A CONTINENTAL EQUILIBRIUM. 231 



And what to him the fever and turmoil of civilization, when, mounted 

 on his noble steed, he can roam at will, with none to say him nay, 

 over leagues and leagues of grassy prairies ! 



CHAPTER IIL 



THE AUSTRALIAN INTERIOR. 



GEOGRAPHERS have given the name of the "fifth division of the 

 globe" to that immense archipelago, or rather, that mass of archi- 

 pelagoes which remote geological convulsions have elevated in the 

 Pacific Ocean, between the three continents, Asia, Africa, and Ame- 

 rica, and whose existence was first revealed to the Western World by 

 the maritime explorations of the Portuguese and the Dutch, in the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From the epoch when these 

 enterprises commenced, the spherical figure of the earth was established 

 beyond dispute ; and after the discovery of America, it became only 

 reasonable to suppose that, in virtue of a law without which our 

 planet could not have maintained its equilibrium in space, there must 

 exist a continent intended to balance those of the Northern Hemi- 

 sphere. But for many years all the researches of intrepid navigator? 

 only led them to the shores of small islands and islets, not a few of 

 which were barren, uninhabited, and swept by the winds of ocean; 

 while others, girdled with palms, enriched with vegetation, and 

 blessed by bland and genial airs, seemed to realize the poetical 

 idea of the Fortunate Islands, 



" Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea." 

 At length, however, by directing their investigations towards the 

 less submerged region of the Indian Ocean, and by sailing beyond 

 the great eastern islands which seem to have been formerly connected 

 with the Indian Peninsula, the Portuguese mariners were the first to 

 descry a long line of coast which they did not doubt was that of an 



