded as a maritime station, even by other colonies planted in a more fertile situation, although it may be asserted that, with rare ​exceptions, the land for a hundred miles round Sydney is a sandy desert. But roads, railroads, and steamers will afford Sydney the advantages of the produce of districts which have no such harbour as Port Jackson.

Cumberland and Camden were the two counties first settled. Cumberland is the most densely-populated district in Australia, and has the poorest soil; a belt of land parallel to the sea, from twenty to forty miles in breadth, is either light sand dotted with picturesque, unprofitable scrub, or a stiff clay or ironstone, thickly covered with hard-wood timber and underwood. After passing this belt, to which the colonists confined themselves for more than ten years, with a few spirited exceptions, the soil improves a little; that is to say, narrow tracks of a rich alluvial character are found on the banks of the rivers, but the greater proportion consists of forest on a poor impenetrable soil, which defies the perseverance of the most skilled agriculturist. The deeper you go the worse it is.

Camden has a moderate extent of cultivable land, including the singular district of Illawarra, which is at once one of the most beautiful and fertile spots in the world, in regard both to the luxuriance and variety of its vegetable productions. The pastures of Camden are extensive, and were considered important until the discovery of the western and southern plains.

The dryness of the counties of Camden and Cumberland, in which, in the course of the year, nearly as much rain falls as in the counties of Essex and Sussex, is greatly owing to the stiff clay of which the soil is chiefly composed, through which the rain cannot easily filter, or from which springs can with difficulty burst forth. Boring, on the artesian plan, has been recently adopted with success.

To describe in detail the character of each county and each dis- trict would be a difficult and wearisome task. Many, after being charmed with the exquisitely picturesque appearance of Port Jackson and Sydney, on a very cursory inspection of the surrounding country, come to the conclusion that the whole province of New South Wales is a barren desert only fit for feeding sheep a conclusion which is not more correct than to judge of the agricultural capabilities of England by Dartmoor, or of France by the "Landes."

Within the Sydney district are the towns of Paramatta, Windsor, and Liverpool; but, in consequence of the dispersion incident to the pastoral pursuits which have hitherto formed the chief employment of Australia, there are really no towns in the European sense of the word, with the exception of the three capitals, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, and Greelong in Victoria, which, being the port to a rich ​district is likely to rival Melbourne. The other towns with imposing names are mere villages, with a gaol; a magistrate's office, some stores, and a great many public-houses.

Taking Sydney as the starting point, we propose to survey the general features of the settled and pastoral districts, proceeding first towards the north, and returning to Port Jackson, travelling along the coast to the other two colonies.

The three great colonies of New South Wales, Yictoria (late Port Phillip), and South Australia, occupy a continuous coast line, extending from Wide Bay, in New South Wales, to Cape Adieu, in South Australia. With the exception of the small and unsuccessful colony of Western Australia, or Swan River, the remaining coast line of this island-continent is unsettled, and only inhabited by wandering savages or stray parties of whalers and sealers. Attempts have been made more than once to form settlements in Northern Australia, but they have been abandoned, and will not probably be renewed until the older colonists find the need of further extensions inland, or some coal stations are established for the numerous steamers which are now plying between England and the gold regions.

The three colonies are only divided by imaginary lines, so easy are the means of inland intercommunication. Overland journeys have been executed between all by parties driving great herds over an imtracked country.

The principal ports to the north of Port Jackson are Broken Bay, the mouth of the River Hawkesbury, up which vessels of one hundred tons can proceed for four miles beyond the town of Windsor, which is one hundred and forty miles by the river, and about forty miles in a direct line from the coast. Broken Bay is not a safe harbour, being much exposed to the east and south-east as well as the north-west winds.

Port Hunter is the mouth of the Hunter River, which receives the waters of the Rivers Williams and Paterson.^[2] It is navigable for about thirty-five miles by waterway, and twenty-five miles in a direct line from the coast. This stream was formerly called the Coal River. On the bay sheltered by Nobby Island stands Newcastle, a town which owes its name and importance to the coal-fields by which it is surrounded, and has recently been made the see of a bishoprick, extending to the extreme northern district of the colony. Forty miles up the river are East and West Maitland, and four miles nearer the sea Morpeth, the port of the Hunter River Company. A regular steam-boat traffic ​in all the produce of the Hunter River district is carried on between Morpeth, Newcastle, and Sydney, from which they are distant about eighty miles, the cheapness of steam communication having led to the abandonment of the road formed at immense cost by convict labour over the monutainous barren country inland between Sydney and the Hunter River.

Hunter River is subject to droughts, but otherwise one of the oldest and finest agricultural districts. Yine cultivation is carried on there successfully, on a large scale. Its tributaries, the Williams and Paterson Rivers, are both navigable for a greater distance than the Hunter, the Williams uniting at twenty miles and the Paterson at thirty-five miles from Newcastle. They give access to districts which are cooler and better supplied with rain than the Hunter.

Maitland owes its double name to the government having laid out East Maitland during the land-buying mania, three miles up the river, at a point too shallow for steam-boats to approach; on which speculators laid out West Maitland.

The country round is flat, sometimes flooded, and produces fine crops of wheat and Indian corn. Along the Paterson the country is undulating and fertile, surrounded by hills which attract rain, and render it better adapted for cattle than sheep. Tobacco cultivation has been successfully pursued : thriving farms occupy the banks of the rivers, which fetch a good price, either to sell or rent. Kangaroos, plentiful a few years ago, are becoming scarce; but wild ducks may be shot on the river, and good fish caught.

In April the winter sets in and continues until September, with nights cold enough to make a fire pleasant, and sharp frost at daybreak.

In October the summer commences, and the wheat harvest in November. Then in the Hunter district the hot winds commence, blow for three days, and not unfrequently blight wheat just coming into ear: these hot winds are usually succeeded by a sharp southerly gale, accompanied by rain, which soon makes everything not actually blighted look green again. This more particularly refers to the Paterson. At Segenhoe, one of the most beautiful estates in New South Wales, which extends in romantic park-like scenery for six miles along the River Hunter, in the county of Brisbane, three years have sometimes elapsed before the fall of rain.

The Hunter River may be considered a favourable specimen of an accessible and long-settled district. The river is now not only the means of communication by the sea for the produce of its immediate territory, but also for all the wool and all the supplies interchanged ​by the great squatting district of New England and Liverpool Plains, to which access is obtained by a deep cleft through a spur of the Australian cordilleras, called the Liverpool Range, which bounds the Liverpool Plains in a northerly direction. A great and increasing steam communication exists between Sydney and Hunter River.

Port Stephens is a large estuary fifteen miles in length and contracted to about a mile in breadth in the centre, into which the rivers Karuah and Myall flow. The Karuah is navigable for twelve miles only for small craft to Booral, a village built by the Australian Agricultural Company. The valley of the Karuah, in the county of Gloucester, is chiefly in the possession of the Australian Agricultural Company, and pronounced by Count Strzelecki to be one of the finest agricultural districts in the colony.

On this estate some of the rarest birds of Australia are found. The wonga wonga pigeon (Leucosarcia picata) is a large bird, with white flesh, excellent eating, with handsome black-patched plumage, which spends most of its time upon the ground, "feeding upon the seeds of stones of the fallen fruits of the towering trees under whose shade it dwells, seldom exposing itself to the rays of the sun, or seeking the open parts of the forest, whence when disturbed it rises with a loud fluttering, like a pheasant. Its flight is not of long duration, being merely employed to remove it to a sufficient distance to avoid detection by again descending to the ground or mounting the branch of a tree. It is a species which bears confinement well." The accompanying

​engraving, as well as all our illustrations from natural history, are copied by permission from Mr. Gould's splendid work on Australia. In Port Stephens harbour, at certain times of the year, the aborigines may be seen fishing and disporting in their canoes. Their habits are as uncivilised as when their ancestors were seen by Cook and Dampier, but quite harmless.

The park-like scenery, the neatness of the cottages provided by the company for their servants, the richness of the vegetation, and the fertility of gardens full of the choicest fruits and flowers, render this one of the counties which the traveller who can afford the time should visit, as it affords a pleasing contrast to the dry, barren country round Sydney, in the county of Cumberland.

From Booral the Australian Company have an overland communica- tion with their stations on Liverpool Plains, but they ship most of their wool at the Hunter.

In the orchards of the Australian Agricultural Company at Port Stephens, Count Strzelecki mentions that he saw an example of the extensive range which the beautiful climate of New South Wales embraces in its isothermal lines the English oak flourishing by the side of the banana, which again was surrounded by vines, lemons, and orange-trees of luxurious growth. "To the southward of Port Stephens are a series of thriving farms spreading along the Goulburn, Pages, Hunter, Paterson, and Williams Rivers, which comprise an agricultural district of 2,000 square miles in extent. The excellent harbour of Newcastle, good water and tolerable roads, a coal-mine, a soil well adapted for wheat, barley, turnips, the vine, and European fruits, and a situation most favourable to the application of irrigation, render this district one of the richest and most important in the colony."

Captain Stokes, in "The Yoyage of the Beagle," says: "A change took place in the features of this portion of the eastern coast: a number of conical hills, from four to six hundred feet in height, presented themselves. Two very remarkable headlands, Wacaba and Tomare, constitute the entrance points of Port Stephens. The sea face of Tomare is a high line of cliffs.

"On the side of a hill, two miles and a half within the narrowest part of the harbour, is Tahlee, the residence of the superintendent. It stands on the crest of a steep grassy slope, over which are scattered numerous small bushy lemon-trees, the deep verdure of their foliage interspersed with golden fruit, contrasting charmingly with the light green carpet from which they spring. At the foot of this declivity a ​screen of trees, rising to a considerable height, almost shuts out the view of the water, though breaks here and there allow small patches to to be seen.

"I ascended to Booral, twelve miles up the River Karuah, where all goods are landed for the company's stations. The treasurer resides there in a charming cottage, almost covered with roses and honey-suckles. About two miles within the entrance the river winds between high and steep banks, densely covered with creepers, acacias, and other vegetation of a tropical character, hanging in festoons, the ends floating in the water.

"We were as much delighted as surprised with the richness of the vegetation, when compared with its dry, parched appearance at Sydney another of the striking characteristics of Australia."

The next harbour after leaving Port Stephens is Port Macquarie, which is the outlet of the Rivers Hastings and Wilson.

Port Macquarie is a bar harbour, into which vessels drawing more than nine feet water cannot safely enter, but there is a good anchorage outside. The River Hastings cannot be ascended for more than ten miles by vessels of any burden; but from the mountains where it rises it flows in a full although not deep stream for fifty miles, traversing an undulating district, chiefly open forest.

Port Macquarie was first founded as a penal settlement. It is the commencement of a fertile semi-tropical district, extending to Moreton Bay. The township has gradually decayed since/ the penal settlement was discontinued.

The following striking picture is from the work of a gentleman who was the first to draw public attention to this fine district^[3]:—

"On entering the surf of the bar of Port Macquarie, immediately beyond the last breaker, the mirror-like surface of the river extends in a long reach, whilst on the left dark serpentine rocks protect the smooth round eminence, covered with green sward, and crowned by a signal-post, fire-beacon, and windmill. A little further on is the town, built on a gentle rise, the tall, square church tower rising conspicuously in the highest part. A grove of magnificent trees encircles the port, whilst, turning to the west and north-west, appears a wide extent of forest country, the windings of the valley among the mountain ranges through which the River Wilson flows; Mount Caoulapatamba being sufficiently near to enable one to distinguish every tree on its grassy declivities."

The soil of the country in the county of Cumberland round Sydney ​appears barren, the vegetation harsh and dismal, but " on the coast of Port Macquarie dense thickets of cabbage-palms and myrtle-trees extend down the rocky declivities, even within reach of the spray, and every unwooded patch is covered with grass, while the lofty forest rising luxuriantly close to the sea presents a striking contrast to the stunted Banksia thickets and desiccated scrubs on the sandstone round Sydney. The mountains approaching near the coast collect vapours from the sea, and cause frequent rains; in summer heavy thunderstorms mitigate the heat."

The River Hastings was discovered by Mr. Oxley, a late surveyor- general, on the report of two shipwrecked mariners whom he rescued on the coast.

It has been calculated that there are twelve million fertile acres well watered by small streams. The dividing range of mountains rises upwards of six thousand feet ; on the other side lies New England a range of table land, where a temperate climate prevails, where potatoes and gooseberries are raised in perfection, and the settlers retain the rosy bloom of England, one of the finest sheep districts in the colony. A road has been made across the mountains for bringing down wool to Port Macquarie.

Shoal Bay, the next harbour, is the embouchure of the River Clarence, navigable for steamers for more than fifty miles, flowing through a rich, fertile, and hot country, the reverse of the New England climate: large boats have ascended as far as ninety miles. It was surveyed and made public in 1839 by a private expedition under the charge of S. Perry, Esq. The average width of this river is from 450 to 600 yards, with a depth of from six to twenty feet water, the banks from ten to twenty-five feet above high-water mark. About twenty miles from the mouth is an island fifteen miles long, and from three to four miles broad; a range of hills rises in the centre. It is occupied as a cattle station, and partly for agricultural purposes, by the occupant, who holds it under a squatting licence.

Grafton is the township of the Clarence district, situated fifty miles from the mouth of the river. The finest land for arable purposes is found on the river banks, about thirty miles from Grafton, where the valley is wider, and the country consists of a scrub, easily cleared. The climate, too hot for growing wheat or raising sheep, suits cattle and maize. The sheep stations are being gradually discontinued. But although the land is admirably fertile on the banks of the river, at the distance of a few miles it is barren, with few patches of good soil.

The next river to the Clarence is the Richmond, which waters an ​infinitely finer cattle country, better supplied with rich pasture. The heads of the Richmond are about fifty miles from the Clarence River. The mouth is obstructed by a bar, dangerous for vessels drawing more than one hundred tons. After crossing the bar, the river is deep, winding in a narrow channel. This is one of the districts from which Sydney draws its chief supply of cedar.

It is right to mention that the plains lying between the Clarence and Richmond River, forty miles north of Shoal Bay, and as far north as Wide Bay, are all taken up and stocked under squatting licences. The soil is rich and the water advantages superior, but the climate more hot and less healthy than the plains on the other side of the range.

The next port, and centre and site of the capital of all this district, is Moreton Bay, into which flows the Brisbane River, discovered by Mr. Oxley, on an exploring expedition, in December, 1823. He reported that "when examining Moreton Bay we had the satisfaction to find the tide sweeping up a considerable inlet between the first mangrove island and the mainland. A few hours ended our anxiety: the water became perfectly fresh, and no diminution had taken place in the size of the river after passing Sea Reach. The scenery was peculiarly beautiful; the country along the banks alternately hilly and level, but not flooded; the soil of the finest description of good brush land, on which grew timber of great magnitude, some of a description quite unknown to us, amongst others a magnificent species of pine.^[4] Up to this point the river was navigable for vessels not drawing more than sixteen feet of water. The tide rose about five feet, being the same as at the entrance. We proceeded about thirty miles further, no diminution having taken place in either the depth or the breadth of the river, except in one place, for the extent of thirty yards, where a ridge of detached rocks extended across the river, not having more than twelve feet upon them at high water. From this period to Termination Hill the river continued nearly of uniform size. The tide ascends daily fifty miles up the mouth of the Brisbane. The country on either side is of very superior description, and equally well adapted for cultivation or grazing."

On Mr. Oxley's report, which further explorations have proved to be in no degree exaggerated, a penal settlement was founded at Brisbane, and among other experiments for employing the prisoners, sugar was cultivated, until a flood swept the machinery away. There is no doubt that the climate and soil of the Moreton Bay district, ​which it is better known than by its parliamentary title, county of Stanley, would produce sugar and cotton; but that those crops would be remunerative to capitalists at the present or probable price of labour in Australia is more than doubtful. Whether any tropical cultivation could be successfully carried on by families of small freeholders remains yet to be tried. At some future period when New South Wales has the power of promoting colonisation without consulting Downing-street, perhaps families of Germans, of the class that have at times settled in Brazil, may be induced to try the experiment.

Moreton Bay is forty-five miles in length, and twenty in breadth, enclosed between the two islands of Stradbroke and Maitland. This harbour is rendered unsafe by numerous shoals and narrrow winding passages.

Moreton Bay Island is nineteen miles in length, and four and a half in breadth. It consists of a series of sandhills one of which is nine hundred feet in height, quite barren in an agricultural point of view, but producing a cypress which is a good furniture wood.

The river Brisbane flows into the bay about the middle of its western side, with a bar on which there are not more than eleven feet of water at flood-tide. Large vessels have to anchor about five miles off? under the shelter of one of the islands.

The towns of Brisbane, north and south, are fourteen miles from the mouth of the river, and thirty-five miles from Ipswich, on the River Bremer, an inland port for shipping wool from the Moreton Bay district.

Steam communication is maintained between Brisbane and Ipswich, and between Moreton Bay and Sydney.

From Moreton Bay a considerable trade is carried on with Sydney, and other less-favoured settlements, especially in the Moreton Bay pine (Auracaria Cunningliami), which is of the same quality as the Norfolk Island pine, as well as wool and tallow, the staples of the country.

In the bay and on the coast the aborigines eagerly pursue the dugong, a species of small whale, generally known to the colonists as the sea-pig. The head of the dugong is small in proportion to his body, and is most singularly shaped. The upper lip is very thick, and flattened at the extremity. It is to this queer looking snout, we presume, that the animal is indebted for the swinish cognomen by which it is ordinarily known. The dugong has a thick smooth skin, with a few hairs scattered over its surface. Its colour is bluish on the back, with a white breast and belly. In size the full-grown male has never, we believe, been found more than eighteen or twenty feet long; but those commonly taken are much less than this. ​The food of the dugong consists chiefly of marine vegetables, which it finds at the bottom of inlets, in comparatively shallow water, where it is easily captured. Its flesh resembles good beef, and is much esteemed. The oil obtained from its fat is peculiarly clear and limpid, and is free from any disagreeable smell, such as most animal oils are accompanied with. It has not yet been produced in sufficient quantities to acquire a recognised market value.

The blacks devour the carcase roasted, after expressing the oil for sale to the colonists. A perfumer in Sydney tried to convert this oil into a new mixture for the hair: unfortunately, an experiment upon himself and his wife produced baldness instead of luxuriance, yet its appearance is as fine as sperm.

Behind Moreton Bay, on the other side the mountain range, forming a district of high tableland and cool temperature, are the Darling Downs, a magnificent sheep country, which is also accessible from the Clarence River.

The climate of the Moreton Bay district, like nearly all the district north of Port Macquarie, is too hot for wheat, which grows luxuriantly, but is subject to blight: for sheep and cattle there is no finer country, and maize and all semi-tropical productions grow in perfection. Grapes ripen, but are too subject to frosts to make good wine.

A very short distance from the town of Brisbane the clearings end and the forest commences; now green trees, then pine, then open plains, and well-watered valleys.

The rainy season of this intertropical region has been graphically described by Mr. Mossman:—"Masses of dense scud rise up from the Pacific Ocean towards the interior, until they are checked by the southerly wind blowing over the higher, colder New England country (on the other side of the mountain ranges), and packed into a uniform mass shrouding the heavens; a stifling sultriness succeeds, the lightning bursts forth from the lurid gloom, flash succeeds with fearful rapidity now forked from the zenith, anon like a chain around the verge of the horizon, while the crash of thunder resounds. The floodgates of the black canopy are opened the rain descends in torrents with a loud pattering soon the narrow tributaries of the river are swollen, some rising as much as fifty feet in twelve hours the surrounding plains are deluged. In the five months of rain the earth becomes saturated, the forests drip continually, while the nearly vertical sun creates a warm, humid, unhealthy atmosphere." Ophthalmia and general debility follow this kind of weather; but the author of the passage just quoted considers that if Indian bungalows were erected by the settlers, instead of naked ​English cottages, many of the ill effects of the rainy season would be avoided.

In the Moreton Bay district may be found many establishments containing all the luxuries of Europe elegant houses, gardens, libraries, music, pictures, and wives in Parisian bonnets.

Wide Bay, beyond Moreton Bay, and the boundary of the county of Stanley, is the last port of the colony of New South Wales : it receives the waters of the Mary Fitzroy River. The land is undulating, well timbered, covered with good grass, and suited for horned stock. Within the last five years a considerable number of stations have been formed there, and the country taken up in cattle runs for more than two hundred miles in the interior. In the 27th parallel of the Wide Bay District grows the bunya-bunya tree, a species of pine, often from seventeen to twenty feet in circumference, and upwards of one hundred feet in height, which once in three years yields a harvest of cones about a foot long and three quarters in diameter, containing seeds or kernels, which the natives from the most distant regions triennially journey to collect, roast, and eat, afterwards enjoying the relaxation of a little fighting.

Orders have been issued by the colonial government that no stations be planted and no stock run in this bunya-bunya country, which occupies a space of about fifty miles in length by ten in breadth. It will be difficult to enforce this order.

Dr. Leichardt, one of the scientific travellers who has, we fear, like Cunningham, Gilbert, and Kennedy, fallen a victim to his adventurous courage in an attempt to penetrate overland to Swan River, passed some time in the Moreton Bay district, preparing himself for the successful journey he afterwards made overland, in 1844, to Port Essington, in Northern Australia. In a letter addressed to Professor Owen, which is quoted in that eminent physiologist's "Report on the Extinct Mammals of Australia," read at the annual meeting of the British Association, July, 1845, and which accompanied a box of fossil bones from Darling Downs, he describes his life in terms which sound sadly and strangely affecting, now that, after succeeding in his first, he has perished in his second enterprise:—

"Living here as the bird lives who flies from tree to tree living on the kindness of a friend fond of my science, or on the hospitality of the settler and squatter with a little mare I travelled more than 2,500 miles, zigzag, from Newcastle to Wide Bay, being often my own groom, cook, washerwoman, geologist, and botanist at the same time; and I delighted in this life. When next you hear of me, it will be either that ​I am lost and dead, or that I have succeeded in penetrating through the interior to Port Essington."

Leichardt set out on this expedition, and left Jimba, the last station on the Darling Downs, 30th September, 1844, and reached Port Essington in December of the same year. The privations he endured were terrible. Mr. Gilbert, a naturalist in the employment of Mr. Gould, fell a sacrifice to the savages. More than once the bronze-winged pigeon, flying to water, saved them from dying of thirst.

To the parties engaged in this expedition the Legislative Council voted £1,000, and 1,500 was raised by private subscription for the same purpose. Of these two sums, £1,450 were presented to Dr. Leichardt. He lost no time in preparing a second expedition, for the purpose of "exploring the interior of Australia, the extent of Sturt's desert, and the character of the western and north-western coast, and to observe he gradual change in vegetation and animal life from one side of the continent to the other." This expedition set out in December, 1846, and was expected to occupy not less than two years and a half in reaching Swan River. The following is the last letter ever received from him, addressed to a friend in Sydney:—

​

​"Seeing how much I have been favoured in my present progress, I am full of hope that our Almighty Protector will allow me to bring my darling scheme to a successful termination. Your most sincere friend,

Mr. Macpherson's Station, Cogoon, April 3, 1848."

There is now little doubt that the brave Leichardt was murdered by savages shortly after leaving Cogoon.

It would be impossible in any reasonable space to convey a correct idea of the physical character of a country like Melbourne, Port Jackson, and Wide Bay, which extends over more than eight hundred miles of coast range alone.^[5] But the distinctive features of this north-eastern coast, as far as Moreton Bay, have been very clearly summed up by Mr. Clement Hodgkinson, in his before-quoted work:—

"First. Its geological formation, which, instead of being sandstone, which so generally predominates on the Hunter, consists of rocks of primitive or transition origin, such as granite, trap, ancient limestone, slates, &c., all which in Australia furnish, by their decomposition, a much more fertile surface than sandstone.

"Secondly. The mountainous nature of the country, the great altitude of the mountains exceeding six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and their proximity to the coast.

"Thirdly. The abundance of water and the proximity of navigable rivers. From Moreton Bay to Macquarie, in 270 miles of coast, there are nine rivers with bar harbours, which can be entered by coasting vessels and small steamers, viz., the Brisbane, Tweed, Richmond, Clarence, Bellergen, Macleary, Hastings, Camden Haven, and the Manning.

"Lastly. The fitness of the rich alluvial soil, which extends in continuous narrow borders of brush land along these rivers, for tropical cultivation (if labour could be applied at not too great a cost at clearing away the brush)."

Thus it will be observed that the north and north-eastern track of New South Wales, lying between the mountains and the sea, is exempt from the aridity which characterises a large portion of Australia.

Retracing our steps, we will now take a glance at what may be called the transmontane regions, lying parallel to the coast district just described, separated by the dividing range of the Blue Mountains, or, as it has been lately termed, the Australian Cordilleras.

Passing the dividing range which separates the hot lower countries watered by the Brisbane and the Clarence, we reach Darling Downs ​(discovered by Allan Cunningham, the king's botanist, in 1830, when he travelled from Sydney to Moreton Bay by land), which are watered by the river of the same name. These downs are part of a system of high table lands continued toward the north, where the boundaries are indefinite, by the Fitzroy Downs, discovered by Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1846, and toward the south by the New England district. There a rapid descent changes the climate from snow and hail to the hot country of the Peel, Page, and the Liverpool Plains, bounded on the south by the great dividing or Liverpool Kange, through which Pandora's Pass gives exit to the Hunter River; and thus with intervals of mountain range or desert, a series of pastoral plains run parallel with the interior of the mountain range which encircles the eastern coast of Australia, including the Groulburn, Bathurst district, the Maneroo or Brisbane Downs, and the Murray district, which flow into, if we may use the term, the province of Victoria. And in this series of pastoral plains the climate is considerably modified by their altitude above the sea. It was these plains, where fine-woolled sheep increase and multiply at the least possible expense, which first gave exports and wealth to Australia. Before the shepherd and his flock the savage and the emu gradually disappear.

