COKAL EEEFS. 359 



though vast enough, as such, to satisfy all the imaginings of 

 the future.* 



It is impossible, indeed, not to feel pride in the relation of 

 England to this southern world. Whether it remain ours in 

 colonial union, or be peaceably dissevered by the events of 

 the future (peaceably we say, because such a war as that of 

 the American revolution can never recur), Australia will still 

 be English in its language, literature, and political life. We 

 shall not only have created a nation out of a wilderness, but 

 shall have ennobled the people so created, by the gift of in- 

 stitutions which the struggles and experience of centuries 

 have happily won for ourselves. It is a gift not without its 

 perils to an infant community ; but which, well and wisely 

 watched over in this early time, offers the best pledge for 

 future greatness. 



Though the sovereignty of Australia is virtually conceded 

 to England, and the most profitable parts of its territory al- 

 ready occupied by our colonies, we are led with Sir E. Mur- 

 chison to regret that no settlement has been made on the 

 northern coast. The proximity to the equator is a draw- 

 back ; and we have reason to suppose the margin of fertile 

 lands narrower and less productive. Still we must believe 

 that on the shores of the Grulf of Carpentaria, or elsewhere 

 on this coast, there are spots profitable for colonisation, for 

 commercial intercourse with the Indian Archipelago, and for 



* 1862. Another great step has recently been made in Australian discovery 

 by the accomplished passage across that continent ; if not actually from sea to 

 sea, yet within sight of the tidal waters of the northern coast. The successive 

 expeditions of Mr. Stuart and Mr. Burke (the former successful to its close, 

 the latter painfully disastrous in its end) have indicated a line of route in 

 which, though desert tracts have to be crossed, water and vegetation are never 

 long wanting to the traveller. Inspection of the map of Australia, however, 

 will show how vast a void is still left in its geography, to the west of this 

 central line of transit ; and speculation, though somewhat narrowed in its 

 scope, may yet be kept up as to the interior character of a region scarcely less 

 than European Kussia in superficial extent. 



