CHAPTER V.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE AND PECULIARITIES OF

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

Picture to yourself, nearly opposite to England, a colony, a large proportion of whose population are convicts or transported felons; where bands of armed robbers or bush-rangers are daily committing depredations; where one hundred and sixteen sentences of capital conviction have been passed within one twelvemonth; where swindling and drunkenness prevail; where the churches are half empty; where a large proportion of the settlers, shopkeepers, and merchants have recently gone through the Insolvent Court, and paid their creditors with sixpence in the pound; where the bank directors discount scarcely any bills except their own, so as thus to monopolize all the tea and sugar in the market; where selfishness and the cursed love of pelf have destroyed all the fine feelings of human nature; where the inhabitants are day and night tormented with legions of musquitoes; where the crops have often failed through excessive drought; where the navigable rivers are very few in number; where the interior is in most cases badly watered; where a large proportion of the soil is a miserable scrub, scarcely yielding sustenance for goats; where the timber is as hollow-hearted and as notorious for obliquity as the inhabitants; and where, on looking amid the rural scenes for the evergreen, you see the never-green, that is Australia.Rev. David Mackenzie, M.A., Author of "Ten Years in Australia."

THE difficulty of describing the physical aspect of a country in many respects utterly dissimilar to that which the majority of people in Great Britain have been accustomed is so great that many intelligent emigrants have informed me that they never could realize any description of Australia which they read at home, and were miserably disappointed with the reality compared to the figurative colouring of Australian delineators. In the first place, to realize

anything satisfactory about the physical appearance of South Australia, it will be necessary for my readers to dispense with romantic or arcadian views in their ideas of landscapes in general. We will not explore the country in search of the picturesque in winter for the labour of wading through mud which sticks to you with double pertinacity to make up for the months of dryness you have been subject to, will make it desirable to enter on a summer pilgrimage.

Imagine earth of the very driest description consistent with the application of natural heat and dust reduced to the finest and whitest quality; contemplate a burning sun, which is hot enough to set the country in a blaze at the shortest notice, with the additional assistance of a lucifer match, or the refuse of a pipe; add a number of stunted trees, whose leaves being vertical, hardly give any shade; the majority of the land being of the flattest description; the whole colony not possessing one grand mountain; heat so intense as to silence the noise of all the feathered tribe, excepting parrots and their relatives, which apparently scream the louder the hotter it is; lizards running up the trees with perfect delight, and ants of all descriptions covering the ground in all directions; snakes rejoicing in an element of dust peculiarly adapted to their constitutions; and even too hot for the aborigines, who, rejoicing in a state of freedom and utter contempt for clothing, cannot endure it, and crawl to any place where there is a chance of shade; and in addition to these interesting combinations of rural delights, imagine yourself gasping for breath, and trying to hunt after a stream-one of the vainest pursuits in the colony-and ultimately arriving at the bed of a river as dry as a gravel walk, when your

companion consoles you by the information that it was a river last winter, but water has not been seen there for some time.

South Australia has been termed the country of eternal monotony or utter sameness in the character of the scenery, vegetation, and trees; so much so, that there are comparatively very few good exploring bushmen who can find their way to remote distances by the aid of the physical aspect of the country or its productions. No grand or distinguishing landmarks serve as beacons for the unwary who may wander from the beaten track. It is lamentable to consider the number of unfortunates who have perished miserably in the bush; for nature has done nothing for Australia in the shape of wild fruits, or streams of fresh water; and I am persuaded that many who have never been heard of by their friends at home for many years have lost their lives in this manner.

South Australia possesses few streams that are even worthy of that name. The word river is a stranger to the South Australian vocabulary. Excepting the Murray, which is only partially a South Australian river, there is not a single navigable river in the whole extent of 300,000 square miles; and the Murray has not got a safe and navigable entrance, and small craft have to be transported overland to escape the danger of the shallow and dangerous outlet.

These facts will perhaps be a sufficient answer to those rhapsodies propagated by interested parties who profess to dream of the " germe of a mighty empire," with perhaps partial truth, for the colony will probably remain in this state of germination, and never attain full growth. Australia, in general, and South Australia, in particular, may be justly

termed the "land of contrarities," but not of a very interesting description. It is true that they have a hot summer when we have a cold winter, and they have day when we have night; they are our antipodes, and look north for the sun when we look south; and nature seems delighted to oppose our usual views of things in general.

The natives have a decided opposition to clothing while civilization encourages garments; the Australian valleys are cold, and the hill tops warm ; their swans are black, despising the emblem of purity; the north winds are hot, and the south winds cold; cherries, which have hardly any flavour, allow the stones to grow outside; the bees, in consideration that there is so much other vermin, do not sting; the birds, not to torment poor human nature with anything harmonious, do not sing; the flowers in general have no smell, so that you may dream of the perfume of Araby the blest; the trees are nearly without shade; and some of the birds have no tongue, but carry a broom in preference; and the eccentric Australian owls screech in the day time by mistake, through the evil influence of transportation; and the cuckoo coos in the night on account of the heat of the day, and many other peculiarities may be observed by the studious emigrant. In conclusion, I think it will not be worth the while of Dr. Syntax and his friends to visit South Australia in search of the picturesque.

CHAPTER VI.

ADELAIDE.

"Mine own romantic town."

"OUR Village," or principal town, or the metropolis of the germe of a mighty empire,' is situated a few miles from the shores of St. Vincent's Gulf, in about latitude 35° South, on the river Torrens (which stream would no doubt have been a noble river, if it was not subject to the chronic infirmity of being generally dry in the summer season.) This river, which was poetically represented by the intelligent and disinterested promoters of the colony, to be navigable for large ships up to Adelaide, but where, in reality, the apparition of a boat has not yet been seen, loses itself in a kind of sandy morass, called the "reed beds;" but I believe it is a matter of geographical doubt whether this river ever reaches the sea, but is supposed to be dried up in its course by the imbibing influence of a thirsty land. The early officials and settlers, probably excited by extravagant ideas on entering a new wilderness, and having their names handed down to a grateful posterity as the founder of a second London, laid out a place on one side of the Torrens of a mile square, and repeated the experiment on the other side, at a distance of half-a-mile, so that there were two square miles of land to be covered with rectilinear streets and squares; and after twenty-four years of progress, a scattered population of some eighteen thousand is dispersed over a space that could contain the inhabitants of any large European city.