IN traversing the coast from Port Jackson to Port Phillip there is a singular absence of good harbours. The first. Botany Bay, fourteen miles from Port Jackson, receives the waters of the George River, on which the township of Liverpool was planted by Macquarie, but has not flourished; and the Cook's River which has been dammed, for the purpose of affording a supply of fresh water to Sydney. Botany Bay is unsheltered, and offers indifferent accommodation for small vessels. A brass plate on the cliffs marks the spot where Captain Cook first landed; and the stranger may drink from the well of fresh water opened by that illustrious navigator.

Between Botany Bay and Shoalhaven is Illawarra, also known as the Five Islands, one of the most fertile and wildly beautiful districts in the world, which, from the peculiarity of its situation, bounded by the sea for eighteen miles, running north and south, and by a mountain chain which encircles about 150,000 acres, unites the peculiarities of ​both temperate and tropical climates,—a sort of Norway or Switzerland, rocks, lakes, fat alluvial valleys, under a southern sun, tempered by breezes from the sea. We descend from the landward side by crossing a range of hills 1,500 feet in height, so precipitous that it is difficult for a horseman to ride down, and, without dismounting, impossible for a loaded dray to descend.

The communication with Sydney, which Illawarra supplies with large quantities of fruit, vegetables, and agricultural produce, is chiefly carried on by coasters from the small harbour of Wollongong, a favourite resort for invalids. Here is a celebrated show-garden, where may be seen fruits and English watercress, tropical oranges, pomegranates, nectarines, and bananas, and avenues covered with grape-bearing vines of all colours. Here is Illawarra Lake, too, than which it is scarcely possible to conceive anything more picturesquely beautiful, environed by rocks and tropical vegetation, peopled with bright-coloured birds.^[6]

At Illawarra the palm and the tree-fern flourish, and from land as fertile, and cultivation as careful, as that of Devonshire, a short walk may bring you to a camp of aborigines sheltering from the warm rain

​beneath their gunyah, the nearest approach to a hut which these poor creatures have contrived.

Jervis Bay—in the county of St. Vincent where the township of South Huskisson has been founded is eighty miles from Sydney, with an entrance two miles wide, and an inner harbour three leagues in length, safe for ships of the heaviest burden, with access to ample supplies of wood and water, and presents a total change of climate. Unfortunately, this fine port is surrounded by a hopelessly barren country. It has been suggested by Mr. Ralfe, an experienced Australian surveyor, that Jervis Bay should become the terminus of a railway from the Bathurst district. A railway for wool and tallow would be a very doubtful speculation; but recent events have laid the foundation for more important exports and imports. Perhaps by following the course of streams it would be possible to find workable gradients for a tramway on the Welsh coal-mining or American plan.

The next ports, Ulladulla and Bateman's Bay, the outlet of the Clyde River, are only accessible for coasters; but the latter has recently come into notice from the discovery of the gold-diggings, distant only thirty miles: that thirty miles being over a country of so difficult a character that a party with loaded packhorses were three days in crossing it.

The last harbour in the New South Wales district is Twofold Bay, 240 miles from Sydney, on which two townships have been founded, Eden by the government, and Boyd Town by the late Benjamin Boyd, with the funds of a Scotch company which he represented. Eden has never been anything better than a government project at the expense of a few foolish land speculators. Boyd Town enjoyed a brief period of factitious prosperity, when the steamers, whalers, and yacht of the founder lay in harbour. It was at Boyd Town he appeared with almost viceroyal state, when laying the first stone of the never lighted lighthouse; and it was there that he landed the island cannibals whom he had purchased from their savage conquerors, with the view of reducing wages by introducing slavery into Australia, rather than encourage shepherd families upon his boundless sheep-runs.

The steep range of hills which separates Twofold Bay from the vast squatting district of Maneroo has hitherto, in spite of a road constructed at much expense by Mr. Boyd, to a great degree neutralised its advantageous position as the only harbour for large ships on a long line of coast. It is still used as a station for shore whalers being almost the only station for that purpose in the colony. There has been a great falling off in the whaling operations of the Sydney merchants.

The Australian whalers are for the most part from 200 to 300 tons ​burden. All on board, from the captain downwards, are paid by a share of the oil procured, which share is called, in whalemen's parlance, a "lay," and is proportioned of course to the rank and ability of the man. There is one feature of this trade in the Pacific which is not generally known the intercourse of those who follow it with the tribes of Polynesia. Whaling captains generally seek some of the islands for the purpose of procuring supplies of provisions, or of repairing slight damages sustained at sea; because, in the first place, they can obtain provisions there at infinitely less cost than in any of the colonial ports; and, in the second place, they find it easier to keep their men together. Supplies arc frequently procured in boats, without bringing the vessel to an anchor. These supplies, consisting of pigs and fowls, with yams, cocoanuts, bread-fruit, and other productions of a similar nature, are procured by barter: calicoes, hardware, common trinkets, and other matters likely to be prized by the untutored islanders being carried for that purpose. These articles are technically known as "trade." All the precautions which the captains can take are insufficient to prevent occasional desertion; and extraordinarily numerous as are the islands of the Pacific, there is scarcely one of them which has not one or more runaway sailors domesticated among the people who inhabit it.^[7]

From Twofold Bay, passing Cape Howe, which receives the point of the imaginary line dividing the provinces of New South Wales and Victoria, no harbour presents itself until we reach Corner Inlet, within which is Alberton, on the River Albert, the capital of the fine district of Gipps's Land; unfortunately it is obstructed by a bar. Then follows Western Port, discovered by George Bass in his whale-boat, a port formed by two islands, Port Phillip, Port Fairy and Portland Bay. Leaving Western Port, we enter the now world-famous Port Phillip, an inland sea, which receives the ships whose cargoes or passengers are destined for the towns of Melbourne and Geelong.

The entrance to Port Phillip Bay is little more than one mile and a half across. On the one hand Point Nepean, a low sandy promontory, like a rabbit-warren without rabbits, at the base of the cape: beyond rises for a thousand feet Arthur's Seat, a woody range of hills, precipitous towards the sea, with barely room for a road between its foot and the flood-tide. In the distance, on the same margin, Mount Eliza, a ​range of hills, with extensive outline, mark the bounds of Port Phillip Bay. On the other side the lowlands of Indented Head and Shortland Bluff present a dull scene, sprinkled with funereal shiak or "she oak trees."

The rush of waters through the narrow canal into this Great Lake, nearly fifty miles in length by twenty-five in breadth, which forms Port Phillip, in certain states of the wind and tide, creates a foaming-, stormy whirl of water not a little alarming to the inexperienced landsman. Within the bay the waters calm down, and a beautiful and picturesque scene is unrolled.

At Port Phillip Bay the great dividing range which runs parallel at varying distances with the coast from Wide Bay, penetrating New South Wales under various names (the Blue Mountains near Sydney, the Australian Alps in Gipps's Land), seems to sink into the sea across Bass's Straits, where its course is marked by a chain of islands, and reappears with the same character in Van Diemen's Land.

Thus it is that, sailing up the bay, the scenery changes: the rugged cliffs and alpine ranges of the east coast give way to undulating grassy plains, sprinkled with picturesque hills. The western arm of Port Phillip, extending about twenty miles, opens the course to Geelong. In sailing up the bay the hills around Geelong appear, covered with cultivation.

Ships of burden for Melbourne cast anchor in Hobson's Bay, at the mouth of the River Yarra, off Williams Town, which is built on a flat promontory, with three sides to the water. Williams Town was laid out by Sir Richard Bourke as the seaport of Port Phillip, for which the situation affords advantages; but the want of good drinking water has hitherto hindered it from making any progress since the years of the mania when town lots were sold there at a great price. It contains the harbour-master's residence, two or three public-houses, a few butcher's shops, a clergyman's house, and a small temporary church. An aqueduct or water-pipes would soon make Williams Town an important place.

The shores of the Yarra are so even with Hobson's Bay that from the anchorage the entrance can scarcely be distinguished.

From Hobson's Bay, taking a boat for a mile, a walk or ride of a mile and a half will bring the traveller to Melbourne; but by the winding-channel of the river, which is just wide and deep enough to admit the steamers which ply constantly from Sydney and Geelong, the distance is seven miles.

"Passing the junction of the Maryburrong, or Salt-water River, on the bank of which are beautiful villa sites, the Melbourne race-course, and several establishments for boiling down sheep and cattle into tallow, which give out a most villanous odour, the city, of which only an ​indistinct glimpse was to be observed from the bay, comes in view; the cathedral, a heavy building, without a tower or a steeple; and the government offices, built of stone, without ornament, on the highest point of the hill." The voyage ends in a sort of pool where steamers can find room to turn round and take up a berth alongside the quay. A breakwater has been erected on the foundation of a natural ledge of rocks which effectually divides the fresh water from the salt.

Melbourne occupies two sides of a valley, East Hill and West Hill, of very fertile soil. Inferior in port accommodation and in picturesque beauty to Sydney, it has the advantage of being in the midst of productive corn-fields, gardens, vineyards, and pastures.

The principal street is a mile long, crossed at right angles by other streets of half that length: a macadamised causeway runs down the middle, leaving a strip on each side to be converted into mud in the rainy season. The footpaths for the most part are of gravel, with kerbstones. So far there is an improvement. Some years ago a traveller was shocked the day after his arrival by seeing among the announcements in a local paper, "Another Child drowned in the Streets of Melbourne."

The buildings present the irregularity incident to all colonial towns; occasionally great gaps of building land were to be found representing investments made eight or ten years ago by absentee speculators. But the gold revolution has covered every vacant space with weather-board huts and tents. The chief lion [work of Melbourne is a stone bridge across the Yarra, of the same size and proportions as the centre arch of London-bridge, which cost an enormous sum.

The population was about twenty thousand in 1851; what it is at present it is impossible to say. It is to be feared that houses will be built more rapidly than the present streets will be drained and rendered wholesome. The lower part of Melbourne is subject to sudden floods from the falling of rains and melting of snow in the range of hills in which the Yarra takes its rise. An Australian flood is "short, sharp, and decisive."

From the summit of either East or "West Hill, by which the valley of Melbourne is formed, may be seen Mount Macedon, the crowning mountain of a range of the same name thirty-five miles from the city, three thousand feet in height, covered with open forests, and the richest vegetation of Australia. Thence may be viewed the richest mountain in the world, the Mount Byng of its discoverer Mitchell, the Mount Alexander in gold-digging records. To the north of Mount Alexander is Mount Hope, from the summit of which the weary eyes of Mitchell were gladdened by all the sylvan pastoral glories of "Australia Felix."

​Fifty-four miles from Melbourne, by sea or land, with access by steamers several times in the day, is Geelong, the western arm of Port Phillip, which "opens on the larboard hand of a vessel immediately upon clearing the shoals at the entrance of the Great Lake, standing between the miniature Bay of Corio with its picturesque green hills and sheltered water, and the River Barwon, which flows into the Lake Connemarra."

The situation, in the centre of one of the best grazing and agricultural districts, near a gold-field, will probably render it an important town. A bar at the mouth of the harbour at present restricts the entry of vessels drawing more than ten feet water; but this, it is thought, may be removed by dredging. Should this be the case, the province of Victoria will enjoy the advantage of two excellent available ports, and have two great towns. In the other provinces there seems no probability of any rival competing with Sydney or Port Adelaide.

Forty miles from Geelong the Buninyong range forms part of the second series of mountains, after the termination of the Australian Alps. At Ballarat, one of the spurs of Buninyong, in the midst of plains of unequalled fertility, the first gold-field in Victoria was worked.

In proceeding along the coast to the point where an imaginary line divides Victoria from South Australia, the whole coast line of the former being about 600 miles, the most important harbour is found in Portland Bay, 255 miles from Melbourne. Three streams, none of them navigable, fall into this bay, which is little better than a roadstead, and very dangerous when the south-easterly gales, which prevail during the summer months, are blowing. The government has been compelled to pay one pound a ton more chartering for vessels to Portland Bay than to Hobson's Bay. The north shore is low; the western rises in bold cliffs, upwards of 150 feet.

It was at Portland Bay that one of the earliest settlements was formed by one of Messrs. Henty's whaling parties, on which the land explorers came, to their great surprise, after many weeks' journey through an unknown, uninhabited country.

The Portland Bay district receives streams from the Grampians, a range running to the northward, of which Mount William, the extreme eastern point, is 4,500 feet in height. Mitchell ascended Mount Abrupt, on the south-eastern extremity of the Grampian range, and beheld from the edge of an almost perpendicular precipice, 1,700 feet in height, vast open plains, bordered with forests and studded with lakes. "Certainly a land more favourable could not be found. Flocks might be turned out upon its hills, or the plough at once set agoing ​

upon its plains. No primeval forests require to be first rooted out here, although there is as much timber as could be needed for utility or ornament." Australia Felix is one of the few regions in which the sanguine expectations of the discoverers have been realised.

It will be found on examining a map of the province of Victoria and of the Melbourne district—and a most excellent one has been published by Mr. Ham, of Melbourne—that it has three natural divisions. The central division, including Australia Felix and Mount Alexander, finds its natural port and capital in Melbourne. The western division, including Portland Bay, for want of a better harbour, finds its outlet chiefly at Geelong. The eastern division, including Gipps's Land, finds partly an outlet at Western Port; but Gipps's Land must export and import through Alberton.

Victoria has many streams and rivulets, mentioned in our table of the counties at page 255, but no rivers navigable in the European sense of the term.

Gipps's Land was discovered by Count Strzelecki, C.B., who ​is equally eminent as a scientific traveller and philanthropist. The honour has been claimed for a Mr. Macmillan, who communicated his discovery to his employers some months before the count published his report. This is probable. Stockmen have been the first explorers of most of the finest pasture districts of Australia; but it is contrary to the custom and interest of squatters to make such discoveries public.

In the count's report to Sir George Gipps he says: "Seventeen miles S.S.E. from Lake Omeo, a beautiful stream, the first of the eastern waters, soon assumed the breadth of a river, and appeared to be a guide into a country hitherto unoccupied by white men. A hilly country closes the valley, narrows the river banks, and brings the explorer across the mountain ridges to an elevation whence there is a view of the sea on the distant horizon; to the south-east an undulating country, with mountain ridges to the north-east. Approaching or receding from the river, according to the windings of its bordering hills, the descent into a noble forest is effected. A series of rich pasture valleys, prairies, and open forests are intersected and studded with rivers, lakes, and wooded hills; the pastures opening out and sloping towards the sea." Strzelecki describes Gipps's Land, viewed from Mount Gisborne, as resembling a semi-lunar amphitheatre, walled from north-east to south-west by lofty picturesque mountain scenery, and sloping towards the south-east down to the sea.

In 1840 Strzelecki was engaged for twenty-six days in cutting his way through the scrub-covered ranges between Gipps's Land and Western Port, was obliged to abandon his packhorses, and he and his party did not escape without imminent danger both from famine and exhaustion.

In 1844 Mr. Hawdon, with a party of twelve able-bodied men, including black native police, was instructed by the government to open up a practicable route for cattle from Western Port to Gipps's Land. He has published a very interesting account of his expedition, with some spirited illustrations. He was engaged thirty days in the task, and he, too, very nearly perished in the scrub; yet he considered himself well repaid for the famine and fatigue he had endured "by the sight of the fine plains—Barney's Plains of the map—beyond the Glengarry." The good country lies upwards of fifty miles from the government township of Victoria founded on the Albert River.

It is the opinion of Mr. Hawdon that the greater part of the scrub country through which he travelled would be capable of cultivation if cleared. This scrubby tract is nowhere found in Victoria except between Gipps's Land and Western Port.

It was while performing this journey that he had an opportunity of ​closely examining the shy and curious lyre bird (Menura superba), which is peculiar to Australia, and only found on the south-eastern

coast. The settlers sometimes called it a pheasant, but it is in reality one of the thrush family.

"I was awakened," writes Mr. Hawdon, "at sunrise by the singing of numerous pheasants. These are the mocking-birds of Australia, imitating all sounds that are heard in the bush in great perfection; they are about the size of a small fowl, of a dirty brown colour, approaching to black in some parts; their greatest attraction consists in the graceful tail of the cock bird, which is something like a lyre. But little is known of their habits, for it is seldom they are found near the dwellings of civilised man.

"Hearing one scratching in the scrub close to the dray, I crawled out, gun in hand, intending to provide a fresh meal for breakfast. The ​sun having just risen, inclined it to commence its morning song; but the natural note (bleu bleu) was almost lost among the multitude of imitative sounds through which it ran—croaking like a crow, then screaming like a cockatoo, chattering like a parrot, and howling like the native dog—until a stranger might have fancied that he was in the midst of them all. Creeping cautiously round a point of scrub, I came in view of a large cock bird, strutting round in a circle, scratching up the leaves and mould with his formidable claws, while feeding upon a small leech which is the torment of travellers, and spreading open his beauteous tail to catch the rays of the sun as it broke through the dense forest. As I raised my gun a piece went off within six feet of me: it was one of the black police who had blown the bird's head off that had been amusing me for more than an hour."

These birds when disturbed never rise high, but run off into the densest scrub, scarcely allowing a sportsman time to raise his piece before they are out of his reach. Even the aborigines, who are so skilful in creeping up to game of all kinds, seldom kill more than three brace in a day. Their song is not often heard during rain, or when the sun is obscured. "The nest is about three feet in circumference, and one foot deep, having an orifice on one side: they lay but one egg, of slate colour with black spots. The female is a very unattractive bird, having but a poor tail, nothing like the male."

Gipps's Land, with its boundary of snow-capped precipitous mountains, its fine plains, many lakes, and temperate climate, may be considered as one of the several contrasts of soil, climate, and vegetation, of which Darling Downs, Moreton Bay, Illawarra, and Bathurst, each afford different examples.

THE River Glenelg, flowing into the sea, marks the natural boundary—between the province of Victoria and that of South Australia, thence embracing a seaboard of about fifteen hundred miles, into which no river navigable by vessels of burden flows, and only two ports have as yet been found capable of safely accommodating ships of burden. As a compensation, inland journeys may be performed with little obstruction, on horseback or by drays, for hundreds of miles.

The first important indentation in to the line of the coast is Encounter ​Bay; but there are coasting ports at Rivoli Bay and Guichen Bay, at which wool has been shipped. Hopes were once confidently entertained of finding an entrance from the sea to the River Murray, but it has unfortunately proved that this, the noblest stream in Australia, ends in the Lake Alexandrina, and is divided from the ocean by a barrier of land and a surf-beaten sea margin.

Cape Jervis forms the apex of the county of Hindmarsh, which is for the most part occupied by industrious settlers, although the promontory itself is rather barren, and only known for its shore whale fishery. On rounding this cape, Kingscote Harbour and Nepean Bay appear on the opposite shores of Kangaroo Island—excellent harbours, and one of them well supplied with water. Unfortunately they lead to nothing. The buildings erected by the South Australian Company in 1837 were permitted to fall into decay. Recently a few stock stations have been taken up on the island, and about one hundred persons are resident there.

The kangaroos and the emus, so numerous in Flinders' time, have disappeared; and the large white eagles that stooped upon his men, mistaking them for kangaroos, have become rare.

Entering St. Vincent's Gulf, and passing Holdfast Bay, where Governor Hindmarsh disembarked, and Mrs. Hindmarsh's piano was floated ashore through the surf—for it is no harbour at all, but a dangerous open roadstead—passing a number of seaside villages, Port Adelaide is reached. By dint of dredging, and with the advantage of quays, this has become a safe and convenient harbour; and, with the aid of the intended railroad, will afford the city of Adelaide nearly as much convenience as if it had been planted on a navigable river, or on a deep harbour;—that was impossible, since no site exists in South Australia combining a good harbour, agricultural land, and fresh water. No other port presents itself in St. Vincent's Gulf, unless we except Port Wakefield, to which vessels from Swansea with cargoes of coal for smelting copper have recently been consigned. It has been proposed to construct a tramway between this port and the Burra Burra mines, and an attempt would have been made to execute this project if the gold diggings had not temporarily withdrawn all English speculation from South Australia.

The whole sea face of York Peninsula and Spencer's Gulf is unfavourable to the formation of a port and town, until we arrive at Port Lincoln, on the western arm of Spencer's Gulf, where a natural harbour could receive the largest squadron that ever went to sea—a landlocked estuary, protected at its mouth by Boston Island, with three ​arms or bays, Spalding Cove, Port Lincoln proper, and Boston Bay. But these harbours, viewed with so much admiration by seamen, are silent; no busy population labours on the shores, a few scattered flocks and herds are all that the mainland supports; and the allotments, which were competed for so eagerly in the years of land, mania, are left to nature and a few wandering cattle.

On entering Port Lincoln, a white obelisk, on the summit of a hill, may be seen, which bears the following inscription by Sir John and Lady Franklin:—

To pursue the coast line of the province of Victoria to 132 of E. longitude, where it ends in a desert, would be useless, as no rivers or harbours break the line of this almost uninhabited coast.

Equally absurd would it be to state—as South Australian advocates who do not know the value of truth frequently do—that South Australia contains an area of 300,000 square miles, or nearly twenty millions of acres, without adding that a very large proportion of this vast space is occupied by stony deserts and lakes of mud. Nevertheless, enough of land remains admirably fertile and well watered to support a large population, much larger than is likely to occupy it for a long series of years. In the most inhospitable regions, copper, lead, silver, and iron have been found; and there is no reason to doubt that gold will eventually be discovered.

The district in a north-westerly direction, between Port Lincoln and Streaky Bay, has been but imperfectly explored, and, with the ​exception of a few detached squatters' stations, settlement has not extended beyond the peninsula formed between the River Murray and St. Vincent's Gulf, the furthest inland township being founded by the Burra Burra mine, ninety miles from the capital.

South Australia is intersected by three mountain ranges,—Mount Lofty, Mount Barker, and Wakefield.

The Mount Lofty range runs from north-west, and after attaining a height of about 2,000 feet, twelve miles east of Adelaide, falls to the south-west, terminating in low cliffs on the seashore near Ockaparinga.

From these hills Adelaide, in the valley of the Torrens, presents a singular scene—a green oasis in the midst of a bed of sand, running like a riband along the sea by which it has been upheaved.

Capital farms occupy the foot of Mount Lofty, with a sure market in Adelaide. A steep road leads across the hills or mountains; on the other side rich but not extensive valleys are found; in one of these, twenty-four miles from Adelaide, is Hansdorf, one of three German settlements to which South Australia owes much in vine culture and sheep management. Beyond, parallel with Mount Lofty, is the Mount Barker range, the summit being 800 feet above the level of the surrounding country, which is about 1,600 feet above the level of the sea. The summit forms table-land, on which there are some good cattle and sheep stations. This is the range which divides the waters that flow on the one side into the Murray and Lake Alexandrina, and on the other into Spencer's Gulf.

To the north of Adelaide a long tract of level, well- watered country extends, which, at about one hundred miles' distance, opens into a series of high, open downs.

The River Torrens, which formed so prominent a feature in early puffs and pictures of the colony, is not a river at all, but, like many of the misnamed rivers of Australia, simply a watercourse, which during the rainy season rushes along furiously, ending in a marsh; but when the rains cease, the "river" becomes a mere chain of pools, unreplenished with mountain springs, which shrink daily with the heat, like a farmyard rain-filled pond, such as are common on the wolds of Lincolnshire. Colonel Light saw the Torrens when full of water, and that and the beauty of the valley decided his choice. Fortunately water is to be obtained in Adelaide, by sinking wells, at a very moderate expense; and the same advantage is found on farms, and in the slopes of the neighbouring hills. But in this instance of the Torrens, as in many others, the injudicious puffs of speculators reacted and threw undeserved discredit on the solid advantages of a very fine colony.

​The one great river of Australia is the Murray, which, rising in the Australian Alps, where its sources were discovered by Count Strzelecki near Mount Kosciusko, in Victoria, receives the waters of the Murrumbidgee, the Lachlan, and the Darling, and presents, at certain times of the year, so full and flowing a stream that the early colonists expected to draw down its waters the commerce of the squatting districts of Yass and Albury, in New South Wales; for they calculated that the cheapness of an unbroken water communication would draw away the dray traffic, which was then, and is now, carried to Sydney. But the uncertain supply of water, and the obstacles arising from rocks and snags, have hitherto defeated this project.

The Murrumbidgee rises in the dividing range of mountains in the Maneroo district, two hundred and fifty miles S.W. of the city of Sydney, then flows onwards for five hundred miles, until it unites with the Lachlan at a point where the brave Sturt took a boat and descended to the sea in thirty-six days, when he discovered South Australia, returning in forty days—thus earning the title of the father of South Australia.

The early course of the Murrumbidgee is between hills steeply sloping, covered with herbage and creeping vines, down to the water's edge. " As I sat in a boat," writes a lady to the author, " I could see above me small, very small cattle, in single file now lost in the foliage, now reappearing, as by zigzag well-worn paths they descended to the water to drink. So lofty and steep were the cliffs that I fancied they would fall down upon me. At length they made their appearance at the edge of the stream, drinking beneath bowers of overhanging creepers—a huge bull and a mob of portly cows."

