spreads and enlarges its girth, and roots itself each year more
firmly in the stem from which it has sprung. The Cape, to
keep the same simile, is a branch doing its best to thrive, but
withering from the point where it joins the trunk, as if at that
spot some poison was infecting it. It is pleasant to turn from
shadow to sunshine, from a gangrene in the body politic of
Oceana to a country where the eye sees something fresh to
please on whichever side it turns, where the closest acquaint-
ance only brings out more distinctly how happy, how healthy
English life can be in this far off dependency. We were
bound for Melbourne and Sydney, but the first point at which
we were to touch was Adelaide, named after William the
Fourth's queen, the capital of South Australia. We passed
Kangaroo Island before dawn on January 18, thirty-nine days
after leaving Plymouth. January there corresponds to our
July, and when we anchored it was on a soft warm summer
morning.

The Bay of Adelaide is a long broad estuary, with a small
river running into it behind a sandbank, which forms a port
like the harbour at Calais. The broad Murray falls into the
sea at no great distance to the westward; but is cut off from
Adelaide by a line of mountains, and loses itself in shoals and
sand before it reaches the ocean. The site for the town was
chosen on the only spot upon the coast where vessels have a
safe basin in which to load alongside a wharf. The town it-
self is seven miles inland in a hollow below the hills. The
Port, which is growing fast into a second city, is connected
with it by a railway and by an almost unbroken series of
villas. Adelaide is not more than fifty years old. It grew
first into consequence through the Burra Burra Coppermine
--a hill of virgin metal which was brought there by sea and
smelted. Burra Burra is worked out, and mine and smelting
furnaces lie deserted; but Adelaide has found a safer basis
for prosperity, and is the depôt of an enormous corn and

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