252 



AUSTRALIA. 



not to fulfil the high expectations which the friends 

 of Australia had formed of it after the spirited un- 

 dertaking of Captain Sturt. Had that excellent 

 man and judicious explorer not been in a boat, and j 

 of course considerably below the surface-^oil, when 

 he made his memorable voynge down the Murray, he 

 would have ascertained the nature of the adjacent 

 country. He would have found that all the way 

 from Swan Hill, above the junction of the Mur- 

 rumhidgee, as far down as the mouth of the Dar- 

 ling, the whole country, on both sides, is good for 

 nothing; that with exception of a ribbon of reeds 

 on each bank, varying in breadth from one mile to 

 two miles and a half, and extending down the river 

 between three and four hundred miles, it is one 

 vast, arid, African desert, totally useless for any 

 purposes of colonization. The author visited all 

 the upper branches of this fine river, the Murrum- 

 bidgee, the Toomat, the Hume, the Ovens, the 

 Oxley, and the Omio; and as an eye-witness to the 

 general beauty and fertility of the land in their 

 respective districts, had formed, in common with 

 other persons, golden opinions of the lower coun- 

 try, where they all unite and take the name of the 

 Murray but the recent journey of Messrs Haw- 

 don and Bonney, with a herd of nearly 400 head of 

 cattle, from the crossing place at the Omio, to the 

 foot of Mount Lofty, in eleven weeks, has unfor- 

 tunately set the matter perfectly at rest. If my 

 friend Mr Bonney, who was the pilot on this occa- 

 sion, with nine persons, had not kept the very edge 

 of the river throughout the whole journey, they 

 must have all perished men as well as cattle, for 

 want of water and want of grass. The country 

 from the Murrumbidgee to the Darling, did not 

 even boast a solitary tree of any size or magnitude ; 

 and the cattle subsisted entirely on the green tops 

 of reeds at the water's edge. This made their 

 journey considerably longer than would appear at 

 first sight to be necessary, but they could not make 

 the slightest detour from the north bank of the 

 stream without being immediately distressed for 

 want of water and grass. This desert country of 

 course comprises many millions of acres away 

 from the reedy beds on the edge of the river, no- 

 thing is seen but a deep subsoil of white pipe clay, 

 beyond which is a solitary and monotonous growth 

 of pine scrubs, pushing their dull and stunted tops 

 over the sandy wilderness, as far as the eye can 

 reach, making of course all travelling in such a 

 country any thing but agreeable. It is sufficiently 

 condemnatory of the river ' Murray' that from the 

 ford of the Omio, which is seventy miles north of 

 the town of Melbourne at Port Philip, our tra- 

 vellers hardly ever saw a tree worthy the name, 

 till they reached the boundaries of South Aus- 

 tralia. This long continuance of barrenness and 

 sand made the approach to the new colony parti- 

 cularly pleasant, for there they discovered well- 

 grown stately trees of stringy bark stretching in 

 magnificent profusion all the way up the eastern 

 slopes of the Mount Lofty range*, and, beneath a 

 rich sward of kangaroo grass for their cattle, giving 

 the travellers great spirits at the end of their jour- 

 ney, and exciting very favourable impressions of 

 the new colony of South Australia for pastoral 

 purposes. Great quantities of gypsum, and some 

 specimens of a nitrate of soda, are seen on the 

 shores -of Lake Victoria, and perhaps more of this 

 mineral salt may be discovered in the progress of 

 the settlers. It is in a similar country, the desert 

 of Atacama, that so much is found and brought 



to England from the various ports of Chili and 

 Peru. 



" The climate of South Australia, (continues 

 Mr James) for eight months of the year, is as fine 

 and salubrious as any person can desire or imagine. 

 From April to November it may challenge com- 

 parison with the most favoured regions of the 

 globe, and is in every respect suitable, and even 

 delicious to an Englishman's tastes and feelings. 

 I have sometimes in the mornings of April and 

 May, whilst inhaling the pure and balmy air of 

 Mount Lofty, felt a positive pleasure in mere ani- 

 mal existence, in the act of breathing. In this 

 month a fire is comfortable at night and morning, 

 and in June, July, and August, it is comfortable all 

 day. In the latter end of March, April, Septem- 

 ber, and October, the temperature is delightful 

 neither hot nor cold you do not perceive whether 

 there is any fire in the room or not, or whether the 

 window is open or shut; but from the latter end 

 of November, all December, January, February, 

 and part of March, the heat is oppressive and al- 

 most intolerable. I have seen the thermometer in 

 these uncomfortable months, in a dark room nearly 

 closed up, and with a thick roof of thatch over it, 

 as high as 96 1 not once but a dozen different 

 days ; and if the instrument is hung upon a wall 

 in the direct beams of the suri, it rises to 140' 1 ! 

 This is a degree of heat I never remember to have 

 felt in any part of the tropics even ; it dries up 

 every thing : not merely the few running streams 

 that in winter come from the mountains, but all 

 garden vegetation; and so pulverizes the dust in 

 the camp at Adelaide, that it is reduced to an al- 

 most impalpable powder, and penetrates every 

 article of clothing, from its extreme fineness; 

 whilst as much caution is requisite in stepping 

 across the road, as if a person were going through 

 the muddiest part of Piccadilly or Wbitechapel. 

 Of course the tiny little Torrens all but vanishes 

 before such a sun; in the few places where it runs 

 at all, there would be plenty of room for the whole 

 of it to run through an Irishman's hat ; and a far 

 better river is made every day in the London Streets 

 when the parish turn-cock opens a plug. There 

 are, however, several pretty good holes which have 

 too much water in them to be entirely exhausted 

 by the sun's heat, and it was on account of these 

 water holes that the town was placed in this un- 

 fortunate situation. The eastern wind, which is 

 the cool and constant wind in summer, blowing 

 through Bass' Straits, over the great lake, and 

 which becomes a strong sea breeze at Port Lin- 

 coln and Encounter bay, is never felt, with its re- 

 freshing coolness, at Adelaide, because the town- 

 ship is placed close under the West side of Mount 

 Lofty; and it is the absence of this summer or sea 

 breeze which occasions such an excessive heat as 

 now described. In the latitude of 35 such a de- 

 gree of heat is unknown, and unlocked for, and 

 must entirely be attributed to the inland character 

 of the town. Thus in New South "Wales, the 

 town of Parramatta, though only fifteen miles 

 from Sydney, not getting the sea breezes regularly, 

 and being very little elevated above the waters of 

 Port Jackson, is often 20 degrees hotter than it 

 is in Sydney, at the same moment of time. Arid 

 as misfortunes never come singly, the few wells 

 about the settlement of Adelaide become dry 

 the scarcer the water the more you want it for 

 washing; and the fine particles of lime-stone dust 

 carried up in numerous whirlwinds about the plains, 