The space encircled between this river and the Murray (the Murray was formerly named the Hume by its discoverers, Hovel and Hume) is one of the fine squatting grounds of New South Wales. Higher up the stream the hills disappear, and long alluvial flats succeed. The Murrumbidgee spreads and loses some of its waters in the marshes of the Lachlan.

It is the peculiar character of the Murray, the Darling, and the Murrumbidgee, that after receiving the waters of the Maranoa, the Balorme, the Gwydir, the Namoi, the Castlereagh, the Macquarie, and the Bogan, they flow hundreds of miles without receiving any tributaries.

The navigation of the River Murray has been the subject of a commission appointed by Sir Henry Young, the present Governor of South Australia; and, although the financial calculations of the commission have been questioned by a committee of the South Australian Legislative Council, it is presumed their facts may be relied on. They are ​quoted from the abstract of a gentleman (Mr. White) who was endeavouring to obtain steamers to open the navigation of this river:—

"In August, 1850, the Legislative Council of that province voted '£4,000 to be equally divided between the two first iron steamers of not less than forty-horse power, and not exceeding two feet draught of water when loaded, that shall successfully navigate the waters of the River Murray from the Goolwa to the junction of the Darling, computed to be about five hundred and fifty-one miles.'

"1st. The natural seamouth of the Murray cannot be entered, owing to the great surf that is constantly breaking on the Encounter Bay coast, and consequently any vessels intended to navigate the river would have to be constructed on the shores of the Lake Alexandrina.

"2nd. This lake, into which the river empties itself previous to its passage to the sea, is about thirty miles long by ten broad, and from six to eighteen fathoms deep, and fresh water is found about the middle.

"3rd. The river preserves an uniform width of about three hundred yards to the junction of the Darling, which latter river is about one hundred yards wide, and the width of the Murray is not materially altered onwards to the junction cf the Murrumbidgee and the Lachlan. The soundings that have been made from the Lake to the Darling, in the months of September and October, give an average depth of two fathoms, or rather, this may be said to be the shallowest.

"The Murray is subject, like all the other streams in the country, to annual floods. It begins to rise towards the end of June, and continues rising until the end of January, generally from ten to twelve feet.

"The only impediments that occur are in the shape of snags or fallen trees, which in some places would have to be removed; but for this the assistance of the natives could be obtained, and up to the junction of the Darling they present no serious obstacle. This point being the limit of the province, the river beyond has not been surveyed; but from those who have descended it so far as the town of Albury (a distance of only three hundred and sixty miles from Sydney) it has been ascertained that, before steam-vessels of the smallest size could navigate it, the snags would have to be removed, though a canoe, drawing eleven inches of water, went the entire distance at a time when the river was lower than has been known within the memory of the 'white man.' From a point in the channel of the Goolwa, which is a stream issuing from the lake, and also one of the mouths of the Murray, it is proposed to lay down a railroad of seven miles in length to a point in Encounter Bay where a safe anchorage may be effected. In the event of any unforeseen difficulties occurring in the construction of Port Elliot, it would be necessary to make a road from Morundee to the city of Adelaide (a distance of about sixty miles), which road would pass through some of the richest districts of South Australia.

"With reference to the country of the Lower Murray, the estimate of the traffic is about 2,000 tons annually, made up of ores from the mines, green, dairy, and other produce.

"On either side of the river to the Darling there are extensive cattle-runs, all of which are taken up.

"Proceeding up the river from this point, we enter upon the province of Victoria, and the extensive sheep-runs of the Lachlan, the Lower Darling, and the Murrumbidgee, which in June, 1860, according to the New South Wales ​statistical and other authentic accounts, were stocked by 1,155,774 sheep, 306,861 horned cattle, 10,093 horses, and 1,872 pigs. There is in Australia an annual increase of 40 per cent, on sheep, and 25 per cent, on cattle. According to the commissioners' report, the increase by the close of 1852, allowing for sales, &c., will have amounted to, say, 2,500,000 sheep, 500,000 cattle, the former yielding about 3,384 tons wool, washed and unwashed; and if a quarter of the annual increase were boiled down, say 250,000 sheep, averaging 28 lbs. tallow, 3,125 tons; and 31,000 cattle, averaging 154 lbs. tallow, 2,130 tons. Total annual freights, 8,603 tons, independent of hides, skins, and other matters, at present thrown aside on account of the great cost of transport.

"For return cargo it is estimated that no less than 5,000 rations would offer, say 1,450 tons, with at least an equal quantity of slops, iron, paling, and other goods, say 2,900 tons. The produce from those remote districts is at present conveyed to Melbourne and Geelong in bullock-drays, travelling about ten miles a day, occupying many weeks in its transit to the port."

In our opinion speculations involving so trifling an amount of capital as a couple of small iron steam-boats should be undertaken and managed by colonists or the provincial government, and would be, if worth doing at all.

The navigation of the Murray is an enterprise, if feasible, within the means of a party of colonists, although the clearing of the river is a national and provincial work, to which this country might be called upon to contribute; but the less absentees have to do with small colonial speculations the better for their finances and the credit of the colony.

In the Murray scrub—a beautiful but barren belt of shrubs and plants from fifteen to twenty miles in breadth, which runs parallel to the river for many miles between Lake Alexandrina and the Great Bend in lat. 34 S.—a great number of the rare birds and animals of Australia are to be seen; amongst others, the leipoa, or mound-building bird, improperly named by the colonists the wild turkey, is found in great numbers; and the satin, or bower bird, which builds a bower for its mate so curiously arched and adorned with shells and shining stones, that when Mr. Gould first discovered one he took it for the playground of some aboriginal child. The leipoa, which was first brought before the attention of the scientific world by Mr. Gould, realises the ancient fable of the ostrich, and buries its eggs, to be hatched by the fermentation of a mound of decomposed leaves and earth.

Mr. Gould observes in his great work, from which all our objects of natural history have been, by permission, copied:—

"This family of birds (Tallegalla, Leipoa, and Megapodius) forms part of a great family of birds inhabiting Australia, New Guinea, the Celebes, and the Philippine Islands, whose habits and economy differ from those of every other group of birds which now exists upon the ​surface of our globe. In their structure they are most nearly allied to the Gallinaceæ, while in some of their actions and in their mode of flight they much resemble the Rallidæ: the small size of their brain, coupled with the extraordinary means employed for the incubation of their eggs, indicates an extremely low degree of organisation. Three species inhabiting Australia, viz., Leipoa ocellatta, Tallegalla, and Megapodius tumulus, although referable to distinct genera, have many habits in common, particularly in their mode of incubation, each and all depositing their eggs in mounds of earth and leaves, which, becoming heated either by fermentation of the vegetable matter, or by the sun's rays, form a kind of natural hatching apparatus, from which the young at length emerge, fully feathered, capable of sustaining life by their own unaided efforts.

The male bird of the leipoa (according to a letter to Mr. Gould from Sir George Grey, the present Governor of New Zealand) weighs about four pounds and a half; they never fly if they can help it, and roost on trees at night. The mounds are from twelve to thirteen feet in circumference at the base, and from two to three feet in height. To construct the mound a nearly circular hole of about eighteen inches in diameter is scratched in the ground to the depth of seven or eight inches, and filled with dead leaves, dead grass, and similar materials; over this layer a mound of sand, mixed with dry grass, &c., is thrown; and, finally, the whole assumes the form of a dome. When an egg is to be deposited, the top is laid open, and a hole scraped in the centre to within two or three inches of the bottom of the layer of dead leaves; the egg is placed in the sand just at the edge of the hole, in a vertical position, with the smaller end downwards; the sand is then thrown in again until the mound assumes its original form. "Egg after egg is thus deposited up to eight, arranged on the same plane in a circle, with a few inches of sand between each. The cock assists the hen in opening and covering up the mound. The native name on the Murray River is marrah-ko; in Western Australia the name of the bird is ngow—ngoweer, meaning a tuft of feathers."

The Megapodius, of which we give an engraving, was found by Mr. John M'Gillivray, during a survey of Endeavour Straits, to construct a much larger mound, 24 feet in its utmost height, and 150 feet in circumference at the base.

South Australia has been divided into counties, which are more recognised as distinctive boundaries than in the other colonies, were the first colonisation was effected by sheep.

These counties are eleven in number, viz.—1. Adelaide; 2. ​

Hindmarsh; 3. Gawler; 4. Light; 5. Sturt; 6. Eyre; 7. Stanley; 8. Flinders; 9. Russell; 10. Robe; 11. Grey.

The county of Adelaide is that in which cultivation is most extensively carried on, the other districts being chiefly occupied for grazing, as the difficulty of getting crops to market prevents sellers from raising more than for their own consumption. But in every favourable situation vineyards are making great progress.

Port Adelaide has a population of 2,000, who find occupation in the extensive movements of a large export and import trade. The primitive appearance of the Mangrove Creek, through which the disconsolate first colonists waded, has disappeared.

A road of seven miles, through sterile, sandy ground, leads to the city, which is traversed by conveyances of all kinds, from the heavy dray to the omnibus and smart dog-cart. Crossing the Torrens by a wooden bridge, one of four which is occasionally swept away by the torrents, after performing a sinecure duty for many months, the city of Adelaide appears in the midst of trees, often full of most rare and curious birds, which migrate periodically from the colder to the hotter climates, in a warm, pretty, and dusty valley. Adelaide, although very unlike a city according to European notions, presents a much more pleasing appearance than Melbourne, which is crowded into a narrow valley, without squares, park, or boulevard. In the park lands surrounding and intersecting the straggling streets of the former, which are as picturesque as Wiesbaden or Cheltenham, although less finished, ​Colonel Gawler encouraged the blacks to camp by frequent feasts of flour and mutton, and there strangers had an opportunity of seeing, sometimes to their amusement, oftener to their surprise, their peculiar customs, habits and sports. Many pretty cottages are to be found in,the suburbs, as neat and highly finished as in England.

South Adelaide is considered the commercial quarter of the town, and contains the principal streets, one of which is 130 feet wide, and Government House, which stands in the centre of a domain of ten acres.

Hindley-street is the Regent-street of Adelaide, and has the distinction of being paved. For want of this luxury of civilisation, coupled with the nature of the soil, Adelaide is terribly afflicted with dust, at all times a nuisance, which is indeed common to all Australian towns. Sydney has at certain times of the year its brickfielders. In addition to the park lands, which occupy a breadth of half a mile round the two divisions of the city, a cemetery and a racecourse are among its out-of-door ornaments.

In the surrounding suburbs many pretty villages have been founded, both inland and on the shore. The system of selling land regularly in eighty-acre lots has, in some degree, neutralised the disadvantage of the large absentee proprietorships and the special surveys, which have monopolised so much of the limited extent of agricultural land.

There is one point in which the South Australians possess an unquestionable superiority over the other two colonies, and that is their local literature. With the exception of the Sydney Morning Herald, which is the Times of the southern hemisphere, the newspapers and periodicals are very superior in style of getting up and in matter to those of New South Wales and Port Phillip. This superiority is especially marked in the South Australian almanacs, which contain a fund of useful information on the statistics, the agriculture, the horticulture, and the mining progress of that colony.

Before the check occasioned by the gold discoveries, sheep stations had been formed as far north as Mount Brown, toward the Darling, near the eastern boundary. The whole of York Peninsula had been occupied, and, in the country westward of Spencer's Gulf, flockmasters had penetrated to Anxious Bay, on the Australian Bight; and townships had been founded at Rivoli Bay, in the county of Grey, and Guichen Bay, in the county of Robe, whence a coasting trade had been opened.

Ever since 1843 South Australia has been a corn -exporting country, although with great fluctuations: in that year 38,480 bushels were exported; in the following year the quantity increased to 132,000 bushels; but the low price, 2s. 9d. a bushel, reduced the cultivation by ten thousand acres. In 1845 the price continued low, and cultivation ​

​ ​was further reduced; but high prices at the end of the year increased cultivation to 36,000 acres in 1847. And thus, according to price, cultivation ebbed and flowed, constantly making more progress as small settlers became landholders, and became more steady. As a general rule it may be asserted that miners are situated in barren districts, and obliged to draw their grain and vegetables from some considerable distance. The system of eighty-acre lots enables colonists of the cultivating class to plant themselves upon land at the most convenient distance for supplying the mines. These same cottage farmers also derived great advantage from contracts for conveying ore from the mine to the port, and coals and wood to the smelting establishments, in their bullock-drays.

In 1850 the whole original scheme of the colony had disappeared: cultivation was entirely in the hands of the working classes; the capitalists and educated were engaged either as squatters, in commerce, or in mining speculations. The remains of the old ideas were only to be found in a little grandiloquent speechmaking, and, better still, in some very beautiful gardens. There were a few fortunate purchasers of town lots in the main streets who made and retained very handsome fortunes.

​

UP to 1850 South Australia was considered the mineral district, par excellence, of Australia. In the old colony of New South Wales indications of copper mines had been discovered many years previously, but the reservation of minerals by the crown prevented purchasers and grantees from pursuing discoveries which might only lead to the disturbance of their freeholds by some stranger under official patronage. The South Australian colonists had influence enough in the home Parliament to obtain a concession of the "rights of the crown." The discovery of the Burra Burra gave a vivid impulse to mineral exploration, and in 1850 not less than thirty-nine South Australian mining adventures were before the colonial and British public, in various stages of progress, most of which depended on English capital for their working. Nearly all, according to the reports of the promoters, "only needed the expenditure of a little more capital to become most flourishing investments." Not one, with the exception of the Burra Burra, had ever paid a public dividend; and when the gold discoveries brought them all to a stand-still by the abstraction of labour, several "most respectable colonists" were engaged in preferring new schemes for the benefit of English capitalists. At that time the following mines, in addition to nearly sixty other schemes which had never gone beyond a prospectus, were in the market at a discount.

The Wheal Gawler silver lead was the first mine discovered in the province; opened in 1841; abandoned, and re-opened by a company without success; nevertheless the directors in 1850 boasted their good prospects. The Adelaide Mining Company, near Montacute, "with a capital of £1,000; the Australian Mining Company, with an English capital of £400,000, and a special survey of Reedy Creek, forty-six miles from Adelaide, other lots at Tungkillo and at Kapunda" founded in 1845—the outlay has been enormous—no dividends; the Barossa Mining Company, with a capital of £30,000, formed in England, with a view of prosecuting mineral explorations on the property of G. T. Angas, Esq.; the Glen Ormond, another English company, with a capital of £30,000, founded in 1845; the Port Lincoln, with a capital of £10,000; the Mount Remarkable, with a capital of £25,000 in 1846; the North Kapunda, a capital of £22,200, in 1846; the Paringa, ​capital £20,000, in 1845; the Port Lincoln, capital £4,000, in 1848; the Princess Royal, capital £20,000, in 1845: this was the unlucky half of the Burra.

There were two gold companies established in 1846, the workings of one of which were suspended in 1850, "pending an anticipated sale of the sett in England."

Two conclusions may be drawn from an examination of the reports of these mines first, that South Australia is extremely rich in minerals; and secondly, that parties who do not understand mining should be cautious in taking the advice of South Australian friends as to mining investments.

In Cornwall there are always a number of mines manufactured for the benefit of green strangers. It was the same in South Australia. For this reason the gold crisis, which destroyed the fictitious credit and bubble mining adventures of South Australia, will in the end do good, by directing the attention of the South Australians to labor instead of puffery for the development of the true wealth of their noble province.

The following statement of the results of the Burra Burra mine will show that the South Australians have some reasonable excuse for the gambling mining spirit with which they are afflicted, and which succeeded to the town-lot roulette of 1839-40:—

The Burra proprietary divided their purchase into 2,464 shares of £5 each, with liberty to increase their capital to £20,000, which they have since done.

In the first year, from 29th September, 1845, to 29th September, 1846, at a cost of £16,624, they raised 7,200 tons of ore. As the depth of the workings increased a great improvement in the quality of the ore took place; instead of the blue carbonate, the red oxide, malachite, and the richest description of ore became predominant. The highest price realised for the first 800 tons was £31 9s., and the lowest £10 16s. per ten. At a considerable distance from the principal workings eighty tons of blue and green carbonate of copper were raised in the month of March, 1847.

In the months of June and July, 1847> the first and second dividends of fifty shillings each per share were paid to the shareholders. These dividends were paid out of the net proceeds of 2,959 tons of ore, amounting to £35,678, out of which also were paid the expenses of the association, including the cost of producing the 2,959 tons of ore, amounting to £15,926, leaving an undivided balance of £7,584. During ​the six months ending 30th September, 1847, 7,264 tons were raised within that period of a superior quality. During the six months ending the 31st March, 1848, 6,068 tons were raised. The large raising of the whole year, amounting to 13,533 tons, was produced from within the limits of the twenty-fathom level. All the ore discovered below that to the thirty fathoms was left for future raising, there being plenty of good ore-ground above the twenty-fathom level to employ the miners for some time to come.

The wages and cost of working the mine, including timber, fixed machinery, tools, &c., amounted to £74,030, and the cartage of the ore to £44,803.

In this year £83,106 was realised, out of which the expenses of working the mine and carting the ore were paid, but three further dividends were declared. By March, 1848, the original £5 shares had advanced up to £150; a sixth and seventh dividend of £10 each, in June and September, raised the prices to £200 and £210 for cash. A fall afterwards took place in consequence of the depreciation of the value of copper in Europe. But an important discovery was made of a valuable lode in the thirty-fathom level leading from Kingston to Graham's shaft. The lode was cut four fathoms below the water level, was solid, and from ten to eleven feet wide, composed of a compact green carbonate or malachite, producing upwards of 40 per cent, of copper. The lode was described as clearly defined, in easy working order, and dipping well into the mine.

In the half year ending the 30th September, 1848, 10,163 tons were raised, making a sum total for the ore raised during the first three years' working of the mine of 33,386 tons, equal to upwards of 10,000 tons of fine copper ore (at £70 per ton), £700,000. The cost of the mine for the year ending the 30th of September, 1848, was £81,491; of the cartage of ore, £31,445.

In the latter part of 1848 the miners struck for higher wages. The workings of the mine were suspended from November until February, 1849. In March the miners resumed work.

Further important discoveries were made—one of a lode in the thirty-fathom level, south-west from Graham's shaft, consisting of red oxide and malachite in great abundance; and the other of a lode two fathoms wide, yielding malachite of high produce. Only two pitches were set on these lodes, and twelve men produced in the first week eighty tons of the richest ores.

On the 5th of September, 1849, an eighth dividend of £5 per share was declared. In the year 1850 the £10 quarterly dividends were ​regularly paid. Two steam-engines of thirty-five horse power each, one for crushing the ore and the other for drawing from the shafts, arrived; and the directors ordered seventy fathoms of fifteen-inch pumps to replace the eleven-inch lifts then in work, and a pumping-engine of three-hundred-horse power.

The quantity of ore raised in the year ending September, 1850, was 18,692 tons. Since that period the returns have experienced a check from the emigration to the gold-diggings, and shares have fluctuated in value, but of the ultimate value of this property there can be no question.

The workings of the mines at the close of the year 1850 consisted of the following shafts, winzes and levels—viz., 45 whim shafts, of an aggregate depth of 812 fathoms; seven trial shafts, of an aggregate depth of 34 fathoms; 35 winzes and ladder roads, of an aggregate depth of 270 fathoms; 3,876 fathoms of levels, equal in length to four and one-third British miles. The whole of the transactions of the company, from its formation to the 29th September, 1849, embracing four years and a half, were, in the year 1850, finally balanced, and the profits during that period were found to amount to £229,535, of which £221,760 were divided among the shareholders in twelve dividends, the twelfth dividend of £10 having been paid on the 1st September, 1850. The ore raised during this period was 37,736 tons, at a cost of £309,825 3s. 6d., or £8 4s. 3d. per ton, and produced in the province, free of freight and charges, £536,486 13s. 4d., or £14 4s. 4d. per ton, leaving a profit of £226,661 6s. 10d., or £6 0s. 1d. per ton. During the year 1850, the company, however, incurred the following expenses:

	£	s.	d.
Wages	72,715	9	10
Stores, candles, timber	20,006	19	9
Horses and fodder	3,074	18	7
Machinery	5,096	7	6
Buildings at the Burra	13,043	13	4
Cartage of copper	2,394	16	6
Cartage of ore	14,344	1	0
Purchases of land	15,458	5	3

Making, with other expenses, a sum total of £169,611 2s. 5d. After deducting these expenses from the estimated value of ore on hand, the directors notified that £52,000 was applicable to dividends, and a £10 dividend was accordingly paid in December, 1850, and in March, 1851.

​

The copper ore raised in the South Australian mines has been principally sent to Swansea. As there is a considerable demand for copper in India and China, it became an object to refine the ore in South Australia. With this view an immense capital has been sunk in establishing several copper-smelting companies, but hitherto with moderate success, in consequence of the scarcity of fuel. Coal has not yet been discovered, therefore the smelters were dependent on wood or imported coal. According to experience in Norway, a large forest is soon consumed by the demands of a smelting establishment. The most extensive smelting works, late the property of Messrs. Schneider, have unfortunately been planted close to the Burra mine, where wood is scarce, and where four tons of coal must be carted up for every ton of ore. The proper site would have been at or near a port.

The necessity of transporting coal imported from England, or from the Newcastle of New South Wales, has called into use Port Wakefield, a creek at the head of St. Vincent's Gulf, forming the embouchure of the River Wakefield. The intervening country between the Burra and Port Wakefield, a distance of about thirty miles, is composed partly of undulating hills and partly over flat land well adapted for heavy carriage. No doubt had the smelting works continued in full operation, a tramway would have been attempted over this line.

Mining, agriculture, and pastoral pursuits have been the principal investments of the South Australian colonists. The number of sheep grazing was about one-sixth of that of the Port Phillip district. Fat cattle are driven over from Portland Bay to Rivoli Bay for South Australian consumption.

South Australia is at present under a cloud, but the depression can only be temporary. A genial sun, a fertile soil, a healthy climate, with sheep, cattle, English colonists, and a Burra Burra mine, cannot but produce good fruits, although the dreams of empire of newly-fledged legislators may scarcely be realised.

​

THE provisions made for the promotion of religion and education are nearly the same in New South Wales and Victoria, having been finally settled before the two provinces were divided. In South Australia the system of the old colony seems to have been taken as a model. In all three colonies the law is, with a few local exceptions, the same.

We have already mentioned the circumstances under which a bishop was appointed in New South Wales. By the munificence of Miss Burdett Coutts a bishopric was endowed in South Australia; this led to the appointment of a bishop of Melbourne, and perhaps to the creation of the second bishopric in New South Wales, the diocese of Newcastle, which extends to the northward, the residence being at Morpeth.

The assistance afforded to the building of churches and the support of religious ministers in New South Wales and Port Phillip is at present regulated by the act passed by Sir Richard Bourke, described at page 109.

By an act of the Legislative Council of South Australia, passed 3rd of August, 1847, for promoting the building of Christian churches and chapels, public money was issued, under the sanction of the governor and Executive Council, in proportion to the amount of private contributions; the grants in aid of building to range from 50 to 150, and toward the stipends of clergy and ministers from 50 to 200 a year. One-fourth of the sittings in places of worship so assisted must be free.

The Congregationalists and Baptists have always refused to receive aid from the state; and there exists in the three colonies, especially in South Australia, a party opposed to all state assistance to religion. In our opinion, although religion and education may be sustained in towns with a large floating population by the voluntary system, the inhabitants of the interior, without government assistance, will remain to a great extent in a state of practical heathendom altogether, without the advantage of religious rites and ordinances. The state of life in the bush is, or ought to be, patriarchal: churches are an impossibility: every father must be the pastor of his family. To establish the voluntary system is to decree that the long lines of rivers shall never be visited by a minister of religion.

​It is a pity that a few thousands cannot be tithed from the vast sums spent on hopeless missions to the heathen for the support of itinerant missionaries to our emigrant countrymen: missionaries who would not disdain to be also schoolmasters. The collection of bibles in many languages in the Great Exhibition was a fine, an impressive sight; but still it is to be regretted that men of piety, rank, wealth, and influence, do not pursue rather the positive and possible than the impossible, and begin by taking care that every child in the bush of Australia shall have and know how to read a bible before sending missionaries to perish in Patagonia, or attempting an impossible Church of England Utopia in Canterbury, New Zealand.

The following are the numbers of the various religious denominations in New South Wales: Church of England, 93,137; Church of Scotland, 18,156; Wesleyan Methodists, 10,000; other Protestants, 6,472; Roman Catholics, 56,899; Jews, 979; Mahomedans and Pagans, 852; other persuasions, 740. The churches which receive State support are the English, the Scotch, the Wesleyan, and the Romish. The respective amounts paid for the year 1850 were as follows: The diocese of Sydney, £12,015 17s. 4d.; the diocese of Newcastle, £4,028 7s. 10d.; the Presbyterian Church, £3,378 1s. 1d.; the Wesleyan Church, 850; and the Roman Catholic Church, £8,159 0s. 9d,; in all about 30,000. In South Australia the places of worship of the Church of England are seventeen; of the Roman Catholics, six; Church of Scotland, seven; Methodists, twelve (having 1,300 Sunday-school scholars); Congregationalists, nine; Baptists, three or four. The Germans have six pastors, and five places where they meet for worship.

Up to 1836 education was as much neglected in Australia as in England, until Lord Brougham commenced the agitation compromised by the establishment of the miscalled national schools. A large proportion of the colonial population consisted of adult convicts, who arrived as ignorant as vicious.

