delusions," said a San Francisco preacher on a
certain occasion; "no society has ever been able to organize itself in a
satisfactory manner on gold-bearing soil. Even Nature herself is
deceitful: she corrupts, seduces, and betrays man; she laughs at his
labors, she turns his toil into gambling and his word into a lie!" The
preacher's deductions have proved true in California, South Africa, New
Zealand, and Australia. And yet we have freely admitted in these pages
that the finding of gold mines has stimulated labor, immigration, and
manly activity in many directions, and has thus indirectly been the
agent of good in other than its own field.

As we find gold king in Victoria, so in Adelaide we have pastoral
millionnaires. Some of the men who have become enriched by this means
possess fortunes of over two million pounds sterling, and have gone back
to England to enjoy their wealth in their native land; others, and these
are the larger portion of the successful settlers, still remain here,
promoting the local interests of the colony.

Adelaide, thus named for the queen of William IV., we found to be the
depot of a large and growing trade in wool and grain especially derived
from the fertile agricultural district of which it is the capital, and
is furnished with numerous arterial railways to bring these products to
market. We were told by reliable parties here that there are at present
about four million acres of land under the plough. Preference is
universally given to the grain produced in this colony, because of its
uniform excellence. New South Wales and Victoria hamper their people in
the use of this grain by the imposition of most unreasonable and
aggravating tariff laws. "Protection," said an earnest citizen of
Melbourne to us, "does anything but protect; it makes much of our food
cost us twenty per cent more than it would naturally if the ordinary
laws of trade were permitted to adjust themselves." The mass of the
people favor free-trade, but the leaders and the officials favor high
tariff, for they realize a living through the collecting of dues that
arise under its provisions. It was admitted to the author by local
political economists that it costs fifty per cent of the aggregate sum
collected to keep "the machine" moving,--a fact which alone forms a
strong argument against the entire system.

Adelaide, with a population of a hundred and fifty thousand, has a noble
University, quite equal in standing to that of