SIX MONTHS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA—THE LAND OF PROMISE.

MR. JAMES, the author of Six Months ia Australia, seems inti- mately acquainted with ships and colonies, and to have resided for some time in New South Wales. lie appears to have visited South Australia, either on a speculation, or to spy the nakedness of the land; and •he has thrown together the results of his experience. in a rough, readable, and desultory manner, but not devoid of amusement, or of useful information either, assuming" that his facts are true.

Taking the matter as stated by Mr. JAmes, South Australia, though a highly promising colony, and the best place to emigrate to in general circumstances, is not the Utopia it is painted ; nor is t likely to realize the hopes which have been held out of' its eventual success, as a commercial or agricultural produce export- ing country. From the nature of the soil, and the want of water, he maintains it can never support a concentrated population ; but must be inhabited by graziers and breeders, finding its main riches in its wool, skins, and meat. The choice of Adelaide for the site of' a capital and port, he pronounces, for reasons assigned., to have been injudicious ; he predicts its failure, and maintains that Port Lin- coln, the first choice of the Commissioners in London, must be the eventual capital,—filthough those who have bought " town lots" shrink from the hint of such a thing. The colony he describes as having advanced wonderfully but he warns persons starting for it, not to be deceived by the flaming accounts they see in print ; and draws a ludicrous picture of a first arrival at Adelaide, and of the grandly artificial scale on which the plan of the city has been laid out. The people whom he would advise to emigrate, are labourers, or small capitalists with enterprise and industry,—those, as he says, who have " capital in their hands or their pockets ;" those rho have it only in their " heads," have no bushiest in any new colony. The pursuit he recommends is sheep- thrilling, or breeding of some kind ; he would have a person rent land, not buy it, for he conceives the present prices cannot be maintained unless in peculiar situations; but under any circum- stances, the emigrant, who intends to thrive, must work 'hard, and submit to privations. Those who go out from home, and expect at once to drop down in a society like that they have left, will be dis- appointo(1,—a country. like other things, requires time to grow. In starting. Mr. JAMES advises passengers to go from London, whence the best ships sail ; to make their bargain in writing with the ship-brokers, believing just one-hayof what they say about the ship, &c. ; and to pay 701. for a cabin-passage, ns it cannot be done comtbrtablv for hiss, though his notions of " comfort " smack of the sea Sybarite. Excepting descriptions of the country, its society, and climate, and accounts of colonial squabbles, from whose baneful spirit he does not himself :.cem free, these are the leading points of Mr. J.tmEs's book. The views and manner arc those of a hard-headed man of the world, who has seen too many fine-built schemes dashed, or struggled with too many difficulties, to have great faith in pro- mises: and whose experience induces him to look with a t'ry scarehitig eie on new speculationS. his style is free, fluent, and vigorous, with a touch of Com:Err-like spirit and freshness about it. And the volume nary be perused with advantage by persns about to emigrate. For those. ho read for information and itunis- ment, we will give a few miscellaneous specimens.

HOW TO CONDUCT YOURSLLF ABOARD.

Those who rise earliest in the morning and are most on deck during the day, always cijoy the best health. There is another hint which I think, beliwe it is forgotten, is worth sugge:4- ing to paengers who are embarking for the first time on a foreign voyage, be- cause a good deal of their comfort is involved in it. I would always recommend the cabin passengers to pay a respectful deference to the Captain of the and cheerfully to acquiesce in all his orders, and in short to his general authority. A cabin passenger should avoid going forward among the sailors, and never talk to any of them, not even to the man at the wheel; and should be always ready on occasion of any or disturbance aboard to support the Captain and his officers against the crew, right or wrong ; and if the Captain is really in fault, reserve any discussion respecting it for the shore. It is better also for the cabin passengers to keep themselves entirely distinct from those in de steerage.

COLONIAL PRODUCTS AND rim:erns.

There can be no doubt that South Australia will iu time be a very abundant country. If the settlers will economize water, and find some means of keeping it when it Mils, and not let it run away, they may in at few years luxuriate in all the good things of thisslife. Whatever is to be seen of vegetable produce in the markets of Lisbon or Cadiz, Sicily or Algiers, the settlers in the new colony may equally command. It is peculiarly the country of the grape and melon, oranges and lemons, figs, olives, pomegranates, and coquets, and even at its present infant state produces as fine melons as the Levant. The author saw at the Governor's table one 1Rlbs., and another weighting 221bs.; and Intact sumer and finer-flavoured fruits need not be seen. But the character which stamps the South Australia climate as most va- luable in the eyes of the settler, is its peculiar adaptation to sheep-fanning and the growth of wool. By a register kept very accurately at Government House, during the whole of the year 1837, it rained 115 days, and was fine and clear 250; and this may be reckoned upon as a fair average of a series of veers. In the West of Scotland it generally rains 202 days, and is fine only.- 163, and

many of these days are lowering, with the sun obscured; so that the comparison in this point of dryness is very much in favour of South Australia. It is this peculiar character of the climate which ought to recommend to the cautious settler sheep husbandry over every other sort of rural industry, the profits of which, if steadily perseveres in, will remunerate him in a few years for all the inconveniences of a bush life. This speciei of farming has been the making of New South Wales, and will be the grand pursuit of the settler in South Aus- tralia, which will soon rival the older colony in the fineness if not in the quan- tity of its wool. This dryness of the climate has also a most favourable influence on the general health of the colony; for, except the ophthalmia before complained of, the writer saw nothing indicative of disease. The inhabitants may be said to live almost constantly in the open air—retain for a lung time their English ruddiness of complexion—appear five from the prevailing diseases of New South Wales, viz, the dysentery and influenza; and even the children, when kept clean, (a very difficult matter in stunmer time,) look plump and chubby.