We have already described in Chapter X. how Sir Richard Bourke carried through the Legislative Council, at the time that the church and school lands were surrendered, a measure for founding schools throughout the colony, on the plan of Lord Stanley's (now Earl of Derby) Irish national school system. But the opposition on the part of the late Bishop of Australia was so hot and effective that the local act remained a dead letter, and the moderate per centage of education afforded to the working classes was distributed through denominational or sectarian schools, aided by colonial funds. The result ​was, that many country districts were left without schools, whilst two or three were established to educate forty or fifty scholars. At Camden there were three schools, none of which had more than twenty scholars.

In 1844 a committee of the Legislative Council, appointed to investigate the subject of colonial education, of which Robert Lowe, Esq., was chairman, reported strongly in favour of the Irish national system, observing:—

"There are about 25,676 children between the ages of four and fourteen years: of these only 7,642 receive instruction in public schools, and 4,865 in private ones, leaving about 13,000 who, as far as the committee can learn, receive no education at all. The expense of education is about 1 a head. This deficient education is partly attributable to the ignorance, dissolute habits, and avarice of too many parents, and partly to the want of good schoolmasters and schoolbooks, but a far greater proportion of the evil has arisen from the strictly denominational character of the public schools.

"The very essence of a denominational system is to leave the majority uneducated, in order thoroughly to imbue the minority with peculiar tenets. The natural result is, that where one school is founded two will arise, not because they are wanted, but because it is feared that proselytes will be made. It is a system impossible to be carried out in a thinly-inhabited country, and, being exclusively in the hands of the clergy, it places the state in the awkward dilemma of either supplying money, whose expenditure it is not permitted to regulate, or of interfering between the clergy and their superiors."

The committee further recommended the formation of a board, to be appointed by the governor, consisting of persons favourable to the plan, and possessing the confidence of the different denominations, "with a salaried secretary."

The Lord Bishop of Australia and the Roman Catholic Archbishop were both examined before this committee; both were strongly opposed to the Irish system of educating different denominations in one school, and expressed their adherence to the denominational system. The Bishop of Australia would countenance no schools in which the dogmas of the Church of England were not taught; the Roman Catholic Archbishop, in like manner, insisted on having exclusive Roman Catholic schools for the members of his church.^[10] They were both excellent, charitable, and pious men; but either was evidently prepared, if he had ​the power, to enforce the dogmatic teaching of his own church in all the schools, and to leave those who did not agree with it without any teaching, moral or educational. They were not satisfied with a compromise system, by which the duties of truth, chastity, honesty, charity, forgiveness of enemies, and thankfulness to God, should be inculcated, with reading, writing, and arithmetic, unless the questions of the number of sacraments and the right line of apostolic succession were also expounded according to the views of each; and sooner than either would give way, they were content to leave infant minds to gather all their learning from the blasphemy of the streets.

The vigorous opposition of these two prelates, and others of their mind, aided by many who, really worshipping nothing, except what the Americans rather profanely call the "Almighty Dollar," yet loved a party cry, temporarily suspended the carrying out of the recommendations of this report.

But the Stanley National system of instruction is the only system possible in a colony where the divers religions were so evenly balanced, and made and is making progress. In the principal towns where denominational schools were in existence in 1844 they are still maintained, but in new districts Lord Stanley's system is introduced.

In pursuance of the recommendations of Mr. Lowe's committee, a board has been formed on the principle of the Irish Board of Education; and a normal school for training teachers on the Irish system has been established.

Throughout the "Three Colonies" great anxiety prevails among all classes for the extension of education, and a willingness to bear taxation for that purpose.

The normal school of Sydney affords one of the many comical anecdotes afloat illustrating the mode in which officials in England attend to colonial affairs.

In consequence of the suggestion of Mr. Lowe's committee, after the heat of the educational question had toned down, application was made to the Colonial Office for a master acquainted with the Irish school system, and capable of taking charge of a normal school for the instruction of masters in that system. For nearly four years the Colonial Office slept on the application: at the end of that time, by ​some chance, the "order for a schoolmaster" turned up. Earl Grey, it is presumed after some inquiries, selected a Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson received a letter desiring him to call on Earl Grey, in Downing-street. He went, was congratulated, favoured with a little of the good advice of which great men keep a stock for the benefit of the small, and then handed over to Mr. Benjamin Hawes, the late Under-Secretary for the Colonies, who in due course handed him over to Mr. Gairdner, the chief clerk, who transferred him to a stylish young gentleman, name unknown, who stood with his back to the fire, a pot of stout in his right hand, and delivered himself something in the following strain:—"Well, you're appointed to this berth in Australia? Consider yourself lucky; you'll make your fortune. Now, these colonial fellows are in a deuce of a hurry, so you must lose no time. Let me see the shipping list. Ah! here's a ship sails on Friday for Adelaide. This is Monday—you must go on Friday—your passage will be paid, and all right."

Mr. Wilson remonstrated on the shortness of the time, but it was of no use: the colonists were in a "deuce of a hurry." He suggested that Adelaide was a considerable distance from Sydney. The objection was pooh-poohed—knowledge of colonial geography is not an indispensable qualification for colonial office. Poor Mr. Wilson was hurried off by the ship to Adelaide. Arrived there, he had to wait nearly a month for a conveyance to Sydney. Arrived in Sydney, and installed in his office, he was questioned as to the latest improvements in the Irish national system. He knew nothing about it, had never heard of it, had never seen any of the books; he had been master of an excellent Church of England school. So, after four years' delay, in desperate haste, the Colonial Office had sent off the wrong man, to the wrong place!

In justice to Mr. Wilson it is right to add, that, being a clever and conscientious man, he applied himself to the study of the Irish schoolbooks, and has performed the duties of his office with credit to himself and advantage to the colony.

In South Australia, by an act of the Legislative Council, passed in August, 1847, the governor is authorised to appoint a board of education, who shall have power, under his sanction, to make regulations for giving effect to the ordinance. No aid to be given to schoolhouses. The salaries issued to teachers will be in proportion to the children taught, not less than twenty, between six and sixteen years of age, £20 being the lowest and £40 the highest sum. The governor to appoint visitors and inspectors. The reports to be laid before the Legislative Council, and one public examination to take place yearly. ​The boards, previous to the introduction of an elective Legislative Council, consisted of the judge of the Supreme Court, the advocate-general, the colonial chaplain, a dissenting minister, and a layman.

The University of Sydney, established by an Act of the Legislative Council, was opened in October, 1852, on the following scale and plan:—A fee of two pounds must be paid on matriculation, and two guineas for each course of lectures. All students matriculated the first year, were required to attend the lectures on classics and mathematics, and to be attired in academical costume. Six scholarships, of £50 a year each, tenable for three years, have been established.

The candidates for matriculation in October, 1852, were examined in Mathematics: in the ordinary rules of Arithmetic, vulgar and decimal Fractions; the first four rules of Algebra, and the first book of Euclid. In Classics; in the sixth book of Homer's Iliad; the first book of Xenophon's Anabasis; the first book of Virgil's Æneid; the Bellum Catilinarum of Sallust; and in the History and Geography connected with those portions of those works. In the same session the Principal lectured to the Upper Divison on Thucydides, Bk. 1; Sophocles, Antigone: Sallust, Bell. Jug.; Horace, Epistles. To the Lower Division, on Xen. Anabasis, Bk. 1; Horn. Iliad, Bk. 1; Cicero de Senectute; Virg. Æneid, Bk. 6. The Professor of Mathematics lectured on Euclid, first four Books; Arithmetic, and Algebra. Lectures were also delivered daily on Chemistry, Natural and Experimental Philosophy, by a third professor.

The following are the subjects on which the candidates for scholarship were examined:—Mathematics: Arithmetic and Algebra, as far as Quadratic Equations inclusive; first four books of Euclid; the popular Elements of Statics and Dynamics. Classics Greek: The Medea of Euripides; Xenophon's Anabasis. Latin: First six books of Virgil's Æneid; Cicero de Amicitia; Roman Antiquities; Translations from English into Latin; Questions in Ancient History connected with the foregoing works.

It is much to be regretted that no provision has hitherto been made for founding professorial chairs of English Literature, Modern History, and Moral Philosophy. Some such counteracting influences are needed in a country where at present public libraries are unknown, literary influences do not exist, and wealth and official rank are the only recognised distinctions.

The Supreme Court of New South Wales consists of a chief and two puisne judges, who exercise the powers of the three Courts of Queen's ​Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer at Westminster, and have criminal jurisdiction. They go on circuit twice a year to Bathurst, Goulburn, Maitland, and Brisbane.

In common law the "new rules" of pleading are in force.

One judge sits in equity (by delegation) with the powers of a vice-chancellor, and there is an appeal from his decision to the Supreme Court.

The proceedings are by bill and answer. The equity rules of 1841 are in force; but in 1849 a reform was introduced, by which the proceedings for obtaining a rule nisi in a common law court, by affidavit, and a defence by affidavit, were, in a variety of instances, substituted for the tedious complication of the old chancery system.

The Supreme Court also exercises, in the person of one of the judges appointed for the purpose, those functions as regards the validity of testamentary dispositions, letters of administration, &c., which in England are performed by the Ecclesiastical Courts; but no court exists for deciding on questions of divorce, alimony, &c.

The Master in Equity presides over an Admiralty Court.

The Supreme Court exercises jurisdiction in bankruptcy and insolvency. One of the judges presides, exercising powers similar to the commissioners in England, with an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Estates of insolvents are vested in official assignees.

A person can be made a bankrupt or insolvent either by petition of creditors or by his own petition.

A Court of Conscience, presided over by a single commissioner, who decides, not according to law or evidence, but according "to equity and good conscience," like the courts which have been superseded in England by our County Courts, is held for the metropolitan county of Cumberland in Sydney, and one for the metropolitan county of Bourke in Melbourne, which has jurisdiction up to £30.

The magistrates, paid and unpaid, in the other districts have jurisdiction up to £10 absolutely, and up to £30 by mutual consent in cases of simple debt, but not in actions for damages or disputed rights to land, &c.

Under the enactments of the "Masters and Servants Act," two magistrates can decide on disputes as to wages and service: they can commit a servant refusing to perform his written agreement, and levy a distress on the property of a master or his agent if wages are unpaid; and, by a recent law, this power extends to contracts made in England.

The division of barrister and attorney is maintained in the colonies.

​English barristers and Scotch advocates are admitted at once to practise.

The judges appoint a board of examiners, and admit any man of good character to practise as a barrister, after passing an examination in classics, mathematics, and law.

Attorneys and writers to the signet are admitted to practise of course.

Persons who have served their articles and not passed in England may be admitted in the colony. The result is, that parties who have been or would have been rejected in England, in consequence of tainted character, are able to practise in New South Wales.

Three important law reforms are due to the exertions of Robert Lowe, Esq., now member for Kidderminster, during the time he was a member of the Legislative Council, and practised at the bar in Sydney:—

1. The substitution in 1849, in the Colonial Equity Court, of the common law proceedings on application for a rule nisi instead of the tedious delays of bill and answer.

2. The abolition of imprisonment for debt on final process. In Australia to commit a man to prison virtually amounted to destroying all his property.

3. Arrangements for admitting gentlemen to the bar without proceeding to England, provided they are able to pass an examination in classics, mathematics, and law, before examiners appointed by the judges. The sons of Australian gentlemen, for want of friends accustomed to the state of society in the universities, are usually ruined.

In South Australia there is a Supreme Court, composed of one judge, who also presides in the Vice-Admiralty Court, a commissioner in the Insolvent Court, and three police magistrates.

​

WE are in possession of very exact statistics of New South Wales; but in Victoria, in consequence of the confusion into which every public department has been thrown by the revolution in ordinary colonial pursuits, and the enormous influx of population, it has been impossible to prepare the same accurate collection of statistical facts. The same causes have depressed South Australia.

It is sufficient to observe, that all the natural productions enumerated in the statistical account of New South Wales, may be grown or manufactured in the other two colonies, the soil and climate being essentially the same.

By the census taken on the 1st March, 1851, the population consisted of 108,691 males and 81,260 females, making a total of 189,951. The increase to the 31st December, 1851, had been 9,043 males and 5,243 females. The increase in the males, arose from immigration, 5,799; from births, 3,244. In the females, from immigration, 2,091; from births, 3,152. The decrease to the 31st December was 4,702 males and 2,367 females. The decrease in the males arose from deaths, 1,344; departure from the colony, 3,358; and in the females from deaths, 823; and from departures, 1,544. The total increase was 14,286; the total decrease, 7,069, leaving the nett increase, during the three quarters of the year, 7,217—viz., by births, 4,229; by immigration, 2,968—the increase by births being a fraction more than 2 per cent., and by immigration about 1¼ per cent. The number of marriages in the year 1851 was 1,915, and they were solemnised as follows:—Church of England, 765; Church of Scotland, 426; Wesleyan, 100; Independents, 8; Baptists, 4; Church of Rome, 605; Jews' Synagogue, 7. Since the year 1837 the returns show, almost without exception, an increase in the births and a decrease in the deaths over and above the proportionate increase of population.

The total number of immigrants introduced at the public expense was, in 1832, 792; in 1833, 1,253; in 1834, 484; in 1835, 545; in ​1836, 808; in 1837, 2,664; in 1838, 6,102; in 1839, 7,852; in 1840, 5,216; in 1841, 12,188; in 1842, 5,071; in 1843, nil; in 1844, 2,726; in 1845, 497; in 1846, nil; in 1847, nil; in 1848, 4,376; in 1849, 8,309; in 1850, 4,078; in 1851, 1,846 making a total number of immigrants, introduced during the twenty years at the public expense, of 64,807; consisting of 21,653 male and 25,595 female adults, and 17,559 children under fourteen years of age. The total cost to the colony for this immigration was £1,134,511 15s. 6d. In 1832 the cost per head was £6 13s. 8d.; in 1833, £10 16s. 10d.; in 1834, £10 9s. 7d.; in 1835, £18 0s. 9d.; in 1836, £16 4s. 6d.; in 1837, £17 13s. 10d.; in 1838, £16 18s. 11d.; in 1839, £18 17s. 6d.; in 1840, £22 12s. 5d.; in 1841, £17 0s. 2d.; in 1842, £16 9s.; in 1844, £16 9s. 9d.; in 1845, £19 4s. 2d. The averages for the remaining years are not given, but they have been about £15 per head. The whole of this expenditure has been borne out of the territorial revenue of the colony, although it has at times been found necessary to anticipate that revenue by borrowing upon its security. The debentures issued by the Government for this purpose amount in all to £336,800; and the nett proceeds realised by the sale of these debentures is £338,286 15s. 1d. The amount of debentures which has been paid off was £149,700; and the amount outstanding on the 31st of December, 1851, £187,100. The interest paid on debentures has been £33,786 14s. 1d.

In the year 1840 there were in the colony 159 schools, with 4,639 male and 3,935 female scholars—total, 8,574. In 1841, 192 schools, with 4,935 male and 4,124 female scholars—total, 9,059. In 1842, 232 schools, with 5,698 male and 4,635 female scholars—total, 10,333. In 1843, 279 schools, with 6,286 male and 5,103 female scholars—total, 11,389. In 1844, 313 schools, with 6,814 male and 5,776 female scholars—total, 12,590. In 1845, 327 schools, with 7,813 male, and 6,641 female scholars—total, 14,454. In 1846, 338 schools, with 8,613 male and 7,650 female scholars—total, 16,263. In 1847, 376 schools, with 9,848 male and 8,752 female scholars—total, 18,600. In 1848, 382 schools, with 10,267 male and 8,722 female scholars—total, 18,989. In 1849, 444 schools, with 10,721 male and 9,250 female scholars—total, 19,971. In 1850, 493 schools, with 11,214 male and 10,170 female scholars—total, 21,384. In 1851, 423 schools, with 11,118 male and 10,002 female scholars—total, 21,120. The schools in the year 1851 consisted of the Protestant and Roman Catholic orphan schools, with 345 scholars, maintained by Government at an ​expense of £5,212 3s. 11d.; the Church of England denominational schools, with 4,998 scholars, receiving £5,321 5s. 3d. from Government, and paying £2,324 2s. 7d. by voluntary contributions; the Wesleyan schools, with 891 scholars, receiving £588 9s. 2d. from the Government, and £665 11s. 2d. from voluntary contributions; the Roman Catholic schools, with 3,310 scholars, receiving £2,576 15s. 4d. from the Government, and £985 17s. 1d. from voluntary contributions; the National schools, containing 2,861 scholars, receiving from Government £6,766 10s. 3d., and £1,179 17s. 3½d. from voluntary contributions; private schools, consisting of 227 in number, containing 6,721 scholars.

The next chapter in the colonial statistics is a very painful one—one, we fear, that is scarcely equalled in its mournful details by the experience of any other British colony. It is a return of the lunatics in the colony. The first establishment mentioned is that at Tarban Creek. During the year 1851, 50 male and 35 female lunatics were received into the asylum; 18 males and 14 females were cured, 9 males and 18 females improved, 14 males and 4 females died. On the 31st of December, 1851, there remained in the asylum, 42 males and 24 females, supposed to be curable; 25 males and 27 females supposed to be incurable. Total in the asylum, 118. In the establishment at Paramatta for free lunatics there were admitted in the year, 8 males and 17 females; there were cured, 3 males and 3 females. On the 31st of December, 1851, there remained in the establishment, 5 males and 6 females supposed to be curable, and 51 males and 50 females supposed to be incurable. Total in the establishment, 112. In the Convict, Lunatic, and Invalid Establishment at Paramatta (the invalids being for the most part helpless and imbecile), there were lunatics—males 5, females 2, supposed to be curable; males 95, females 20, supposed to be incurable. Total, 122. The total number of lunatics in the asylums of the colony is 352, or about one in every 550 persons.

The return of the convictions in the colonial courts of the colony is one of a much more agreeable nature. In the year 1839, the convictions for felony were 741; in 1840, 652; in 1841, 563, in 1842, 542; in 1843, 523; in 1844, 488; in 1845, 442; in 1846, 463; in 1847, 396; in 1848, 360; in 1849, 437; in 1850, 451; in 1851, 641. The convictions for misdemeanour in 1839, were 125; in 1840, ​149; in 1841, 78; in 1842, 94; in 1843, 76; in 1844, 78; in 1845, 78; in 1846, 115; in 1847, 85; in 1848, 85; in 1849, 97; in 1850, 104; in 1851, 113.

Thus the total convictions in 1839, were 866, while in 1851, with a population nearly double, they were reduced to 574. The capital executions were in the same manner reduced from 22 in 1839 to 2 in 1851.

The order in council, dated 9th March, 1847, came into operation on the 7th of October that year; under which the lands of the colony were divided into three classes—the settled, the intermediate, and the unsettled districts. The settled districts in the colony of New South Wales comprise the whole of the nineteen counties, the counties of Stanley and Macquarie, the towns in the country districts with the lands immediately adjacent, all the land within three miles of the sea, and the lands at the head and along the banks of some principal rivers.

The intermediate districts in New South Wales comprehend the county of Auckland, Gipps' Land, and some other partially settled districts.

The unsettled districts comprise all the remaining lands of the colony.

In the unsettled districts occupation leases are given for fourteen years with the right to cultivate for the consumption of the establishment of the lessee, and no further: the amount of rent being ten pounds per annum for the estimated capability of the run to carry 4,000 sheep or an equivalent number of cattle; the capability of the run to be determined by two valuers, one appointed by the commissioner of the district, and one by the occupier. During the lease the land can be sold to only the occupant. The lease may be renewed for the whole run if no portion is sold, or for any portion of the run, provided that one-fourth of the whole remains unsold.

In the leases there are reservations for public purposes, and conditions for the payment of rent, &c., punishable by the forfeiture of the run in case of non-observance.

In the intermediate districts, the leases are confined to eight years, it being, however, a condition that at the end of every successive year from the date of the lease, the governor may, by giving sixty days' previous notice, offer for sale the whole or any part of the lands on the said run.

In the settled districts the leases are given from year to year only.

This, then, is the position, politically speaking, in which the pastoral districts now stand; under the constitutional act of 1850 the ​population outside the boundaries were allowed the elective franchise. At present, however, the squatting districts have been erected, under certain combinations, into electoral districts, and exercise very considerable influence in the legislature of the country.

In the year 1810, twenty-two years after the establishment of the country, the sheep of the colony were 25,888 head, and the cattle 12,442. In the year 1821, the number of sheep had increased to 119,777; in 1828, it was 503,691; in 1834, it reached one million; in 1843, the number of sheep was 3,452,539; in 1844, 3,743,732; in 1845, 4,409,504; in 1846, 4,909,819; in 1847, 5,673,266; in 1848, 6,530,542; in 1849, 6,784,494; in 1850, 7,092,200; in 1851, 7,396,895. In 1837, the export of wool was 4,273,715 lbs.; in 1840, it was 7,668,960 lbs.; in 1845, it was 10,522,921 lbs.; in 1850, it was 14,270,632 lbs.; in 1851, it was 15,268,473 lbs.

By the authorised returns for the year 1851, the number of sheep within the settled districts was 2,263,386, beyond the settled districts it was 5,133,509. The proportion of cattle and other live stock between the two classes is very nearly the same.

The returns of the number of horses, horned cattle, and pigs are as follows:—

	Horses.	Horned Cattle.	Pigs.
1843	58,739	850,160	54,607
1844	64,093	971,559	52,196
1845	73,014	1,116,420	56,022
1846	76,726	1,140,297	39,723
1847	91,118	1,270,706	57,395
1848	97,400	1,366,164	65,216
1849	105,126	1,463,651	52,902
1850	111,458	1,374,768	52,371
1851	116,397	1,375,257	65,510

In the year 1851, the number of horses within the settled districts was 81,083; horned cattle, 451,263; pigs, 59,439. Beyond this settled districts there were horses, 35,214; horned cattle, 923,994; pigs, 6,081.

In the year 1843, the export of tallow was 4,660 cwt.; in 1844, 48,029 cwt.; in 1845, 64,440 cwt.; in 1846, 18,117 cwt.; in 1847, 58,478 cwt.; in 1848, 71,304 cwt.; in 1849, 84,454 cwt.; in 1850, 128,090 cwt.; in 1851, 86,460 cwt.; in the year 1850, the estimated value of the export of tallow was £167,858. In the year 1850, 190,791 yards of woollen cloth were manufactured in the colony.

During the year 1851, the exports derived from pastoral pursuits in this colony exceeded £1,000,000. The live stock of the colony in proportion to the whole adult and infant population of the colony ​(197,168) is as follows:—To every individual 37 sheep, six and a half horned cattle, two-thirds of a horse, and one third of a pig.

It is probable that the community of New South Wales is, in proportion to the number of its population, the largest meat-consuming one in the world; certainly it is the largest consuming community of beef and mutton, as there is little fish, and scarcely any game.

The pastoral pursuits of the colony afford an export very nearly amounting to £6 per head for every man, woman, or child in the colony.

Let us first compare the operations of the last two years:—

LAND IN CULTIVATION.

	1850	1851
Wheat, acres	70,720	82,110	11,390	Inc.
Maize, {{{1}}}„	23,170	25,017	1,847	{{{1}}}„
Barley, {{{1}}}„	7,576	6,725	851	Dec.
Oats, {{{1}}}„	2,717	2,470	247	{{{1}}}„
Rye, {{{1}}}„	293	245	48	{{{1}}}„
Millet, {{{1}}}„	42	54	12	Inc.
Potatoes, {{{1}}}„	4,236	4,079	157	Dec.
Tobacco, {{{1}}}„	510	731	221	Inc.
Sown for hay	35,383	30,626	4,757	Dec.
Totals	144,647	152,057	7,410	Inc.

Notwithstanding the gold-excitement year, agricultural operations in the main staples of subsistence considerably increased on the previous year. The breadth of land under cultivation for wheat shows an increase exceeding sixteen per cent.; for maize, about eight per cent.; for tobacco, more than forty-three per cent.; while the total under cultivation shows an increase of more than five per cent.

We have next to compare the quantities of

PRODUCE.

	1850	1851
Wheat, bush.	921,582	1,407,465	485,883	Inc.
Maize, {{{1}}}„	457,102	717,053	259,951	{{{1}}}„
Barley, {{{1}}}„	124,625	133,944	9,319	{{{1}}}„
Oats, {{{1}}}„	53,313	49,069	4,244	Dec.
Potatoes, tons	9,400	13,644	4,244	Inc.
Tobacco, cwts.	4,923	12,530	7,607	{{{1}}}„
Hay, tons	44,762	36,605	8,157	Dec.

Of wheat an increase approaching 500,000 bushels, or upwards of fifty per cent.; of maize, nearly 260,000 bushels, or about fifty-seven per cent.; of barley, more than 9,000 bushels, or upwards of seven per cent.; of potatoes, more than 4,000 tons, or forty-five per cent.; and ​of tobacco, 7,600 cwt., or the immense ratio of one hundred and forty-five per cent. On the other hand, oats and hay show a falling off; the former to the extent of more than 4,000 bushels, or about eight per cent.; the latter to the extent of 8,000 tons, or about eighteen per cent.

We subjoin a statement of the average

PRODUCE PER ACRE.

	1850.	1851.
Wheat, bushels	13.0	17.1
Maize, {{{1}}}„	19.7	28.7
Barley {{{1}}}„	16.4	19.9
Oats, {{{1}}}„	19.6	19.9
Potatoes, tons	2.2	3.3
Tobacco, cwts.	9.7	17.1
Hay, tons	1.3	1.2

With the exception of hay, an increase in every article.

The Grape.—In 1848, 508 acres of vineyard produced 33,915 gallons wine; brandy, 751. In 1850, 1,069¾ acres, 111,085 gallons wine; 1,985 gallons brandy. In 1851, 1,060 acres, 84,843 gallons wine; 1,641 gallons brandy.

