" We seek a shore which few before have ever dared to scan, 

 An Eden where all things are fair, except the heart of man ; 

 \\'here flowers and skies in mingled dyes of horrow'd lustre shine. 

 But alas! whose sun hath given none to make the soul divine. 



" One great and honourable distinction of the present age is the universal 

 and ardent thirst for the acquisition of knowledge with regard to all those 

 matters by which the welfare and happiness of the great family of mankind 

 may be enhanced. One great utilitarian feeling seems to have taken posses- 

 sion of the minds of men, so that in all their pursuits some end should appear 

 to be necessary, by the attainment of which the condition of the generality 

 should be ameliorated or advanced. 



" Such an end is the object of all those who, in this age of miracles, seek, 

 by the paths of science, the difficult heights of distinction or of profit. For 

 this the chemist resolves nature back into her simple elements, or wins grand 

 secrets from her hidden combinations. For this the engineer lays down his 

 iron road, with a lofty scorn of hill and dale, which enables man to emulate 

 the eagle in the rapidity and directness of his flight. For this the astronomer 

 pores through his midnight glass, and the political economist dives beneath 

 the surface of things, to survey the causes of social misery or content. All 

 have one great and ennobling anxiety, a wish to add sometliing to that general 

 sum of happiness of which God lias made his creatures susceptible below. 



" But of all the labourers in the vineyard of knowledge, who is there who 

 claims so much of our sympathy, who is more disinterested, or more deserv- 

 ing of honour, than the traveller who explores, for the first time, regions where 

 nature has held sway, from the creation of the world until now ? Tiie 

 services performed, the discoveries made by an individual like this may seem 

 small in comparison with the mighty wonders which science is every day 

 achieving before our eyes ; but if deserting the present we look to the future, 

 how tremendous maj' be the result of one man's enterprize and perseverance. 

 "The traveller is the pioneer of civilization, as John the Baptist preceded 

 our Saviour, to make tlie rough places plain, and tlie crooked straight, in 

 order to pave the way for that new dispensation of wliich he was the herald, 

 even so does the traveller prepare the way and smooth the path for the intro- 

 duction of the same Christianity, wliose office hath always been to humanize 

 and soften, and whose influence is necessary to reunite the savage wanderers 

 of tlie wilderness to the great brotherhood of humanity. 



" What a tremendous era in the history of the world was the discovery of 

 America ! Fraught with what incalculable results to the destiny of millions. 

 But it was the work of one inspired man, and the like results are not to be 

 expected now. Though the reaper has done his work, yet there is ample 

 employment for the gleaner : and if it should seem insignificant in compa- 

 rison with the great event of which we have spoken, it is not the less deserv- 

 ing of that honour that awaits all who strive to eflfect the greatest degree of 

 good which Providence has placed within their reach. 



" Such is the author of the volumes now before us, and considering the 

 universal attention which anything connected with Australia excites in the 

 mind of all thinking persons, nothing could be more opportune than the 

 appearance of a survey like the present, which leaving civilization far behind 

 it, has penetrated into those interior regions, where a white man's foot had 

 never before trod, in order to furnish data for the guidance of progressive 

 culture and improvement. 



" Within the memory of man a British colony has risen in Australia, says 

 our Author, to a high degree of prosperity, and it seems impossible to doubt, 

 that at no distant period, the whole territory will be inhabited by a power- 

 ful people, speaking the English language, diffusing around them English 

 civilization and arts, and exercising a predominant influence over Eastern 

 Asia, and the numerous and extensive islands in that quarter of the globe. 



" Nations, like individuals, have their growth, their perfection, and their 

 decay; like them, too, they have their children, and, perhaps, the time maybe 

 when England's name shall have fallen into oblivion in this quarter of the 

 world, only to be perpetuated in those hereditary titles which she has bestowed 

 upon her distant offspring. 



" The wilds and uninhabited tracts, whose dreary expanse is now traversed 

 by the patient foot of the explorer, will then have borrowed new features 