LATIOritrnS IS SOUTII ArSTRALTA.

It was pleasing to see in Adelaide the importance and respectability of the labouring classes. In proportion as they were scarce, they were properly esti- mated; and the responsibility of their situation, particularly shepherds. stock- keepers, and such like, had a tendency very much to lessen the distinction be- tween master end man. Of course this treatment on the part of the employer made the servant a more important personage in his own eyes, increased. his self-respect, made him doubly careful of the pmperty committed to his charge, and altogy ther seemed to take off the pains of servitude. The author has often dined with respectable residents, where the overseer, after washing his hands, drew in his chair among the company, and not wily, with perfect propriety, but entertaining his master and guests with accounts of his day's work—the sheep Toot cows, &c. Though such a practice cannot he said to obtain much in England, especially in towns, yet it is the practice in Many parts of the Conti- nent; but coming as the author did from New South %Vales, where there are tew besides convict servants, it struck him as equally strange and praiseworthy. Mr. Gilles, who is an admirable settler for a new cidony, and aefive and a nient in the pursuit of every thing, makes this a common custoni ; and so do ninny others, especially: such gentlemen as hill sheen Vall cattle. There scented also a freshness and gentility about the females of South Australia, contrasting very favourably with therubbish of Sydney ; and it person coining from the Eastern colonies would not thil to be struck with the superior ruddiness, simplicity, aoll purity if the South Australian damsels. strolling up to the tents and huts °tithe labouring. people, they all seemed healthy and happy ; the wife asking the gentleman to come out of the sun and rest lamself, and at the same time offering all they had for his refreshment. It does not take lung to ,ec that there is a vast difference between the state of society—I mean among the working classes here—end the same classes in the other colonies.

PnrnENCE or Tut: PLAN.

It was Neil that the intelligent and benevolent men who first started the idea of a British province in South Australia, made it a sine qqa um; that the ituw colony should never be made a place of banishment. The settlers of the (OA colonies may jeer at what they no doubt term the ignorance and of the purer province, and point at their own prosperity and SliCel.."'S in printof their doctrine that no nets colony can do without convicts ; but, afttr lout* experienee in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Laud, ;tad when one is away from those great lazar-houses, and can cootemplate, at a distance, the leper-like ghastliness and deflamity of convict society in those colonies, the friends of South Australia may congratulate themselves with the highest sat is- tizetion that the moral virus of contamination is for ever excluded from their shores.

("SION Or CONVIC'TS.

There is no society in the world more united than the convict party in our Australian Colonies. It is of no consequence a shade or two of Iiiirerewee in the ditratian of their sentences, and it is pun miter v-I,at may Le the (iifferent grades hi their ladder of disgrace—whether they h a seven years :,ten, fourteen years, or life—whether they have been re-sentenced since their first arrival. the colonial offences, and been on a visit to Nortidl: or the Northward. (slang terms tot Island and Moreton Day); no matter Whether they have obtained their absolute or conditional pardon, their emancipation, tictlet-of-leave. or ticket-of-exemption—the special, the scourger. or the scaimed ; one mtiver,al

tsprit tic corps animates and pervtules the whole con dieI tin;t Freemasons in one silent, deep-rooted sentiment of hostility to the ',i.e.. nth

or, as they pn•fanely call them, the li— tn.i,:r..nts. 'rids tb, bag never lost sight of or thrgotten ; it is the cement of their ; nod times of their tribnIntion, in all times of their waahlt. it f roe: tic governing principle of their chequered and unhallowed lives.

Tin Load of Pr011liSe is a more elaborate and till-e:Iloocieg bunk than Six -if onths iu :lush-alit but it wants its inter..1. freshness. and unity ; well illustrating the difference between the writer who draws his onaterials front hooks, and he who "gathers his notions fresh from reality." In short. Mr. James has been, the author of the Land of Promise is only "one who is going" to the country de- scribed. Passing over this essential difkrence, the book may be recontmended as an industrious, painstaking, and thir compilation, where neither difficulties nor drawbacks arc overlooked; a merit the more conspicuous for its rarity, as emigrants are apt to take too hopeful a view of their " Land of Promisc.:.'"Ihe author seems to have consulted every accessible source of information—pamphlets, prospectuses. acts of Parliament, books of travels, and letters from emigrants—as well as to have pored over the archives in the °tikes Of the South Australian Commissioners and Soutli Australian Company ; and what is equally important, he

has tested what he has read. Ile tells the story ot' the unsuecessfol uttempts to limed the colony, and its history from the fetter 'cation to the late-t ar-

rivals ;" describes the plan and objects of the South .Mgt-oh:tit Com- pany ; and after giving, an account of the st■ii, (-filmic.. rivers, har- bours, productions, and so that), de;otes several chapters to each • of the various subjects which can have any interest for the intend- ing emigrant.