The wine imported in 1851 amounted to 273,856, the export of colonial wine, 3,000 gallons.

The manufactures of the colony are at present very limited; and they have in fact in some branches considerably diminished of late years. Three years after the foundation of the colony, brickmaking commenced; and the first brick building built of colonial bricks was erected in 1791. In 1805 the first sailing vessel was built; in 1815, the first steam-engine was worked in the colony. In 1820, colonial tobacco was first manufactured, and colonial spirits first distilled; and in 1831 the first colonial steam-boat was launched.

Distillers.—There were two distilleries established in the year 1837, and these have remained in full work, except at short intervals, up to the present time. Under the old system of very high duties on foreign spirits, these distilleries made large profits; but even these were insufficient to satisfy the proprietors, and illicit distillation took place to a considerable extent in 1846.; however, more stringent regulations for the inspection of distilleries were enacted, and the duty on foreign rum was reduced from 7s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. The profits of the distillers then began to fall off, and the largest of them was compelled to shut up, but it has recently been again set to work by a sugar-refining company, and the two distilleries are now turning out from 7,000 to 10,000 gallons ​weekly. Nearly the whole of the spirits distilled in this colony are manufactured from sugar and molasses. In addition to these distilleries there is one extensive rectifying and compounding establishment; and in former years there were three or four. In the year 1837 there were seven breweries—three in Sydney, two in Parramatta, one in Windsor, and one in Maitland. In 1844 there were twelve; in 1845 there were fifteen; in 1846, sixteen; in 1847, fifteen; in 1848, twelve; in 1849 twenty-one; in 1850, nineteen; and in 1851, seventeen.

Beer.—The beer brewed at these breweries is drank to a very considerable extent in the colony by the humbler classes, but a very large portion of it is an unwholesome beverage, being adulterated with many deleterious articles. Medical men have attributed death in many instances to the excessive use of this drink. The two largest breweries in the colony are in Sydney; and as they are carried on by men of respectability and large capital, the profits are large. The quantity of beer consumed in the colony is very great, as in addition to the home-made, the importation of the article in 1851 amounted to £57,000. The colonial beer is very inferior to the British, and is sold at less than half the price. It is probable, however, that a better article will soon be produced to supply the deficiency of English beer which frequently exists. One of the Sydney brewers has lately succeeded in producing a beer which successfully competed with the English beverage for some months.

Sugar.—There are two sugar-refining companies in the colony, one of which has been established ten years, the other four. The Australasan Sugar Refining Company carries on a very large trade, supplying not only nearly the whole of the home consumption, but also the wants of the neighbouring colonies. The raw sugar is procured for the most part from Manilla, and the trade to that settlement is much encouraged by these establishments. The prices charged by the company for its sugar in ordinary times are about 45s. per cwt. for loaf, and 34s. per cwt. for crystallised. The quantity of refined sugar manufactured in 1847 was 39,600 cwt.; in 1848, 26,000 cwt.; in 1849, 35,000 cwt.; in 1850, 51,000 cwt.; and in 1851, 74,000 cwt.

Soap and Candles.—There are twelve soap and candle manufacturers in the colony, and they produce a considerable quantity of both articles both for home consumption and for exportation. With the exception of sperm candles, indeed, the whole colony is supplied by the home manufactories. The colonial soap has of late years nearly superseded the English article, which used to be imported in large quantities. The soap made in the colony is preferred for use, while it is produced at a cost of about 3d. per pound. The quantity of soap manufactured in ​1847 was 19,925 cwt.; in 1848, 18,900 cwt.; in 1849, 24,623 cwt.; in 1850, 25,986 cwt.; in 1851, 33,065 cwt.

Tobacco.—There are at present only six manufactories of tobacco in the colony, but in 1849 there were fifteen; and in 1850, fourteen. These, however, were on a small scale, and the quantity manufactured was but small. Many samples of tobacco grown and manufactured in the colony have been pronounced by competent judges equal to Virginian; but a very considerable prejudice exists against it. The reduction of the duties on foreign tobacco in the last session of the Council will probably retard the progress of the production and manufacture of this article; but with an abundance of labour there is no question that this branch of industry will be again profitably resorted to. The quantity of tobacco manufactured in 1847 was 1,321 cwt.; in 1848, 714 cwt.; in 1849, 2,758 cwt.; in 1850, 3,833 cwt.; in 1851, 4,841 cwt.

Cloth.—There are five woollen cloth manufactories in the colony, the largest of which is the Messrs. Byrnes', at Paramatta. This establishment is very extensive, and is conducted by its enterprising proprietors on the true British principle. There was also a large manufactory at Maitland, but the works have been interfered with by a serious fire, which took place there some time back, and this accounts for the falling off in the production last year. The cloth principally manufactured in the colony is tweeds, and the quality has been much improved in the last few years. The quantity of cloth and tweeds manufactured in the colony in 1847 was 175,088 yards; in 1848, 164,749 yards; in 1849, 180,197 yards; in 1850, 190,791 yards; in 1851, 114,394 yards.

In addition to the larger factories thus enumerated, there are two hat manufactories, fifty-five tanneries, nine salting and meat-preserving establishments, four potteries, two copper smelting establishments, and fifteen iron and brass foundries. The export of unmanufactured leather is very considerable, amounting in 1851 to 562,215 lbs., valued at £11,665. The consumption of colonial leather in the colony is also very large, both for shoes and boots, and for coach-building and harness. The other establishments we have enumerated are chiefly employed in supplying the colonial consumption. The lighter handicrafts in a small way are pursued with great avidity and considerable skill in the towns of the colony, especially in Sydney. There are plenty of expert jewellers; and the articles of colonial workmanship, manufactured from colonial gold and colonial gems, would, in many instances, do credit to London establishments. Furniture, and some of the larger articles of cabinet ware, are also ​manufactured with much taste in the colony. Many of the woods of the colony are peculiarly appropriate to this trade, which, we have no doubt, will one day assume a very considerable importance. There are also one or two small cutlery establishments; but though very good knives and scissors, and even surgical instruments, have been made in the colony, they are principally employed in repairing such instruments.

Ship building has been engaged in to a very considerable extent, and the colonial vessels for the most part, as models of soundness and durability, are highly creditable to the colony. There is an abundance of excellent timber suited for every department of ship building.

In 1840, the vessels built in the colony were 17; tonnage, 1,196. In 1841, 33; tonnage, 2,037; In 1842, 25; tonnage, 1,297. In 1843, 41; tonnage, 1,231. In 1844, 15; tonnage, 498. In 1845, 15; tonnage, 931. In 1846, 27; tonnage, 1,013. In 1847, 33; tonnage, 2,122. In 1848, 26; tonnage, 1,281. In 1849, 35; tonnage, 1,720. In 1850, 36; tonnage 1,605. In 1851, 24; tonnage 939.

In 1837 the import was in value 4,303; in 1838, £3,347; in 1839, £8,260; in 1840, £15,254; in 1841, £13,192; in 1842, £11,559; in 1843, £3,457; in 1844, £1,553; in 1845, £6,235; in 1846, £4,051; in 1847, £4,426; in 1848, £1,765; in 1849, £1,891; in 1850, £2,159; in 1851, £3,721. The export has been, in 1837, £14,562; in 1838, £6,444; in 1839, £8,815; in 1840, £21,750; in 1841, £7,004; in 1842, £5,806; in 1843, £9,534; in 1844, £7,989; in 1845, £7,319; in 1846, £7,060; in 1847, £7,158; in 1848, £5,591; in 1849, £12,988; in 1850, £17,138; in 1851, £17,462.

The return of the export of all the produce of the fisheries of the colony, shows a very great decrease in late years. The value of the oil exported in 1837 was £183,122; in 1838, £197,644; in 1839, £172,315; in 1840, £224,144; in 1841, £127,470; in 1842, £77,012; in 1843, £72,877; in 1844, £52,665; in 1845, £95,674; in 1846, £68,936; in 1847, £79,298; in 1848, £68,969; in 1849, £44,993; in 1850, £28,999; in 1851, £25,877.

The return on auction sales and duties is more satisfactory. In ​1840, the sales were £1,035,196 5s., and the duty was £15,527 18s. 10d.; in 1841 the duty was £12,811 0s. 1d.; in 1842, £8,900 8s. 2d.; in 1843, £5,865 15s. 5d.; from which it sank down by 1847 to £4,834 6s. After that year the auction duties were taken off articles of colonial produce, and the sales in 1848 were £649,815 16s. 8d., duties, £3,249 1s. 7d.; in 1849, sales £545,797 10s., duties, £2,728 18s. 9d.; in 1850, sales £1,143,649 3s. 4d., duties £5,718 4s. 11d.; in 1851, sales £467,575, duties £2,337 17s. 6d.

The sale of Crown lands is also a return of interest, as it is now separated from the Port Phillip sales. In 1837, the amount sold was £116,474 18s, 5d.; in 1838, £79,130 6s. 10d.; in 1839, £92,968 1s. 9d.; in 1840, £97,498 10s. 11d.; in 1841, £19,235 15s. 7d.; in 1842, £11,844 17s. 8d.; in 1843, £5,311 2s.; in 1844, £6,745 14s. 8d.; in 1845, £11,563 13s. 10d.; in 1846, £11,249 19s. 3d.; in 1847, £2,929 19s. 2d.; in 1848, £7,624 6s. 6d.; in 1849, £20,113 12s. 3d.; in 1850, £33,757 6s. 11d.; in 1851, £64,425 17s. 6d. In the last three years, at least one-third of the amount went to the credit of the general revenue, being the produce of the sale of the land on the site of the Circular Quay and old Military Barracks.

The next return is of coin in the colony, contained in the military chest, and in the banks; and in 1845, when the amount was greatest, it was £855,166; in 1846, £827,306; in 1847, £634,186; in 1848, £633,803; in 1849, £643,458; in 1850, £670,852; in 1851, £540,766.

The amount of the general revenue collected in the year 1851 was £277,728 18s. 1d.; the territorial revenue was £204,508 7s. 2d.; the Church and School Estates fund, £4,460 18s. 9d.; being a total revenue of £486,698 4s.

The total expenditure of the general revenue was £290,361 6s. 3d.; of the territorial, £153,747 3s. 7d.; total, £444,108 9s. 10d.

The Post-office return is very interesting. In the year 1849, the year before the Uniform Postage Act came into operation, the number of post-offices in the colony was 88; the number of persons employed, 115; the number of miles travelled by the mails, 586,675; the number ​of ship letters, 178,533; inland letters, 383,353; town letters, 47,135; ship newspapers, 277,787; inland, 457,197; total letters, 609,201; newspapers, 734,984; income, £15,462 9s. 10d.; expenditure, £13,751 7s. 11d. In 1850, when the new Act came into force, the number of post-offices was increased to 96, and in 1851 to 101; the number of persons employed, to 123; in 1851, to 137; the number of miles travelled, to 686,614; and in 1851, to 751,154; the number of ship letters, not affected by the new Act, to 179,406; and in 1851, to 202,480; the number of inland letters, from 383,353 to 592,026; and in 1851, to 694,356; the number of town letters, to 70,877; and in 1851, to 78,482; the number of inland newspapers in the first year rather decreased, as there was a postage charge of one penny made upon them for the first time. The total number of letters in 1850 was 842,309; and in 1851, 975,318. The income in 1850 was reduced from £15,462 9s. 10d. to 13,646 5s. 9d., while the expenditure was increased from £13,651 7s. 11d. to £15,732 11s. 4d.; but in 1851 the revenue had increased to £18,252 1s. 11d., while the expenditure was £16,324 13s. 4d.

The value of the total imports and exports of the colony of New South Wales, in each of the last eight years, was in round numbers as follows:—

	Imports.	Exports.
1844	£ 780,200	£ 871,300
1845	985,600	1,022,400
1846	1,315,000	1,056,300
1847	1,544,300	1,201,500
1848	1,182,900	1,155,000
1849	1,313,600	1,135,900
1850	1,333,400	1,357,800
1851	1,563,900	1,796,900

The imports of last year exceeded those of the previous year by £230,500, or rather more than seventeen per cent.; while the exports show the far larger increase of £439,100, or thirty-two per cent. So that in the first year of our gold discovery, the increase of our exports was nearly double that of our imports.

Comparing the figures of 1851 with those of 1844, it will be seen that during the last seven years both the imports and exports had rather more than doubled themselves.

Last year the exports exceeded the imports by £233,000, or about 15 per cent. It should not be overlooked, however, that the exports ​of 1851 include colonial gold to the amount of £468,336, being the produce of about six months' digging.

The ratios per head of the population, at each of the last two censuses, were about as follows:—

	Imports per head.	Exports per head.
1846	£8 10	£6 17
1851	8  7	9 12

It thus appears that while the ratio of imports shows a diminution of three shillings per head, that of exports shows an increase of £2 15s.; and that while in 1846 the imports exceeded the exports by £1 13s. per head, in 1851 the exports exceeded the imports by £1 5s.

The revenue of the colony of New South Wales is derived from customs dues and the proceeds of pastoral licences, an assessment on live stock, and the licences issued to gold diggers and the sale of land.

An inclination was at one time prevalent among influential members of the Legislative Council to establish a protective tariff, if the power of so doing should be conceded by the Imperial Parliament; but more sound financial ideas have recently prevailed, and in 1852 the new Legislative Council established a tariff of great simplicity and liberality, while the auction duties have been abolished, as also all port and harbour dues. In fact, Sydney offers an example of a great free-trade port.

The duties now charged on goods imported to New South Wales are solely as follows:—Ale and beer in wood, 1d. per gallon; ale and beer in bottle, 3d. per gallon; coffee, chocolate, and cocoa, ¾d. per lb.; currants, raisins, and other dried fruits, ½d. per lb.; brandy, proof strength, 6s. per gallon; gin, ditto, 6s. per gallon; rum, and all other spirits, 4s. per gallon; perfumed spirits, of whatever strength, 4s. per gallon; all spirits, liqueurs, cordials, brandied fruits, or strong waters, 6s. per gallon; refined sugar, 3s. 4d. per cwt.; unrefined ditto, 2s. 6d. per cwt.; molasses, 1s. 8d. per cwt.; tea, 1½d. per lb.; manufactured tobacco, other than cigars and snuffs, 1s. 6d. until the 31st day of December, 1853, and thereafter, 1s.; unmanufactured tobacco, 1s; per lb. until 31st December, 1853, and thereafter 8d. per lb.; cigars and snuffs, 2s. per lb.; wine, 1s. per gallon.

The eminent simplicity of this tariff has created the highest satisfaction throughout the colony. The duties on spirits and tobacco, being articles of luxury and the use of which, indeed, a wise policy would be as far as prudent to resist—can be no burden on any one.

​The duty on tea and sugar is one which will so equally and universally affect all classes, that no injustice can be inflicted by it; and if it cause a fractional advance in the price of these articles to the consumer, the absence of taxation on all other articles will enable him to procure those articles at a proportionably cheaper rate. As long as money must be raised by taxation for revenue purposes, the one great principle to be observed is to make that taxation bear equally on all, and it is wise therefore to confine duties to those articles only which are of very general consumption.

It is confidently anticipated that this alteration of the tariff will have a most beneficial effect, both as regards the amount of revenue collected, and the encouragement it will give to trade. Concurrently with the passing of this act, all port and harbour dues, and all auction duties, were repealed; and it may perhaps be said, that New South Wales affords the first example of a great commercial community abandoning almost without exception the legislative restrictions by which trade has hitherto been governed.

The statistics of Port Phillip have not been prepared this year.

In 1851 the population of Melbourne was 23,000, of which 12,000 were males. This population has been increased to something approaching 60,000, dwelling in huts and tents.

The population of 1851 was divided as to religion into 10,000 Church of England, 3,000 Presbyterians, 1,600 Wesleyans, 1,500 other Protestants, 5,500 Roman Catholics, 233 Jews.

The Quarter's Revenue for the quarter ending 30th September, 1852, showed an increase of four hundred thousand pounds over the same quarter in 1851. Every item of the revenue depending on consumption shows an increase, the post-office only being stationary. The gold licences produced £109,000, but considering that at least 60,000 diggers were at work, this item ought to have amounted to £270,000.

The Live Stock were by the last returns:—Sheep, 6,033,000; Cattle, 346,562; Horses, 16,734.

​

IN the month of April, 1851, New South Wales and Port Phillip were enjoying an unexampled condition of financial and commercial prosperity; the demand for labour was steadily increasing, and in the elder colony several manufactures and copper-mines were affording new investments for colonial capital. The leading colonial journal was amusing its readers with calculations of the period when all the pastoral land of the colony would be overstocked with sheep and cattle. The politicians had their grievances to discuss, among which was the long delay in establishing a steam post.

In the midst of this satisfactory state of affairs, "through the ​Exchange of Sydney a horrid rumour ran" that a great gold-field had been found near Bathurst. Very soon small "nuggets"—the word is Californian—arrived in the city, and were handed about as curiosities. Thereupon a few score pedestrians, chiefly of the humblest class, set out to walk to Bathurst, 140 miles.

By the 2nd May there was no longer any doubt about the diggings; crowds of all ranks streamed across the Blue Mountains; the governor's proclamation gave official currency to the dazzling fact; the gold fever commenced.

When whispers and rumours had grown into a great fact, every body wondered that the discovery had not been made before, as it had been so often prophesied by various individuals, none of whom seem to have had, like Mr. Hargreaves, sufficient confidence in their own judgment to travel to the district, and put a spade into the ground.

The history of the gold discoveries in Australia lies in a very short compass, but is worth telling. It illustrates many curious things.

The first written reference to the existence of gold in Australia is to be found in a despatch (not published at the time) addressed by Sir George Gipps, 2nd of September, 1840, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in which he encloses a report from Count Strzelecki, mentioning under gold "an auriferous sulphuret of iron, partly decomposed, yielding a very small quantity of gold, although not enough to repay extraction," which he found in the Vale of Clwdd. It was known to a few that an old shepherd of the name of Macgregor was in the habit of annually selling small parcels of gold to jewellers; but those who watched him could discover nothing, and the common belief was that he sold the produce of robberies which had been melted up to destroy suspicion. The Rev. D. Mackenzie, in his "Gold-digger," states that this old man has recently acknowledged that he obtained his gold from a place called Mitchell's Creek, beyond Wellington Yalley, about 200 miles west of Sydney.

The Rev. W. B. Clarke, one of the colonial chaplains, and a geologist of considerable acquirements, in 1846, privately, but unsuccessfully, directed the attention of some of his brother colonists, among others of Mr. Manning to the gold-bearing regions of Bathurst. While in England Sir Roderick Murchison read a paper before the Royal Geographical Society, in 1844, compared the eastern chain of Australia to the Ural Mountains. In 1846, a year before the Californian discovery, he addressed the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, recommending unemployed Cornish tin-miners to emigrate to New South Wales, and dig for gold in the débris and drift of what he ​

​termed the "Australian Cordillera," in which he had recently heard that gold had been discovered in small quantities, and in which he anticipated, from the similarity with the Ural Mountains, that it would certainly be found in abundance.

After these opinions had been made public, persons resident in Sydney and Adelaide sought for and found specimens of gold, which they transmitted to Sir Roderick, who thereupon wrote to Earl Grey, the minister for the colonies, in November, 1848, stating the grounds for his confident expectation that gold would be found in large quantities, and suggesting precautionary measures. Earl Grey never answered this letter, and neither took measures nor sent out private instructions to prepare the governor for the realisation of the predictions of the man of science. As he afterwards explained, he thought it better that the people should stick to wool-growing.

The first printed notice by Mr. Clarke appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1847, in which, following in Sir Roderick Murchison's footsteps, he compared Australia with the Ural.

In 1848 a Mr. Smith, engaged in iron-works near Berrima,^[11] waited upon Mr. Deas Thomson, the colonial secretary, produced a lump of gold imbedded in quartz, which he said he had found, and offered, on receipt of £800, to discover the locality. On reference to the governor, a verbal answer was returned that, if Mr. Smith chose to trust to the liberality of the government, he might rely on being rewarded in proportion to the value of the alleged discovery. The government suspected that the lump of gold came from California, "and were afraid of agitating the public mind by ordering geological investigations." Nothing more has been heard of Mr. Smith.

On the 3rd of April, 1851, Mr. Edward Hargreaves addressed a letter to the colonial secretary, after several interviews, in which he said that if the government would award him £500 as a compensation, he would point out localities where gold was to be found, and leave it to the generosity of the government to make him an additional reward commensurate with the benefit likely to accrue to the government.

It seems that Mr. Hargreaves, while in California, was struck with the similarity between the richest diggings of that country and a district in the Bathurst country which he had travelled over fifteen years previously; and on his return to Sydney made an exploring expedition of two months, which realised his expectations.

The same answer was returned to Mr. Hargreaves as to Mr. Smith. He was satisfied, and on the 30th April wrote, naming Lewis Ponds ​and Summerhill Creeks, and Macquarie River, in the district of Bathurst and Wellington, as the districts where gold would be found.

A copy of this letter was, by the governor's directions, forwarded to the colonial geologist, Mr. Stutchbury, with whom Mr. Hargreaves was put in communication.

Messrs. Hargreaves and Stutchbury set out on their journey. On the 8th of May, a Mr. Green, a crown commissioner, wrote in great alarm from Bathurst that "a Mr. Hargreaves has been employing people to dig for gold on the Summerhill Creek, who have found several ounces;" and suggested "that some stringent measure be adopted to prevent the labouring classes from leaving their employments to search on the crown lands." On the 13th of May Mr. Green writes again, in still more alarm:—"A piece of gold valued at £30 had been brought in, and that he feared that any future regulations would be set at defiance."

Having frequently in the course of this work had occasion to stigmatise the mistakes and misdeeds of the local colonial government, it is only common justice to say that the line of conduct adopted by Sir Charles Fitzroy and his council on the occurrence of the gold crisis reflects upon them the highest credit.

A few dates will show how rapidly gold-gathering grew into an important pursuit, stimulating agriculture, and overshadowing the pastoral interest.

May 14th. Mr. Stutchbury reported that he "had seen sufficient to prove the existence of grain gold."

19th. "That many persons with merely a tin dish have obtained one or two ounces a day. Four hundred persons at work, occupying about a mile of the Summerhill Creek, fear that great confusion will arise in consequence of people setting up claims."

22nd. A proclamation was issued declaring the rights of the crown to gold found in its natural place of deposit within the territory of New South Wales.

23rd. John Richard Hardy, Esq.. chief magistrate of Paramatta, was appointed the first gold commissioner, with instructions to organise a mounted police of ten men; to issue licences to gold diggers, at the rate of 30s. a month; to receive in payment gold obtained by amalgamation at £2 8s. per ounce, and at £3 4s. per ounce for gold obtained by washing. And, to preserve the peace and put down outrage and violence, he was further instructed to co-operate with the local police, and to swear in special constables from the licensed diggers.

25th. Mr. Stutchbury reported that gold diggers had increased to ​

one thousand; that lumps had been found varying in weight from one ounce to four pounds; that the larger pieces were generally got out of fissures in the rock, "clay slate," which forms the bed of the river, dipped to the north-east at various angles, the fissile edges presenting jagged edges, which had opened under the influence of the atmosphere, "the smaller grain gold being procured by washing the alluvial soil resting upon and filling in the clewage joints of the slate;" that "gold was also found in the planks of the ranges, proving that it had originated in the mountains."

He observes:—"The workings at present are conducted in the most wasteful manner, from the cupidity and ignorance of the people, which cannot be remedied until some officer is appointed acquainted with the proper mode of working, with power to enforce it. The best thing that could happen would be a severe flood, which would fill the diggings, and oblige them to begin, de novo, under proper restrictions."

Such is the constant hankering of government officials to teach and regulate commercial enterprise.

​Mr. Stutchbury further reported that gold had been found in Argyle, on the Abercrombie River, in the creeks running north and south of the Canobolas Mountains, such as Oakey Creek, the whole length of the Macquarie from Bathurst to Wellington.

About this time a considerable number of respectable persons were seized with terror, lest the whole framework of society should become disorganised, and anarchy and violence become chronic.

When the existence of gold was first ascertained, there were flock-owners who disapproved of the course pursued by the governor in raising gold-digging to the condition of a regular industrial pursuit, and recommended "that martial law should be proclaimed, and all gold-digging peremptorily prohibited, in order that the ordinary industrial pursuits of the country should not be interfered with;" that is to say, some of the same order who have always patronised vagabond bachelor shepherds, and opposed the establishment of wives, families, and small farms in the interior, were ready to risk a civil war rather than endanger their wool crops.

But, fortunately, the governor had no taste for spilling the blood of his countrymen in a "futile attempt to stop the influx of the tide."

Provincial Inspector Scott, of the police, reports from Bathurst that the distance thence to Summerhill Creek is forty miles, over a clear and defined but mountainous road, fit for the passage of drays:

"Thought that the deposits of the creek would be exhausted soon—that any mechanics in full work would commit an act of insanity to resign their situations in search of gold; that on Sabbath all parties left off work, and the Rev. Mr. Chapman, a Wesleyan minister, preached to a large congregation. Further, Mr. Scott anticipated difficulty in preserving the peace, unless prompt and energetic measures were adopted—viz., to swear in all respectable persons as special constables, and permit them to be armed; to grant licences to other classes (not respectable), and take their arms away to be locked up in Bathurst Courthouse."

From the letters of the provincial inspector of the same date, reporting the preparations he had made to assist the gold commissioner, in case of the anticipated resistance, it is evident that no ordinary degree of alarm was generally experienced.

But, fortunately, the colonists of Australia proved themselves more orderly and sensible than the police and other timid individuals had imagined; and in Mr. Hardy, the first gold commissioner, the governor had selected a man of judgment, temper, and cool courage, who was determined to let the industrious miners have fair play, and equally ​determined to enforce his lawful authority. His reports are all models of strong common sense.

For instance, when called before the Executive Council to be informed of his appointment, he states, "that he does not consider that he should have any difficulty in enforcing an observance of any reasonable regulations, if twelve mounted men on whom he could depend were attached to him, all being soldiers who have but a short time longer to serve to entitle them to claim their discharge with pensions." He does not desire to associate civilians with soldiers. His confidence was not misplaced.

June 2nd. Mr. Hardy arrived on Summerhill with eight extra ​police, lent by Major Wentworth; found not the least desire to resist the government regulations, and did not keep the extra force on the ground half an hour. An arrangement to intercept all new arrivals, by sending them to an unoccupied ground, prevented confusion.

On June 8th, four hundred and forty-six licences had been issued; to two or three hundred new arrivals he had given a few days to pay; quiet and good order prevailed: "in one instance alone was there an inclination to disregard my decision. A tall, strong man, a butcher at Bathurst, who had been in the habit of beginning to work wherever he saw promises of lumps of gold, trusting to his strength to keep down opposition, began to work on another man's opening. I told him to desist; but as soon as I turned my back, he began again saying he would work where he liked in spite of any one. I turned back immediately, and as I went up to him he dropped his pick and snatched up a spade as if to strike at me. I instantly collared him, put him in handcuffs, and marched him off the ground, declaring my intention of sending him to Bathurst gaol. I sent up to my camp, with orders for a policeman to get ready to take him in, and continued my walk. On my return, in about an hour, the man was very penitent, begged to be let off, which I did: he has been working quietly ever since, and the neighbourhood has been relieved of a very unpleasant man. I have mentioned this to show how easily such a population may be managed. There is no occasion for any increase of force here."

There is no doubt that if convicts from Van Diemen's Land could have been kept out of the gold-fields, there never would have been any dangerous disturbances.

June 9. The government geologist reported the existence of gold in the Turon, and other branches of the River Macquarie; and Mr. Hardy, anxious that there should be no great accumulation of diggers, posted up notices of the new discoveries.

For this measure, as tending to stimulate gold-digging, for giving time to new arrivals to pay for their licences, and for not swearing in special constables, he was called to account by the Executive Council.

The advantage of dispersing the daily-arriving armies of diggers, by giving them actual intelligence instead of mere rumours for a guide, would seem obvious to any one except those Mother Partingtons of legislation who still hoped to mop back the tide which had set in from other employments towards the gold-field.

June 11. Mr. Hardy writes:—"All anxiety as to the payment of the licence fee is at end. I give parties who profess themselves unable to pay at the onset a few days. But it is well understood, and invariably ​acted on, that no man works more than a few days without a licence; and it is partly from this known circumstance that so many leave after a week's fruitless labour. This is, after all, of a good tendency. Universally successful diggers would leave the colony in a bad position. The return to their former employments adds greatly to the general benefit.

"With respect to special constables I do not think I need be under any apprehension of any opposition to the payment of licences. It was necessary on two occasions to break the cradles, and march the owners off the ground, not on account of any refusal to pay the licence fee, but because the parties had worked the four or five days I had given them to determine whether they were able to pay or not, and still professed their inability to pay, and refused to take up their cradles and remove. In such cases, and indeed in all cases, instant and determined actionis

necessary, and disregard of possible consequences the safest policy. Some days ago several persons were working on Mr. Lane's land, and on the application of Mr. Rudder, who was in charge of the ground, I ordered them off. Half an hour after I found one set of men still at work, and, although alone, and two miles away from my men, I did not hesitate to kick the cradle into the stream, and take the owner a prisoner into the ​town. If I had thought it necessary to call upon Mr. Rudder and those who were with him, instead of acting as I did, I should not have succeeded better—I probably should not have succeeded at all; and the probability is, that on the many occasions when I am necessarily alone, and in remote places, I might meet with defiance, as one who could do nothing unless his police were with him. I can rely on myself; I have the most perfect reliance on the men, one and all, that the government has given me; but I could never rely on special constables, however respectable: the more respectable the more unfit under the peculiar circumstances."

The same good sense and firmness characterise Mr. Hardy's answer to the deputation of diggers who came up to present a petition and some resolutions for the reduction of the licence fee from thirty shillings a month to seven shillings and sixpence:—"I informed the deputation that I should advise the government not to lower the licence fee, and I informed them of my reasons for so doing, as follows:—It was well ascertained that about eight hundred persons earned on an average £1 per diem; that about six or seven hundred earned from three to four or five shillings a day; that about three hundred earned nothing; that the first-mentioned eight hundred were able, industrious, and persevering men, working in the numerous favourable localities on the creek; that the second six or seven hundred were men who worked some time less than a week without judgment, and who had not the energy, strength, and bodily powers to be successful; that the last-mentioned three hundred were men who did not work at all, but, after looking about for a day or two, went off in disgust; consequently, that to the eight hundred successful diggers the thirty-shilling fee was positively nothing, seeing that any man could live well on nine shillings a week; that the remainder—the partially and totally unsuccessful—would be much better employed in their past avocations. That the government had to consider the general interests of the community, and not those of the diggers alone, and that those general interests would not be advanced by encouraging all the labouring hands of the colony to be employed in gold-digging."

In July the rush to the diggings had somewhat moderated, when the discovery of a hundredweight of gold revived and stimulated the excitement to a degree which affected all classes of society; and, after that discovery, crowds of gentlemen repaired to the diggings. This great prize having been raised by a gentleman (Dr. Kerr) who had not taken out a licence, the gold commissioner, in the exercise of his duty, seized it, in order to assert the rights of the crown. By an equitable ​merit it was afterwards given up, a precedent having thus been established, on payment of a royalty of ten per cent.

"In the first week of July an educated aboriginal, formerly attached to the Wellington mission, and who has been in the service of W. J. Kerr, Esq., of Wallawa, about seven years, returned home to his employer with the intelligence that he had discovered a large mass of gold amongst a heap of quartz upon the run whilst tending his sheep. He had amused himself by exploring the country adjacent to his employer's land, and his attention was first called to the lucky spot by observing a speck of some glittering yellow substance upon the surface of a block of the quartz, upon which he applied his tomahawk, and broke off a portion. At that moment the splendid prize stood revealed to his sight. His first care was to start off home and disclose his discovery to his master, to whom he presented whatever gold might be procured from it. As may be supposed, little time was lost by the worthy doctor. Quick as horse-flesh would carry him he was on the ground, and in a very short period the three blocks of quartz, containing the hundredweight of gold, were released from the bed where, charged with unknown wealth, they had rested perhaps for thousands of years, awaiting the hand of civilised man to disturb them.

"The largest of the blocks was about a foot in diameter, and weighed 75 lbs. gross. Out of this piece 60 lbs. of pure gold were taken. Before separation it was beautifully encased in quartz. The other two were something smaller. The auriferous mass weighed as nearly as could be guessed from two to three hundredweight. Not being able to move it conveniently, Dr. Kerr broke the pieces into small fragments, and herein committed a very grand error. As specimens the glittering blocks would have been invaluable. Nothing yet known of would have borne comparison, or, if any, the comparison would have been in our favour. From the description given by him, as seen in their original state, the world has seen nothing like them yet.

"The heaviest of the two large pieces presented an appearance not unlike a honeycomb or sponge, and consisted of particles of a crystalline form, as did nearly the whole of the gold. The second larger piece was smoother, and the particles more condensed, and seemed as if it had been acted upon by water. The remainder was broken into lumps of from two to three pounds and downwards, and were remarkably free from quartz or earthy matter.

"In the place where this mass of treasure was found, quartz blocks formed an isolated heap, and were distant about one hundred yards from a quartz vein which stretches up the ridge from the Meroo Creek. The ​locality is the commencement of an undulating tableland, very fertile, and is contiguous to a never-failing supply of water in the above-named creek. It is distant about fifty-three miles from Bathurst, eighteen from Mudgee, thirty from Wellington, and eighteen to the nearest point of the Macquarie river, and is within about eight miles of Dr. Kerr's head station. The neighbouring country has been pretty well explored since the discovery, but, with the exception of dust, no further indication has been found.

"In return for his very valuable services, Dr. Kerr has presented the black fellow and his brother with two flocks of sheep, two saddle horses, and a quantity of rations, and supplied them with a team of bullocks to plough some land in which they are about to sow a crop of maize and potatoes. One of the brothers, mounted on a serviceable roadster, accompanied the party into town, and appeared not a little proud of his share in the transaction."

Dr. Kerr, the fortunate finder of this lump of gold, is mentioned in one of the Voluntary Statements from which we have several times quoted as an excellent, kind master. His brother-in-law, Mr. Suttor, of Brucedale, is a son of the introducer of orange-groves, also one of the most deservedly popular men in the colony.

Dr. Kerr's great prize revived the "sacred rage for gold" among the whole population, and Sydney seemed about to be deserted. New discoveries in various directions were made.

The Bathurst district consists of elevated table-land, intersected by barren ridges, watered by a series of Australian rivers flowing from the Canobolas Mountains, most of which have been found to be auriferous. ​The journey to Bathurst was easily performed by mail-coach or on horseback. Arrived at Bathurst, the explorer found himself in the midst of a rich pastoral and agricultural district, in which every fertile valley had a small colony of settlers, ready to supply flour, meat, milk, and butter, at reasonable charges.

The gold-diggers, instead of settling in a wilderness infested by grizzly bears and savage Indians, like California, found themselves in a district where a market was only needed to call into cultivation thousands of acres of capital land—at Frederick's Valley, a gold placer of extraordinary richness, belonging to Mr. Wentworth; at Summerhill Farms, at King's Plains, Pretty Plains, Emu Swamp, and the Cornish Settlement, where the crops in the severest droughts never failed.

The Summerhill diggings, which are now nearly exhausted, and the style of life which prevails throughout the interior of Australia, are well depicted in the following sketch by a correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald:—

"Monday, June 2.—In the morning the ice was thick upon the water in the dishes outside, and the ground covered with hoar frost, as it always is here in fine weather at this season; hot days and frosty nights.

"To an unscientific eye the gold country (Bathurst district) consists of a mass, not of ranges, but apparently of points of ranges, thrown together without any regular arrangement, but dovetailing into one another like the teeth of two saws placed close together, face to face; these teeth again being cut into smaller pieces by narrow precipitous gullies, many of them nearly as deep as the main creek itself. Small creeks twist and twine down these narrow gullies, which have a sudden bend every half-dozen yards, into the Summerhill or main creek, which twists and twines like the others, but on a larger scale. The banks of the gullies are precipitous on both sides, but in the main creek there are alternate bluffs and low points, the teeth of the saw sloping gently down, diminishing in height as they do in width, till they come to a point overhung on the opposite side by a high bluff or precipice, which forms the inside of the nick of the opposite saw; and, as we stood upon the edge of the cliff, we looked down nearly two hundred feet over and along each side of the opposite point, dotted with tents and gunyas of bark or branches, each with its fire in front, sending the blue smoke up into the clear frosty morning air; some under the noble swamp oaks at the water's edge, others behind and under the box and gum trees which towered one above another till the rising branch was merged in the ​main ridge behind. The point was occupied by about fifteen parties cutting straight into the hill; and, as we looked down upon their busy movements, digging, carrying earth, and working the cradles at the edge of the water, with the noise of the pick, the sound of voices, and the washing of the shingle in the iron boxes of the cradles, I could scarcely believe that two months ago this was a quiet secluded gully in a far-out cattle-run, where a solitary stockkeeper or black fellow on the hunt were all that ever broke the solitude of nature. On saying so to Scotch Harry, he said that he had stock-kept there for nearly twenty years, and when he came there were flocks of kangaroos; these were driven off by the cattle, and now they were as completely driven off by the gold-diggers, 'Little enough the first occupiers thought of gold,' I remarked. 'Yes,' answered Scotch Harry, 'and it would be well for some of these fellows if they thought as little;' and he told us of two who had gone mad already—one a shepherd, in the neighbourhood, found a piece while poking about his run, and came to him making a great mystery about the place, till he could find no more, when he took him to it, but it was a chance piece, and not accompanied by five or six more, as is usually the case; the fellow, however, was not satisfied, and continued searching about, till, from excitement and anxiety, he went mad; the other was a man who, after starving for two days, found 5 lbs. weight, fainted repeatedly, and is now in confinement. Kerr said that two months ago hardly a traveller passed his house in a week, now they were in crowds every hour; his children never thought there were so many people in the world before, and wondered what it all meant; he could hardly believe it himself. We did not find our dray, but heard of it close at hand, and sat down to look about us. Drays and parties of men were arriving every few minutes, many of whom gave a cheer as if they saw fortune in their hand when they looked down upon the workers in the bed of the creek below; some were putting up tents and gunyas, and some working, but all busy and all in good humour, barring the men who were constantly leaving, and looked sufficiently disgusted. We were a good deal puzzled how to get our baggage carried to Messrs. Roach and Barrington's, as it would take us at least two days to carry seven hundredweight over two miles of such ridges, or down the bed of the creek, cut up as it is in every direction; but, just as the last rays of the sun were leaving the top of the ridge, a party of nine native warriors, in their new government blankets, painted and armed with spears and boomerangs, came winding down the bank. As they passed through our camp, I asked the foremost if they would carry our baggage, to which they at once agreed, and camped with us.

​"We were all astir at daylight, and found the water frozen in the bucket, and the top of our blankets quite wet within the tent. The loads were adjusted, and the blacks, with the two men, started under the guidance of the company, and returned about noon by a short cut, we remaining to erect the tent. On loading them again, one fellow complained that a pot of beef hurt his head, so I gave him a roll of brown paper, but soon found my mistake, as not a man would move without the same, so that when I came to the last there was not a scrap left; he had only bedding to carry, and I explained to him that no pad was necessary, but he drew himself up and asked if I thought him a fool; 'Another one black fellow hab it.' He was evidently in earnest, and would have left his load there and then, had I not clapped a calling-card on his shaggy bullet head, and he went off quite proud; we gave them one shilling each and their rations, which is high pay for a black. Many return at once, without giving it one minute's trial. I saw one party arrive, six respectable looking hardworking men, all well provided with tools, clothes, and provisions. As I stood conversing with one of them, who was putting his things together to move to their tent, a parcel unrolled, and a Bible and Prayer-book fell out. He looked up, and said they should not forget these even for gold, to which I assented, with the remark that men would get none the less gold for minding them."

The Turon, which, like many Australian names, was scarcely known beyond its immediate neighbourhood before the gold discoveries, rises in the county of Roxburgh, near Cullen Cullen, and flows, like the Summerhill Creek, into the Macquarie. On its banks Sofala has been founded. Here it was that the art of cradling gold and washing gold was learned by thousands who have since removed to Mount Alexander and other districts.

The gold-fields of the Turon include river-bed claims and dry diggings.

In the river-bed claims it is the object to clear a deep hole of water, and then wash the mud and sand which have been carried there in the course of ages; partly washed to the hand of the miner by the torrents of nature. "In dry diggings" the earth after being raised must be carefully broken up and washed.

Fortunate diggers come from time to time upon lumps or "nuggets" of various sizes, which once excited great attention and curious comparison between those found in quartz, in clay, in alluvial mould; but now in the auction-rooms of Sydney and Melbourne they excite no more attention, unless of rare beauty, than so much copper or lead.

​The immediate result of the rush to the Bathurst gold-fields was to supply the district with labour at reasonable rates. A traveller observes:—"We were much struck by the difference between their ideas of the mines and those of men at a greater distance. To the latter the gold country is a place with pieces of gold ready to be picked up without trouble, and they start off, trusting to find food somehow, and quarters somewhere, as they have done hitherto in the bush; but to these men here it is an open box forest, with severe frosts every night, sleet and snow for weeks at a time, without any accommodations whatever, or rations, unless paid for in hard money, at three times the usual price: if they turn out, they exchange their comfortable warm hut and regular meals for cold and hunger at once, so that there is no room for the imagination to work. And though they all intend to give it a trial when they get their discharge, and their wages to fit them out, they expressed the greatest astonishment at the folly of the men they saw passing every day, totally unprovided: they looked upon them as literally mad."

It would fill a volume, which we may at some future time be tempted to write, to follow the history of the New South Wales Gold Fields, with all the curious attendant anecdotes. At present we cannot do better than avail ourselves of the report made to a Sydney paper by an eye-witness in the autumn of 1852:—

​

THE opening up of the gold fields of Victoria followed quick, and soon eclipsed the river claims and dry diggings of the older colony.

Gold was sold in small quantities to a jeweller of the name of Brentano, in 1848, which was found on the banks of the river Loddon, at the foot of the Clunes Hill, which is supposed to be of volcanic origin, and rises from a plane.

In August, 1851, after a reward had been offered for the discovery of gold in the Port Phillip district, the diggings were opened at the Clunes, whence a piece of two pounds of fine grain gold was sold. Afterwards they were successfully opened at Buninyong, a deep gorge formed by the bed of Anderson's Creek, in the heart of stringy bark ranges.

The weather was unfavourable, and the first attempt to levy licence fees at the Clunes created discontent. A different spirit from that at the Turon was displayed; the people struck their tents and retreated further into the ranges; this led to the discovery of Ballarat.

The commissioner having acted with great discretion, taken pains to conciliate, and applied his mechanical talent to constructing a better cradle, an improved feeling was created.

In September the returns were better—more nuggets—one man getting eight ounces in a week. Success soon brought two hundred up; and, the weather clearing, gold gathering became one of the trades of Victoria, and licence fees, being found a protection, were paid willingly. Diggers combined to preserve order, held meetings, and settled all disputed points.

At Clunes the rock was mined—at Ballarat the soil only was washed.

In October the government escort was established, and large returns were raised daily. By the middle of the month ten thousand men were at work with 1,200 to 1,300 cradles at Ballarat. The estimated daily earnings were £10,000, very unequally distributed.

​

In the same month a public meeting of the Ballarat diggers was held, to adopt measures for securing a supply of water during the coming dry season, and a subscription of one shilling a head was commenced for the purpose of damming up the waters of the creek; the commissioner of crown lands was elected treasurer, and any surplus was to go towards an hospital for the sick diggers.

In September the gold was found in such quantities round Mount Alexander, the Mount Byng of Mitchell, as to attract large numbers from Ballarat. At Mount Alexander gold was taken up with pocket-knives from soil a few inches below the surface in such profusion, that one man filled a quart pot with small nuggets in the course of the day. A rush took place from all the other diggings to the last-found region, and in a very few days there were eight thousand at work.

In November three tons of gold lay at the commissioner's tent at Forest Creek waiting for an escort, and not less than twenty-five thousand persons were working at the spot.

On December 1st government issued a notice raising the licence fee ​to £3 a month; but this move met so much resistance that it was almost immediately rescinded.

The dry weather setting in, the diggers in the course of January were reduced to 10,000 persons.

In January the new Legislative Council came to a series of resolutions adverse to the licensing system, and suggesting an export duty.

In the same month a working man found at the Forest Creek diggings the largest lump of solid gold yet discovered, weighing 27 lbs. 8 oz., perfectly pure, free from quartz or other impurity, which he sold to a Melbourne dealer.

In May, 1852, the numbers at Mount Alexander were estimated at from thirty to forty thousand souls.

Since that period the gold-fields round Mount Ballarat have been almost deserted, except by residents in the locality.

"Having cleared the city we overtook the golden army of bullock-drays moving northward, surrounded by companies of men and lads: occasionally a female is seen. Four bulldogs pull one carriage, a great dog in the shafts of another, and a man pushing behind at a load of near five hundredweight.

"Presently the splendid panorama opened to view an extensive sweep of plains, encircled by mountain ranges in the remote distance. Far as the eye can reach, the pilgrimage, its line moving along the undulations, now hid, now rising into view English and Germans, Irish and Scotch, Tasmanians.

*

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"Sixteen drays at Yuille's Ford, and nearly two hundred people. It is nearly impassable, from the fresh current of yesterday's rain. But the men, tailing on to the ropes by dozens, pull both the horses and carts through. Some there are pulling, some cooking their midday meals, some unloading the drays, some moving off the ground. Over the ford the road is delightful, the scenery charming, the land more broken, and timbered like a park. Ladidak comes in view, a beautiful ravine formed by the convergence of several hills, at the base of which the river so winds that it must be crossed thrice.

"Where formerly was silence, only broken by the voice of the bell-bird, now bullock-drays, bullocks, and bullock-drivers, are shouting, roaring, and swearing up the hill, or descending splashing through the once clear stream. On, on until the expanse of Bacchus Marsh opens, until lately a favourite meet of our hounds.

"A camp of tents has been formed by those who think it discreet to ​put off the crossing struggle until their beasts have had the benefit of a night's rest; loud is the ringing of bullock-bells; meanwhile an impromptu bridge of a tree has been thrown across the river, and men are crossing and recrossing like a stream of ants. A dray deep in the stream makes a complete capsize before it can be hauled through.

"Our tandem dog-cart dashes through gallantly, we reach the Pentland Hills, where another encampment has been formed in the long ravine; we trot on slowly, the moon bright, the sky cloudless, a sharp frost nips the uplands, the campers eating, drinking, and smoking; architects, jewellers, chemists, booksellers, tinker, tailor, and sailor, all cold but cheerful. At the next station we halt and enjoy our friend's fire and supper.

"The next morning broke bright and fresh; the ground was white with frost; at daylight the train of pilgrims were crossing the plain the Germans with wheelbarrows led the way. At Ballan we find the inn eaten out. A horse passes at speed bearing on his back two horse-men. We meet sulky parties of the unsuccessful returning, and see signs in small excavations of prospecting parties. The forest grows

denser; toward evening we reach the hospitable roof-tree of Lai Lai, where at daybreak all the laughing jackasses of the country seemed to have established a representative assembly. Ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! hu, hu, hu! ring forth in every variety of key innumerous.

​"The cavalcade in motion splashes through the broad river, where one driver, in his shirt, without breeches, walks beside and urges on his horses, fearful of his dray sticking on the way. Our next point is Warren Neep, where we refresh with a draught from the delicious mineral spring. Two miles from Warren Neep the hills begin gradually to slope toward Ballarat. The forest trees are loftier and denser, but the surface soil is not so richly grassed. The road emerges on to a rich bottom of considerable extent, and the hill to the left extends upwards in such a gentle slope as to diminish the appearance of its height. Within a mile and a half of Golden Point the tents begin to peer through the trees. The Black Hill rises precipitously on the right from a creek that washes its base, and through its thick forest covering the road is visible down which the carriers are conveying their earth.

"The bank of the creek is lined with cradles, and the washers are in full operation. Round the base of the mountain, on the further side, at right angles with this creek, the River Lee flows; and for half a mile along its bank the cradles are at work. We descend, leave the road, cross the bottom, spring over a dam, and are among the workmen. 'Rock, rock, rock! swish, swash, swish!'—such the universal sound.

"The cradle is placed lengthwise with the water. The cradleman, holding the handle in his left hand, with a stick or scraper to break the lumps of earth or stir up the contents, keeps the cradle constantly going. The waterman, standing at the head of the cradle with a ladle of any kind, keeps baling water continuously into it. A third man washes carefully into a large tin dish the deposit that has fallen through the sieves of the cradle on to the boards beneath, carries it into the stream, where he stands knee-deep, and, tilting the dish up under the water, and shaking its contents, the precious metal falls to the bottom, while the earth and sand are washed out by the water.

"After long washing the glittering dust is seen along the bottom edges of the dish. This residuum is carefully washed into a pannikin, dried over the fire, and bottled or packed for exportation. Meanwhile the 'cradleman' and 'waterman' examine the quartz stones in the upper sieve for quartz gold. Occasionally some are found with pieces of quartz adhering, the rest are thrown aside. The cradle filled, the men are at work again, and the rocking recommences. On the top of the hill the diggers are hard at work; the carriers descend the steep side, dragging a loaded sled filled with the gold-impregnated earth, some with tin vessels on their heads, others with bags on their backs. The earth thrown down, they reascend the toilsome way; and this is the process 'from morn till dewy eve.'

​"Returning to the road, the outer encampment this side of Golden Point became visible. A sound is heard like the continuous beat of a thousand muffled drums, or the rushing of a mighty waterfall. As we issue from the trees the cause is beheld. From the margin of the forest a broad swamp spreads, through which the Lee runs. Over against you the broad shoulder of a bold hill is pushed out to meet its attacking waters, and round its base run the swamp waters, uniting with the river. Along this the cradles are ranged for about half a mile, on both sides of the creek and down the river, forming the letter T with the ends upturned. They are crowded so closely together as barely to permit being worked, in some places in triple file. At this distance you see some of the excavations, and the carriers swarming up and down hill with all sorts of vessels, from the bag to the wheelbarrow. The enormous ant-hive swarms like a railway cutting, where the crown of a hill is carried down to fill a valley.

"Higher up the hill's crest, along its sides, and stretching down to the swamp far away to the right and left, are the tents, thickly clustered and pitched, and, far beyond, the lofty white-barked trees form a background. This is Ballarat!

"Crossing the swamp, we reach the commissioner's tent, where he is ​trying a depredator, who, for want of a lock-up, has been tied to a tree all through the hard night's frost.

"Troops of horses, drays, carts, and gigs, with their owners, are all around. Squatter, merchant, farmer, shopkeeper, labourer, shepherd, artisan, law, physic, and divinity, all are here.⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠You meet men you have not seen for years, but they recognise you first, for even your most intimate friends are scarcely to be known in the disguise of costume, beard, and dirt.⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠'Welcome to Golden Point!' 'Ah, old friend! hardly knew you. How are you getting on?' 'Did nothing for a week; tried six holes and found no gold. My party, disheartened, left me. I formed another party; sank eighteen feet until we came to the quartz, and dug through it, and now I have reached the blue clay. It is a capital hole; come and see it.'

"Imagine a gigantic honeycomb, in which the cells are eight feet wide and from six to twenty-five feet deep, with the partitions proportionately thin, and to follow a friend to find a hole in the very midst is dangerous work—

"The miners move nimbly about, with barrow, pick, and bag, swarming along the narrow ledges, while below others are picking, shovelling, and heating the stove.

"'No danger, sir; our bank is supported by quartz. We've got to the gold at last. Made an ounce yesterday. There was a man killed yesterday three holes off; the bank fell down on him as he was squatting down this way, picking under the bank, and squeezed him together. His mate had his head cut, and was covered up to the throat.'

"Down the shady excuse for a ladder, half the way, then a jump, and the bottom of the capital hole is gained. Nearly four feet of red sand formed the upper layer, next a strata of pipeclay, below which lie the quartz boulders; then a formation of quartz pebbles, with sand impregnated with iron; this penetrated, the bluish marl is reached in which the vein of gold is found.

"Down among the men washing there is nothing to be observed. The work is earnest—no time for talk.

"The commissioner has a busy time issuing licences. His tent has the mounted police on one side, and the native police on the other. The black fellows are busy tailoring; one on the broad of his back, in the sun, with his eyes shut, chanting a monotonous aboriginal ditty.

"Three men are waiting their turn with the commissioner.

​"'I say, Bill, this here's rayther respectable okipashun—that cove with the specs is a first-class swell in Melbourne, and there's a lot in the same party with him. The greatest nobs are all the same as uz snobs! I saw Mr. —— from the Barwon here this morning: he found his shepherd in a hole getting gold, an' no mistake! He comes with his brother to have a turn with the rest; but when he saw him he looked non-plushed, and said to himself, "Well, I can't go down to this,"—and I believe the fool started back;—but come, it's our turn now.'

"The evening shadows fall, the gun from the commissioner's tent is fired—the signal for digging to cease; the fires blaze up, the men gather round them for their evening meal, their smoke floats over the trees as over a city, the sounds of labour are hushed, but are succeeded by loud voices and ringing laughter, mingled with the bells of the browsing oxen, and the dogs baying more loudly as the darkness grows more dark. A party of gamblers are staking each a pinch of gold-dust on the turn of a copper. The native police, lithe and graceful as kangaroo-dogs, are enjoying a round of sham combat; one black fellow attacks with a frying-pan; the other pretends to shoot him with his knife: a painter might study their attitudes. Hark! to the sax-horns from the Black Hill floating to us across the valley; close at hand the sweet melody of the German hymn in chorus rises; and then down from toward the river comes the roaring chorus of a sailor's song. The space and distance mellow in one harmonious whole all the sounds; and as we retreat they fall upon one wearied with hard labour, like the rich hum of an English meadow in harvest time.

"A flash! a bang! another! now platoon-firing: become infectious, the sounds of war mingle with and overpower the music.

"The warm day terminated in a bitter cold night, and a storm of snow and hail ushered in Sunday—for we are 1,200 feet above the sea. On the Sabbath digging and washing gold cease; but the axe and the hammer ring continually, and the crash of falling timber booms over the hills. The miners, with what few wives are there, are building huts, mending tents, gathering firewood, and washing out their mud-stained garments.

"The men soon assume a clean and more civilised costume, form groups, compare notes, make calls. The unsuccessful wander off into remote spots, prospecting. Some start for the post-office. The tide of emigrants flows in, and men who never before dwelt out of reach of an inn and a waiter have to learn now to camp under a tree and cook a chop without a frying-pan."

​ ​

THE disappointments in California had rendered the English public cautious, but the arrival in the port of London of actual cargoes of gold, and letters from colonists enriched by digging, presently brought the emigrating public to fever heat, and thousands of all classes and ages betook themselves to Australia, and a large re-emigration took place from South Australia and New South Wales. From the correspondence and journals of these adventurers—some of them experienced colonists—we condense accounts of what they saw, omitting much of what they thought, hoped, feared, and ejaculated.

"In the first place, take your own passage or berth for yourself: trust not to any one, not even a brother, for it. Second, make the bargain that no one is to be in the same berth with you (that is, if you go in the second cabin or intermediate.) Bring on board a small barrel for holding water (not a tin can, on any account), a camp stool for sitting on, a lock and key for your berth door, and a determination to make a companion of no one all the voyage, and only seek a speaking friend after you have been three weeks at sea. It is also indispensably necessary that every article you possess, except the wearing apparel on your person, be locked in your trunks and the keys in your pocket.

"In the accounts of the voyages to Australia you will notice that much is said about the great heat; but, as far as my experience goes, too little is said about the extreme cold weather which is experienced after rounding the Cape of Good Hope. It is necessary, therefore, to have a suit of very warm clothing, no matter how coarse it is, but warm it must be. If you were not teetotalers, I should also advise you to bring with you two bottles of brandy and the same quantity of whiskey, but that as your taste inclines.⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*

"The headlands of Port Phillip were reached and entered, the anchor was thrown overboard, and our vessel from Liverpool, with 175 passengers, had completed the voyage from England to Australia in eighty-two days.⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*

​"We thought then our troubles were over, but not so. Well, the anchor is dropped; and the captain, who has been up all night, hoarse with bawling and swearing, goes down below to sleep. You go below also to get breakfast, and find that the steward does not consider himself bound to serve the passengers with clean cups any longer. On being remonstrated with, his answer will probably be, 'You may go to the devil.' Well, it is no use kicking against the pricks; therefore help yourself, and go to the cookhouse for hot water, and get everything requisite for breakfast. The talk then begins in the forenoon—after all the beauties of the bay have been pointed out over and over again, until you are absolutely sick of them—the cry then is, 'Where is the pilot?' The answer from some one is, 'Oh, all those ships are to go up the bay before us, and we must wait our turn. It may be a week before we get up yet.' Day draws on, but no pilot. Next morning no pilot; still dirty plates, and the steward grown more insolent. In the afternoon the pilot comes on board. He says, 'The wind is against us, we may lie here a week.' All next day the wind is against us, but the following day a breeze springs up, the sails are spread out to the breeze, a man is placed in the chains to heave the lead, and off we go. In the afternoon we reach Hobson's Bay, still a part of Port Phillip, but a different creek. Well, the anchor is again dropped, the pilot leaves the ship, and another is added to the 150 ships at anchor in the bay. We are still eight miles from Melbourne, which lies on the Yarra Yarra. The cry then is, 'When shall we get ashore?' 'Oh,' replies one, 'the inspector must come on board first, and the captain must go on shore to deliver up his papers, and a lighter or steamer must be engaged to take us up.' Well, in two days no steamer or lighter appeared: and Mr. W—— and I went off with a steamer that was plying about among the shipping, and paid 5s. each for a sail of eight miles. We reached Melbourne. We asked where a house was to be had. The reply was, 'There are no houses to let in Melbourne.' Lodgings we could have got at £2 each a week, but that we did not want. All that day we walked through the town searching for a house, but found none. We returned to the ship, and paid 7s. each for another sail. We came on shore next day for 2s. 6d., walked all day, and again failed in our object; but that night we stayed in an inn on shore, and next morning we had the pleasure of securing a wooden erection, miscalled a house, of two rooms, at the moderate rent of £1 per week. Joyfully we returned to the ship, expecting that a lighter would be alongside to take our luggage and our wives to the house we had rented; but, alas for the courtesy and attention of our captain! no such comfort awaited ​us. 'It will be here to-morrow,' was his reply when asked about it. To-morrow came, but no lighter. Passengers got savage; some swore; some urged that a deputation should be sent to the agent of the ship, and to the magistrates of Melbourne. This course was adopted; two gentlemen were deputed to go. They went. The agent told them he knew nothing about it, and that they had better get on shore with their luggage as best they could. The magistrates said, 'Make your case known to a respectable solicitor, and we will hear it.' Thus were we pushed about from one to another. One man took his luggage ashore in a boat, at his own cost, at an expense of £9 sterling. Had I followed his example it would have cost me as much. I went to the captain; he assured me the lighter would come in a few days, and, being sick of the ship, Mary and I, along with a Mrs. W—— and her daughter, bolted from the ship, and left our luggage to the care of Providence. We slept two nights in an inn. Mr. W——'s luggage came at the expiry of that period in a lighter, and we then got his boxes into one of the wooden houses previously taken. There we lived for a fortnight. None of my luggage came ashore all that time. I was in the same position as the rest of the passengers, and after waiting and wearying our hopes almost out, we got everything safe and sound out of the lighter on the 1st of November. That, however, was but one-half of my troubles. Melbourne was flooded with young men seeking situations, which were not to be had."

After several unsuccessful applications for employment, and some other mishaps, the writer continues—

"Sad, dejected, and weary, we reached Mr. W——'s house, where we slept all night. Next day I got up my luggage and took one of P——'s rooms, dressed myself in my best, went to the Argus office, quite in a state of desperation, and was civilly received, and offered at once a situation at £208 per annum."

"Here am I at this moment seated on a trunk, with my writing-desk opened on the top of another trunk, and a blazing wood fire on the hearth, with the lamp that served us on the voyage lighted beside me. My wife is seated on my carpet bag, stuffed with dirty clothes, busily engaged in mending stockings, which yesterday she washed and dried at the front of the house. The floor is covered with canvass; the walls are of wood, through which the light shines when the lamp is extinguished, and the roof is also covered with pieces of wood instead of good blue slates. Our mattresses, which served us on the ship— ​good hair ones—are spread out in one corner of the room. In another is a load of wood, for which I paid this day the sum of 1 5s., and my large trunk stands against a partition, with the lid covered with all my books and papers. The house has two rooms. Mr. Hutton and his wife stay in one apartment, James Pett and his wife are living in the other. There, now you have a picture of our domestic economy; and when I add that both Mary and I are cheerful and happy in it, I give you full liberty to enjoy a laugh at what I have the honour to call my first house.

"The advance of Melbourne, in a commercial point of view, is surprisingly rapid, and so far her prosperity seems to be based on a safe monetary foundation. The business part of the city is crowded each day by an anxious throng, mostly parties preparing for or returning from the diggings. In one lot you will see the lately arrived 'new chum,' with his carefully cultivated moustache, raised on the voyage, a la, Bond-street; his leathern overalls, his fancy stick, and his 'swag' done up in Mackintosh. In another you may behold the 'old hand,' the wary old file who has campaigned it at the Turon, at Braidwood, and at the Mount, and who is now preparing for a trip to Bendigo, but who declares that there is no use going till the roads are open. With him there is none of your finery. A pair of stout boots, a blanket, and the everlasting 'hook-pot,' complete his equipment. Anon you enter a gold-buyer's shop, and perceive a party disposing of the proceeds of their adventure. One party of three that I saw the other day had 145 lbs. weight to dispose of. Another, a sailor lad, had 28 lbs., the produce of three months' work at the Bendigo. Such instances are of no rare occurrence; in short they are rather the rule than the exception.

"I have said much about the immorality of the place; it is but fair to state that my remarks apply only to a certain class, who are, as it were, beyond the pale of society, but whose conduct exercises a pernicious influence upon the whole social system. I have been to most of the churches on Sabbath, and I was pleased to find all of them well filled with respectable and attentive congregations. In one particular the clergy are reaping a golden harvest from the diggings themselves. I allude to the demand which there is for their services in that ceremony which binds the sexes together 'for better for worse' through life. And let me inform you that a digger's marriage here is no everyday affair, though they be upon each successive Sunday. The turn-out on all occasions is spicy. I have seen even the wheels of the vehicles (six in number) adorned with rosettes of love ribbons; the jarvey and ​the horse covered with white so profusely that at a distance they might pass for a small locomotive pyramid of snow. And such dresses as are worn by the brides and bridesmaids—such silks, such satins, such orange blossoms!

"The city itself, though well laid out, is in the most wretched condition as regards all sanitary regulations, and as regards what is still of more immediate consequence to its inhabitants—protection for life and property. The rains, which have not yet ceased for the season, continue to pour down in incessant torrents, covering all the flat and marshy ground around the city, and within it it is no exaggeration to say that the streets are like so many rivers of mud, and in many instances knee deep. So deep and so dirty are the streets, that one out of every three pedestrians you meet in the course of the day, has his nether man encased in a pair of huge leather boots—no other way of getting along with safety being available. Add to the filthy state of the streets the fact that there is no gas in the town, nor attempt made to light it in any way, and that water for culinary purposes is so dear as to become an article of luxury rather than of use, and you will be able to form some slight idea of the sanitary condition of this city.

"There is not household accommodation for one-third of its present occupants. I have seen instances of over-crowding in sleeping apartments since I came here, that were it to occur in any other country in the world would breed almost instant fever. It is no rare thing to see twenty stout and stalwart men, each requiring as much air for the proper inflation of his lungs as an ox, stretched upon the floor of a close, confined, unventilated room, night after night; and for this accommodation various prices are charged, from one-and-sixpence to half-a-crown. Nor in this respect are what may be termed respectable taverns much better. I know an instance where four men were sleeping in one room, in a respectable hotel, and were all thrown into dirty sheets, handed on the first morning of their sojourn, dirty, nay filthy towels; and after the lapse of four days I happened to meet with one of the party, and making inquiry as to whether there had been any reform in the toilet department—'No,' said he, 'the same nasty things are there yet. We asked for a change, but were told that if we did not like them we might change our quarters, and so we are just as before.'

"A few evenings since I was at the house of a friend of that peace-loving class called Quakers, and several other gentlemen were there besides, when we were all at once startled by a heavy rap at the door. Our host and 'friend' immediately opened it, when a herculean savage thrust a great bullet head inside, and in the most insolent tones ​demanded either money or a night's lodging. Friend John expostulated, but, being rather diminutive in stature, the intruder paid but little attention to him until he perceived the company, when he retired grumbling and swearing, 'What, though he was a government man, he had as good a right to summit as any other.' It is generally believed here that the parties who are the ringleaders, at least, of those vagabonds are those gentlemen whom Earl Grey so pathetically describes as bearing favourable comparison with the free emigrants who have come here."

"In the neighbourhood of the capital of Victoria there are many pleasant spots, where one given to rambling may spend a quiet afternoon, and where 'ye manners and ye customs of ye people' may be learned as clearly as if you mingled in all their everyday avocations. Amongst the most popular places of resort are, St. Kilda and Liardet's Beach, both situated on the margin of the noble bay, nearly opposite William's Town. Although Melbourne possesses a tolerably fair steam fleet, in the shape of various tug boats, belonging chiefly to Captain Cole, not one of these vessels is allowed to ply on Sunday; and hence there is, upon one day in the week at least, a very great demand for horse-flesh. The bazaars and livery stables upon a Sunday morning present a very animated spectacle; for here almost every masculine biped of the genus homo considers it his peculiar privilege to mount his horse on Sunday, without, be it remembered, the smallest reference to the fact as to whether he can ride or not.

"St. Kilda lies about three miles from Melbourne, on the south side of the Yarra, and as there is no highway, except the usual bush ruts after the Prince's Bridge is crossed, the walk or ride, which you please, is very pleasant. Arrived at the village, you are somewhat surprised at the appearance of rapid growth which everything indicates. Houses (wooden, of course) are in course of construction, some nearly finished, others but commenced; and yet so eager are the people for house accommodation, that the shingles are scarcely on the roofs before they are tenanted. At St. Kilda there is a very fine hotel, at which they charge very fine prices; but then, in the go-a-head city, as Melbourne is now called, who cares for a handful of silver? I was much pleased to observe here a taste more generally diffused for the cultivation of flowers than is to be found generally about Melbourne.

"The ramble from St. Kilda to Liardet's Beach, by the margin of the wide and noble bay, a distance of about two miles, is very agreeable; ​although, beyond the broad expanse of water, dotted, nay, closely studded with shipping at anchor, there is nothing to relieve the dull monotony of the place. At Liardet's, however, the scene changes, and from the solitude of the shore and your own reflections, you are once more aroused by the din of human voices. Here they are again—shopkeepers, shopmen, diggers, ladies, diggers' wives, horses, hackney carriages, shandies, gigs, and almost every possible, and sometimes very questionable modes of conveyance, all congregated on the sand. Pedestrians wandering, promenading, flirting, drinking, laughing, talking, on the pier and in the shade of the cool verandahs; pic-nics in the scrub; mirth and merriment everywhere; boatmen lustily bawling for passengers, and waiters for more drink at the bar of the hotel. Tents are pitched upon all the ground surrounding this house of entertainment, wherein many a new chum for the first time indulges in a glass of ale, and when he has paid sixpence, declares that 'it is not half so good as Burton or Alton.'

"A good deal of novelty is added to this scene by the constant transit to and from a large ship, the Duke of Bedford, which is here moored off the pier, and turned into a model lodging-house. 'Bed and board, sir,' said our conductors on board, the other day, 'for two pounds a week; delightful marine residence and boatage found into the bargain.' Decidedly the accommodations are excellent, and the worthy proprietor keeps a good table. His apartments are full. It would be well if a few more of the dozens upon dozens of idle ships lying in harbour were turned to an equally useful and profitable account to their owners. I was a good deal surprised to find, amidst all the recreations of all classes and all kinds who visit the beach upon Sunday, so little riot or intoxication. Except upon the arrival of a lot of 'new chums,' with more money than sense, you will hardly observe any riot or drunkenness. Noise there is, but still there is order.

"The road from the beach to town lies through a low marshy scrub, which presents not one single pleasing feature, except we diverge at the Emerald Hill and take a look in at the encampment of the tents of gold-diggers in transitu to the Mount or elsewhere. There are the coverings erected by poor new-comers to shelter them from the heavens, and to make a temporary but safe refuge for themselves, their luggage, and their families. And, oh! such squalor, such misery. It is pitiable to see well-dressed and genteelly-reared females, young and tender infants, as well as grown-up persons, crouching and squatting in miserable wigwams, of which a North-American Indian would be ashamed. But what can the creatures do?

​"The botanic garden is another favourite resort for the Melbournites upon Sunday; but its visitors are of a different class. This is the ground where half the 'matches' which grace our churches daily are contracted. Here it is that newly-married husbands display their brides during the honeymoon. Such a blaze of silk and satin, such bonnets, such feathers, flowers (artificial, of course), and such ribbons! I was particularly struck with the freshness and beauty of many of the charming belles who frequent the gardens, contrasting strongly with the general sallow and somewhat acclimatised style of female beauty prevalent about Sydney. They are generally handsome, and fresh in colour.

"The charges to which poor confiding passengers are subjected to before landing here from the bay are monstrous. These people take their passage at Liverpool or London on the faith that themselves and luggage will be delivered at Melbourne the same as at Sydney; but guess their astonishment when they find that they have 4s. each to pay for steam-boat fare up, and 30s. per ton for their luggage; and when they get on the wharf, there are other dues which, as the wharves belong to private individuals, are fixed at such rates as their honours please.

"When the Lady Head arrived here from Liverpool the weather was most inclement—wet pouring down in bucketfuls, and the dirt, slop, and mud more than knee-deep, not only in the thoroughfares, but in every spot where it was possible for human beings to set foot. In this state of affairs I saw more than 400 poor people thrust upon our wharves, without food or shelter, but what their scanty bedding supplied. In this state of affairs, Mr. Cole allowed the poor sufferers the use of the sheds on his wharf. Happening to be there in the early part of the night, I ascertained that a young woman, the wife of an intelligent Scotchman, gave birth to her first-born child.

"The public buildings of Melbourne are of a most inferior description, both in point of architectural style and internal accommodation. The only building of note at all adequate to its requirements is the Mechanics' Institution; and it has now to do the treble duty of concert hall, assembly room, and town hall, including offices, &c., for the town clerk. The library attached to the institution is very good indeed, and the rooms spacious and commodious. The Legislative Council sits now in St. Patrick's Hall."

"Sep. 8th.—Left the camp, passed through Flemington, about three miles out of Melbourne; roads in a dreadful state. Hundreds going to and returning from the diggings. Met several of those who came down ​in the Waratah with us, who had been up at the diggings, and had returned already, having 'ta'en a scunner' at it, as they say in Scotland. A most beautiful country, as green as emerald, hills richly sloping, and clotted with umbrageous trees. The country, from the appearance of the soil and formation of the hills, appears to be admirably adapted for the cultivation of the vine. The mimosa, which is a much handsomer tree here than in New South Wales, being large and shady, appears scattered through the forest, and being now in full bloom, presents to the view a perfect mass of beautiful golden flowers. Travelled to-day only five miles, the roads being ankle-deep.

"9th.—Our horses strayed away during the night, and we did not find them until mid-day. Just after starting it commenced to rain slightly. Crossing Keila Plains the roads were awfully bad, and to add to our ills the rain poured down in regular torrents. Had our horses not have been first-rate ones we must inevitably have stuck fast, as during the whole day they had heavy pulling, men on foot being unable to walk the road without sinking knee-deep. We had two

​horses in the cart, and had about 12 cwt. on it. Notwithstanding the plight in which we were, we could not but admire the scenery, which was beautifully varied—now broad, undulating meadows—now groves of shea-oaks, eucalyptus, and mimosa; while the grass everywhere was green and soft as silk. Crossed the Broad Meadow, and came to the foot of Gellibrand's Hill. Several drays were at the bottom of this, trying to get up, but it was with the greatest difficulty that they reached the summit, five or six bullocks falling down at a time through the slipperiness of the road. Ascended it without much difficulty, and encamped on the top of it. Travelled seven miles.

"10th.—Roads worse than on either of the previous days, the ground being quite rotten and swampy. Country resembling parts of Liverpool Plains; timber principally box. In the evening a suspicious looking character came to the camp, having no boots or hat on, telling us that he had been robbed, and threatening vengeance on the thief. Our clothes-box being in the cart, C———— wanted to have it brought into the tent, as our fortune he said was in it, upon which some wit in the camp replied that it was a ragged one. The fellow, however, who appeared to be a shepherd for some one in the vicinity, after staying some time, and using some ferocious language in reference to his spoliator, departed quietly, but not before we had given him several hints that his room was more acceptable than his company. Eight miles.

"11th.—When at breakfast this morning, a large brown snake came out of the log that was burning, and went into a pool of water close by. Those who doubt the fact of a snake's having legs might have been convinced of it by seeing this one, as the legs were distinctly visible after they had been swollen by the heat, and much resembled those of a caterpillar, only they were much larger. Roads very swampy. Kept along the Deep Creek for a considerable part of the day, Mount Macedon being in sight on our left hand. Much of the scenery very picturesque, especially on the Deep Creek, the trees consisting of honeysuckle, cherry-tree, mimosa, eucalyptus, &c. There is a species of thorny mimosa growing here, which I have never seen in New South Wales, and the foliage of which is very pretty. Came to the Rocky Waterholes' Plain, where we met a bullock driver, who informed us that gold had been found within a few miles on a station belonging to Mr. Rigg. We determined upon inspecting the new gold-field, and leaving the others with the cart, three of us started in search of it. After going about half a mile, we came to Rigg's house, when we were directed to the diggings, about a quarter of a mile distant. When we got there, there were ​about a dozen men, two of whom only were at work; the rest having come, like ourselves, to see the place. The two men who had discovered the gold informed us that they had been working there about a fortnight—no one knowing it until the day before. They had sunk several holes on the top of a pretty high hill—the gullies as yet being too wet to allow of a hole to be sunk in them. From what we could learn from themselves, and from washing several tin dishfuls of earth taken from the bottom of the holes which they had sunk, it did not appear to us that much could be done in that spot, although it seems very probable that a rich gold-field will be discovered somewhere in the neighbourhood. About four feet below the surface there was a vein of quartz, which was extraordinarily rich in ore. Every stone that we broke was dotted with minute specks of gold. One of the men showed us a piece that he had obtained from one of the holes, about the size of a pea. The soil through which they sunk was decomposed slate, resting on a bed of pipeclay. The appearance of the country around is very picturesque, particularly near the banks of the Deep Creek—gently sloping hills, dotted with umbrageous gum-trees, and covered with a thick sward of grass as green as emerald. Went back to our mates, intending to proceed about half a mile further before we pitched our tent. Crossing a flat, we were obliged to divide the load into two; but notwithstanding this, we got bogged, and were obliged to unload and take the horses out. Camped on Rigg's station. Five miles. The mosquitoes very troublesome, which one would not expect at this time of the year.

"12th (Sunday).—Stayed at encampment. Some went out to inspect the new diggings, and returned bringing with them several pieces of quartz full of specks of gold. The majority, notwithstanding, determined on proceeding to Bendigo, in preference to stopping to give the place a trial. Four men encamped with us this night, who reported a fight about a claim at the diggings, in which two or three men were killed, and several wounded. They told us also that a nugget of pure gold, weighing upwards of 28 lbs., had been found at Eagle Hawk Gully, Bendigo. The Deep Creek, on which the new diggings are situated, runs eastward. If, therefore, gold in abundance be found there, it will be somewhat in contradiction to geological theories. The distance is twenty-five miles from Melbourne.

"13th.—Very bad roads again. Country undulating and more thickly timbered; box and stringy-bark ranges. Get bogged, and take the horses out. Ascended Pretty Sally's or the Big Hill. The soil excellent, and cultivation on the very top of the mountain. The road which we came and that to Sydney meet on the top of this hill. ​Magnificent view from the top of the hill—open plains, wood-crowned heights, shady valleys, and towering hills—'places which pale passion loves'—the view extending on one side to the sea coast, and the habitations of man alone being wanting to make the scenery perfect. Descended the hill and encamped at the foot of it. Twelve miles. A tall Highlander who was at a camp close by came down to converse with some of his countrymen who were with us, and afforded us much amusement.

"14th.—Passed through Kilmore; the land very rich; saw the wife of the man who had obtained the 28 lb. nugget at Bendigo. She informed us that her husband had sold it for £4 per ounce. About midday it commenced to rain very hard; roads indescribably bad; got bogged and unloaded, pulled the dray out, went a few yards and got bogged again; pulled the dray out again, and camped on the side of a ridge; the ground everywhere, both on the road and ranges, being perfectly rotten. Up nearly all night drying our bed-clothes, &c., which had got wet through. Obliged every night to cut poles and boughs to put under us, the ground being a regular quagmire. The tinkling of the oxen's bells, which one hears at every encampment, gives somewhat of an oriental character to the scene. Six miles.

"15th.—Crossed Donohoe's Creek; broke one of the traces in crossing, with fair pulling. If the horses had not been extraordinarily good they could never have kept on, in the state in which the roads were. Came to a creek in which there were several drays stuck—one with nine horses—it being unable to cross. There is scarcely a dray you meet on the road that is not accompanied with one or two women, oftentimes with families of children, all bound for or returning from the diggings. Got bogged in crossing the creek, unloaded, and then had great difficulty in getting over, as the horses had no footing, and sank up to the shoulder. The country very beautiful, compensating in part for the badness of the roads, which were the worst we had encountered. The hills and valleys were covered with flowers daisies, white and yellow butter-cups, snowdrops, &c., while the mimosa bloomed along our path, adding fresh beauty to the scene and fragrancy to the air. Each succeeding scene only impresses more forcibly on the mind the appropriateness of the title bestowed upon the country by Sir T. Mitchell, of 'Australia Felix.' The country is well grassed and watered, the timber low and branching, without any underwood, and more beautiful and picturesque than any park. Just before encamping got bogged the second time, the ground being very deceiving, the horses sinking to their middle in a place where you would least ​expect it. Encamped in a most beautiful and romantic valley, on the banks of a deep creek, with large waterholes—which some fanciful individuals of our party imagined might be the retreats of the far-famed bunyip. Honeysuckle, mimosa, and eucalyptus were the most common trees, and formed beautiful groves. Five miles.

"16th.—Crossed two very bad creeks; met a great number of drays; crossed box hill and stringy bark ranges; the latter always dreary-looking. Witnessed some beautiful scenery; hills rising over hills, covered with grass and shady trees; the valleys enamelled with flowers. Passed Morrison's station—a beautiful place. Ascended the Dividing Range. Granite in large masses begins to appear; quartz predominates in this to a very unusual extent, and this fact may probably throw some light on the richness of the Victoria gold-fields. The rocks are ofttimes of very peculiar forms, and in remarkable situations; large masses of tons weight, and quite round, lying on top of one another; the least effort being sufficient to remove them, and send them headlong down the mountain. The ranges are very low, and in fact the whole country is remarkably level; a circumstance which is contrary to one's ​preconceived notions of a gold-bearing region. The roads much better, and lined with diggers homeward and outward bound. The soil decomposed granite, which appears to be the only rock in the neighbourhood. The honeysuckle is met with here much farther from the coast than in Australia Proper, and grows in all sorts of soil and situations. Crossed Morrison's Creek, over which there is a bridge, the passage over which is rather unsafe, in consequence of the late heavy rains. Overtook two horse teams from Goulburn, which had been four months on the road, having been detained in crossing the river a week or fortnight at a time. Splendid views from the axis of the mountain ranges; sheep and cattle feeding on the wood-crowned hills, and in the fertile valleys, and forming a charming and enticing picture of pastoral life. Encamped, having for beds the branches of the gum wattle, as soft and luxurious as a bed of down. Fourteen miles.

"17th.—Crossed scrubby stringy bark ranges; got bogged, and were obliged to lay logs for twenty or thirty yards in order to get through roads pretty good except in the gullies, which were desperately bad; fragmentary quartz in great abundance, and strong indications of gold; got bogged the second time near the M'Ivor Inn; most beautiful scenery; roads excellent, and as level as possible for the last three miles of this day's journey; encamped in the most delightful valley that the eye of man could behold. Never before did the country seem so justly to merit the appellation of the 'blest Australia'—never before did the mimosa seem to bear such lovely blossoms, or shed such fragrant odours—never before did the air seem so pure, clear, and inspiriting as in that delicious valley. The herbage soft, green, and luxuriant. Flowers of all hues, white, and purple, and crimson, and gold, and violet, in which those of a golden colour predominated, enamelled the hills and valleys, grateful alike to the sight and smell. Buttercups, dandelions, eglantine, daisies, snowdrops, &c., completely covered the ground; the first-mentioned, in particular, growing as richly as possible over acres, nay, miles of ground. The trees are principally mimosa and honeysuckle, and here and there some giant of the eucalyptus order grew in handsome clumps, some in full blossom, others without any, but not the less beautiful; while between them were green open spaces, on which the sun poured down a flood of light. To complete the scene the M'Ivor meandered through the valley, each winding turn disclosing 'some fresher beauties varying round.' Travelled to-day eleven miles.

"18th.—Travelled along the course of the M'Ivor for eleven miles. The scenery equal, if not superior, to that of yesterday. Even those ​who are usually unmindful of natural beauties were unable to gaze on the landscape without giving vent to passionate exclamations of admiration; English, Irish, and Scotch, all concurred in agreeing that they had never before seen anything so beautiful. To add to our pleasure the roads were excellent, and as level as a bowling-green. The formation of the country is principally schistose, with an abundance of fragmentary quartz. Crossed the M'Ivor, and came on to box flats, in which swamp oak appeared for the first time. Scrubby ranges, box, and stringy bark; coarse grass and herbs like those at the Turon; country more level than at the Turon. From the geological structure and general appearance I should imagine that gold would be found somewhere in the neighbourhood in abundance. Roads very bad again. Crossed a box flat entirely consisting of hillocks having the appearance of waves, and very uniform in their size. It seems as if the land had been thrown up in a fused and slightly agitated mass, and then suddenly cooled. Came to the Campaspie River, and had a fresh view of the celebrated Mount Alexander; romantic scenery, great abundance of trap rock. When we got here, we were told we could not cross, as the river was up. About forty drays were encamped on the banks, waiting the first opportunity to pass over; we accordingly pitched our tent on the bank of the river, intending to cross over on Monday morning, the stream being then considerably swollen and running rapidly. To-day eighteen miles.

"19th (Sunday).—Remained in camp. An immense number of people, on foot and on horseback, crossed the Campaspie to-day, on their way to and from the diggings. The river fell considerably during the day and previous night. About sunset the sky became overcast with heavy clouds, threatening immediate rain, and therefore we thought it advisable to cross the river at once, as it was probable we should be detained on its banks a week or two if it should happen to rain. Packed up accordingly, and started to cross over, one of the party riding the leading horse. When about half way over, the leader laid down, which circumstance was nearly causing an unlucky termination to our passage; fortunately, however, she rose again, and we crossed without further trouble, although the water was above the bed of the cart, and running with a strong current. It was lucky for us that we did cross, as it rained hard during the night.

"20th.—Raining hard during the forenoon, but fine in the afternoon. Passed over box and gum forests, scrubby in places, and thinly-timbered well-grassed flats. The country in general, so far as this, was as fine as could be wished for. The grass every where soft, silky, and ​as green as a field of young wheat. Unlike that of New South Wales, the grass and pasture here consists of nutritious herbs and very fine grass, growing in a thick sward, and completely hiding the soil. Hills and vales alike were covered with flowers, principally of a yellow colour, and growing as thick as they could—presenting to the eye of one accustomed to the almost flowerless fields of Australia an unusual and beautiful appearance, realising in some respects the description given of English meadows. Everywhere, too, the mimosa, loveliest of the flowering trees of Australia, and destined to be as much celebrated in the lays of her poets as the hawthorn has been in those of the British bards, scented the air with its perfume, and dazzled the eye with its rich yellow blossoms. Passed over some barren ranges covered with quartz, the only thing pleasant on them being some flowering shrubs, chiefly of the mimosa species. Through some fertile flats, the roads very level and good, as indeed they were during the greater part of the day—the only fault in them being a bog here and there, which after our previous bad roads we considered a mere nothing. Met several men who were returning from the diggings, and from whom we learned that robberies and murders had of late been very frequent at Bendigo. On Wednesday last, near thirty drays were stopped by a large gang of bushrangers in the Black Forest, and rum, tobacco, and other property taken from them to a great amount. One man lost upwards of £700 worth of gold. No less than three murders have been committed during the last week at Bendigo, one in Eagle Hawk, another at Peg Log Gully, and another in the Long Gully. One of the murdered men, we are informed, had his head completely severed from the body. Our informants told us that they had heard cries of 'murder' from the tent in which one of the unfortunate men was killed, but hearing some one (probably one of the perpetrators of the crime) laugh at the same time, they thought that the men were joking among themselves. The police are out scouring the bush in all directions. We thanked our stars that we had not gone by the road through the Black Forest, as we had at first intended, since being indifferently armed, how much soever we might have wished to display our heroism, we should have had but little chance of doing so. Crossed Emu Creek; the country of slate formation; quartz in abundance. An immense number of people passing to and from the diggings; men, women, and children along the whole road from this to Bendigo. Came to Bullock Creek, where we saw the places that the diggers had made for cradling during the dry weather, when the washing stuff had to be carried here from Bendigo, a distance of seven or eight miles. Four seizures of sly grog-sellers' carts, &c., were made here by the ​commissioner and police this morning. Passed over barren ridges, the timber on which consisted of iron bark, box, gum, and stringy bark. This was the first time I had seen iron bark in Victoria. Quartz in great abundance, every ridge being covered with it. The country, in its geological structure and general appearance, very much resembles that on the Long Creek in the Western diggings. The ridges are unusually uniform in their size, lower than one would be inclined to imagine in a gold region, and have all the same direction. The strike of the strata is north by west and south by east; schistose formation well developed; and quartz in unusual abundance. The whole, or nearly the whole, of the country over which we passed to-day, has every appearance of being a rich gold-field, but it has not yet had a fair trial. About three p.m. came in sight of the commencement of the Bendigo diggings, or what is called the Back Creek. Pitched our tent on the Back Creek. Travelled to-day a distance of 16 miles—thus making the whole distance to Bendigo 107 miles, which I think is correct, although less than what we were informed it was.

"We, however, travelled upwards of 140 miles, having to make so many detours in order to avoid bad places in the roads.

​

"We started for these mines on foot, each carrying his swag—mine weighed 50 lbs. We had no other alternative, for there was no dray to be got. I found the roads as bad as I had heard. We saw about 100 drays on the road stuck fast. We could only make fifteen miles a day, so it took us seven days; and when we arrived I was knocked up with cold, owing to being continually wet through between heavy rains and wading through creeks up to the middle. I and another got lost once on the mountains for eight hours; but, as luck would have it, we fell in with our party at the Bendigo diggings, which, when all mustered, consisted of five. To-day ends our first week's work; my share consists of £15, besides half an ounce I made myself.

"I enjoy very good health now, otherwise it would be a hard case, as doctors charge £5 5s. for looking at you.

"You would scarcely know me. My hair is very long, I wear an old cap, a flannel shirt next my skin, and a blue one over all, with a belt round my waist, where hang a brace of pistols and a knife eighteen inches long, and a pair of antepopelos up to my haunches. I am always covered with mud and soaked with water. You may judge of the weather when I tell you, that when we rise in the morning our blankets are covered with frost."

"The surface of the hills in this district, in many places, is quite white from the quantity of small quartz, from the size of a pin's head to a man's head. I tried surface washing, and knocked out an ounce a day, taking eight or nine inches of the surface like the above, the quartz being embedded in black loam. I also found gold in a red clay under the above, say from nine to fifteen inches under the surface. This was heavier gold, as if it had by gravity gone through the loam and rested in the clay. The richest surfacing here has been on Spring Hill, which is the highest part of the range between Forest Creek and Fryer's Creek, the summit being about 600 feet above these creeks, which are four or five miles from each other. Surfacing is as uncertain as sinking. You may wash a whole day and get nothing, or you may happen upon some ounces in a square foot. I have tried many places, and invariably found at least a few streaks of gold in each dishful.

"The quartz lying in this soil I may liken to the fruit in a good ​plum-pudding. Where there is gold on the surface, there is sure to be gold lying on the rock below.

"Sinking in gullies and flats, I have always found the clay predominating, generally lying in strata more or less mixed with gravel, and sometimes a stratum of pure gravel or pure sand; the latter is reckoned a bad sign. In this sort of sinking you come to the rock at various depths to twenty-five feet; I have seen none deeper. Hill sinking is more tedious, as the strata are always harder—going through a hard red conglomerate gravel, or a hard white cemented quartz, very gritty—the base rock is often forty or fifty feet down.

"These base rocks, on the top of which the gold lies, are sandstone, generally red, and pipe-clay. This pipe-clay appears to be slate in a softer state. It is laminated, and will cut easily with a knife. The top of the slate is softish for four or five inches, and contains gold. It is this top that is scraped off with a knife and washed. The pipe-clay is seldom a good gold-bearing bottom. All the rocks run almost north and south—are in laminæ and on edge, like a ream of paper placed on its edge, not laid flat. Often you will find these different sort of bottoms in the same hole.

"We have done very little here for six weeks past in gold-finding, though we have worked hard. In the above time we have seen (three of us) the bottoms of ten holes, two of them upwards of twenty feet deep, and all turned out not worth the washing. We have just bottomed two others, nearly twenty feet deep; two or three days will show what it will turn out. In my hole I have to-day commenced mining; but I do not expect to see gold in any quantity till I get six or seven feet in. I took out a few pounds of gold about two months ago, but I am sorry to say that it is all spent, everything is so expensive. I have also been speculating foolishly in things I knew nothing about, and naturally got burned. I cannot, therefore, leave this till I have made a few pounds. By persevering at the digging, I have no doubt fortune will favour me at last. Spring, of course, is the best time for digging, so that it is not likely I shall be in New Zealand soon, unless my luck turns very soon."

South Australia seemed about to be depopulated by the rush to the gold diggings of Victoria, when the happy idea was suggested of establishing an overland route, so as to give Port Adelaide the advantage of a gold escort. The following journal gives a better idea of the country and bush life than the most elaborate description:—

​

---

With these extracts, which afford so perfect an idea of the life and the land of the diggers, we conclude our attempt to describe the Australian Gold Regions. New creeks, rivers, and mountains are daily announced as the sites of inexhaustible treasures, the last being generally for a time considered the richest. The Ovens, near the River Murray, is now exciting a good deal of attention in New South Wales, and has caused the desertion of localities previously in great repute,^[12] while the discovery of two enormous nuggets at Ballarat has caused a vast re-emigration to the first discovered Victorian gold-field.

The South Australians have not yet been successful in discovering a gold-field worth working. At Echunga 1,208 licences were in the first instance issued, but of these only 166 were renewed once, only 64 twice, and 7 three times. At the last accounts 180 persons were at work.

The following is a list of the outfit required for four gold diggers. The cradles sold in England are for the most part toys, not strong enough to bear rough work. English carts, forges, and pumps, unless made from colonial directions, are not worth their freight for real use:—

TOOLS.	£.	s.	d.
One cradle	1	10	0
One heavy crowbar	0	10	0
Six picks, with one end pointed and the other square	0	18	0
A water-lifter	0	2	6
Two shovels	0	10	0 ​
	£.	s.	d.
Two zinc buckets	0	8	0
Two tin milk-dishes	0	5	0
One axe	0	4	6
Nails, tacks, cords, tomahawk, &c. &c	1	0	0
UTENSILS.
Tarpaulin	7	0	0
Camp oven	0	10	6
Iron pot, kettle, quart pots, plates, &c. &c.	1	2	10

To this must be added the cost of a tent; and at any of the Victoria diggings, a cart, a team, and provisions for six months.

While New South Wales and Victoria were becoming wealthy and populous on the strength of their gold-fields, the able-bodied population of South Australia proceeded en masse to the neighbouring colonies. Two measures wisely and promptly adopted by the local government and the Legislative Council saved South Australia. By an act, rapidly passed through the legislature, in January, 1852, gold of 22 carats was made a legal tender at the banks at the rate of £3 11s. per ounce against an issue of bank-notes. It thus became the interest of South Australian diggers to bring the produce of their labour to their own colony, there to employ it in purchasing land at government sales, in paying duties on imports, and in other modes in which it was worth more money than in the gold provinces. South Australia was the first province to strike gold tokens, which passed there for twenty shillings, and in England are worth about twenty-three shillings.

At the same time that the Bullion Act was passed, the overland route to Mount Alexander was opened, and a government escort was established.

The system prevalent in South Australia of selling land in small lots in quantities always in advance of demand, afforded a further inducement to the return of gold-diggers to settle on small farms. The results have been most satisfactory; a regular export trade in agricultural produce has been established between Port Adelaide and the gold colonies.

The Legislature of New South Wales have passed a Gold Mining Act, of which the following are the most important clauses:—

Clauses 2, 5, and 8, withhold the ordinary privileges of mining from any persons who are not British subjects, except on payment of double ​

fees or royalties. Clause 2 gives power to the executive to grant leases or licences for gold mining, in regard to auriferous tracts, for twenty-one years; and clause 10 authorises the demand of a fee, not exceeding £25, from any applicant for quartz vein or auriferous tracts, which is to be returned if his application is not granted. Clause 3 gives power to suspend pastoral leases or licences, in so far as may be necessary to mining operations, upon the runs to which these leases or licences pertain, and to make compensation for such suspension according to a previously established rule. Clause 4. No sort of occupation may be carried on within any auriferous tract of crown lands without licence except the pastoral and agricultural. Women not mining, and children under fourteen years of age, are exempt from this rule. Clause 11. Persons employed in making tunnels or drains are to be permitted, on condition that they give security that they will pay the due royalty upon any gold they may accidentally find in the course of their work. Clause 9 allows a half-licence to be taken after the fifteenth day of any month, the applicant not having been guilty of anything during the previous half month to furnish a sufficient ground of objection.

​An idea of the financial importance of the gold exports may be gathered from figures:—

NEW SOUTH WALES.

Gold exports to 3rd February	1,088,244	ounces
At 70s. per ounce	£3,850,000
Licences issued in 1852	22,500

VICTORIA.

Gold exported to 30th January	2,625,820	ounces
At 70s. per ounce	£3,200,000

COMPARATIVE PRICES AT MELBOURNE, IN

	1850.			1851.			1852.
LABOUR.	£	s.	d.	£	s.	d.	£	s.	d.
labourers per week	0	11	0	0	17	6	2	14	6
Shepherds, with rations, per annum	23	0	0	29	0	0	38	0	0
Blacksmith's ditto	47	10	0	55	0	0	65	0	0
General useful servants, ditto	28	0	0	38	0	0	57	10	0
Carpenters per day	0	4	2	1	1	0	1	2	6
FEMALE SERVANTS.
Thorough servants, per annum	15	0	0	17	0	0	27	10	0
Cooks, ditto	18	0	0	20	0	0	42	10	0
Nursemaids, ditto	9	0	0	17	0	0	23	0	0
PROVISIONS.
Beer ale per hogshead	4	10	0	5	10	0	6	15	0
Tea, hyson skin, per chest	2	9	0	3	10	0	3	15	0
Coffee Java, per lb.	0	0	5½	0	0	6	0	0	11
Sugar refined per lb.	0	0	4½	0	0	7	0	0	9
Flour,[13] fine, per ton	17	10	0				25	4	0
Bread, per 4lb. loaf	0	0	7				0	1	6
Rice Java per ton				9	0	0	13	10	0
Cabbages, per dozen	0	1	6				0	7	0
Gooseberries, per quart	0	0	6				0	2	0
Cherries per lb.	0	1	3				0	4	0
Fowls, per pair	0	4	0				1	4	0
Geese and Turkeys, each	0	6	0				1	15	0
Sheep, wethers, each	0	6	6				0	15	0
Cows, each	2	5	0				4	17	6
Horses, hacks	7	0	0	8	0	0	17	10	0

​The Melbourne Argus of January 3 estimates the number of diggers at the Victoria Mines at 100,000, earning on an average an ounce per man per week.

The forebodings of the pastoral proprietors, who saw in the gold discoveries the desertion of all their labourers and the destruction of their flocks, have not been realised. A very large per centage of the armies of emigrants who are daily landing on the shores of Australia either find themselves prevented from taking to the pursuit which led them to emigrate, by the expense and toil of the journey to the interior; or, after having tried gold-digging, are compelled to abandon labour harder than they can endure. These disappointed ones fall back upon the staple employments of the colony, and either turn farmers or accept situations as gardeners, shepherds, agricultural labourers, &c.

We have every reason to believe that while the great prizes of the gold-fields are suffered to attract a steady stream of self-supporting emigration, the overplus, unfit for such a laborious occupation, will be sufficient to maintain the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle which have hitherto supplied in wool and tallow the principal exports of the gold colonies.

The first effect of gold mining has been to give a value, in the shape of beef and mutton, to sheep and cattle, which had previously been only worth money to shear or boil down. Another result will be the establishment of towns and villages, surrounded by agricultural farms, in districts which, under the pastoral system, seemed condemned to perpetual barrenness and solitude. The question of opening the navigation of the Murray, by clearing away shoals, rocks, and snags, will perhaps be successfully solved by the gold-diggings at Albury.

If these anticipations be realised, gold will prove a most valuable agent in stimulating colonisation. Every gold-digger gives occupation to at least three other men, in feeding him, clothing him, and conveying backwards and forwards what he produces, and what he consumes. The profits on meat lately given to the dogs supports many a butcher in a gold district, and land only used by sheep becomes worth the toil of tillage.

It is a most favourable feature of the Australian gold-fields, that they are within reach of settled communities, surrounded by live beef and mutton, and by land of the best quality, which only needs the plough and the hoe, roughly handled, to produce great crops of wheat, maize, and every green vegetable. These lands will not remain untilled.

​The Australian gold-digger, unlike the Californian, has no sooner filled his pockets than he sets to work to settle his wife comfortably in a neat cottage with a garden, reserving the chances of another visit to the mines if he should find more capital needful.

​

IN the preceding pages we have followed step by step the series of social, commercial, and political events which have established three free and prosperous colonies on the island-continent of Australia; the progress of the pastoral interest from the eight merinos imported by M'Arthur to the fourteen millions of fine-woolled sheep which now graze over Australian pastures; the progress of emigration, from the few score officials, soldiers, turnkeys, and rum-traders, who, for a quarter of a century, formed the only free additions to the native-born population, to the present time, when armies of emigrants, counted in tens of thousands, arrive from all countries of Europe and America; the progress of the value of land from the period when a bribe of rations and the aid of government-fed slave labour was needed to induce a colonist to accept a farm, to the present year, when land is sold by the foot at the rate of thousands of pounds per acre; the progress of trade from the mere barter of the year 1800, with imports dependent on the expenditure of the home government, to the year 1853, when millions of Australian exports in gold and wool create a new and profitable export for almost every branch of British manufactures, and afford employment for an amount of tonnage which British shipowners find themselves unable to supply; the progress of political institutions, from the irresponsible despotism of the first governor and gaoler, to the concession of the amplest powers of self-government and taxation, with full control of land and land funds, customs and casual revenues, to the three Legislative Assemblies of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, by the Conservative Duke of Newcastle.

These rapid strides of the English-speaking Australian colonists, in which the acquisition of political rights has kept pace with the enlargement of their material resources, we have endeavoured to trace with a firm and impartial pen. We conclude our task at a moment when the brightest prospects seem opening to the three colonies; when, released from the baneful control of transmarine bureaucracy, permitted to exercise with the most perfect freedom those rights of self-government which are so essential to the full development of the powers of an English race; relieved from the contamination of old world felonry; ​with all the aid that can be derived from the capital, the credit, the colonisation, and "cheap defence" of the parent state, Australia seems starting on the race of empire with greater advantages than have ever fallen to the offshoot of a great nation in ancient or modern times. Free institutions, unrestricted commerce, ample revenues, without debt, and without the taxes which a defensive force, naval or military, would require—nothing can retard the progress of our Australian fellow-countrymen, if they prepare in good time to counteract the money-worshipping, utilitarian spirit, and low tone of commercial morality which are the bane of new communities.

An antidote is to be found in the teaching of zealous Christian ministers, and in the study of those treasures of the literature, art, and science of the old world, which no modern material El Dorado can excel.

The regulation of the future colonisation of the Australians will rest with the colonists themselves. If they are wise, they will give no encouragement to that system of pauper emigration which the Government Commissioners have long patronised. No population can be more difficult to govern than a mob of uneducated peasantry, suddenly transferred from indigence to the wages of a gold country. It is the interest alike of the colonies and of this country, that the influence of rude men who crowd to the gold diggings should be counterbalanced by a stream of industrious, educated, intelligent families, the yeomen and frugal mechanics, with large families, who swell the ranks of "Family Colonisation," men who would be prepared to carry on colonisation by cultivation, and reproduce on the fertile lands of Australia the farms and villages of England. We commend to the attention of the Colonial Legislatures, the fathers of this many-childrened class, who are led to emigration, not by discontent, not by vain Utopian longings, but by