f Australasia, edited by Robert Ganger_;" and study an annexed
system of colonization as a remedy for their distress. The Letter is
written by a plain-sailing, plain-dealing man of the world, and though
on a foreign topic, is in a homely style. We are therefore persuaded
that a few extracts will be useful to the above class of thinkers and
readers, as well as to others who do not, like the great man of
antiquity, sigh for new worlds.

_Climate and Soil_.

All that you read in the works of Wentworth and Cunningham, as to the
healthfulness and beauty of the climate, is strictly true. There are
scarcely any diseases but what result immediately from intemperance.
Dropsy, palsy, and the whole train of nervous complaints, are common
enough; but then, drunkenness is the vice _par excellence_ of the
lower orders; and the better class of settlers have not learned those
habits of temperance which are suited to the climate of Naples. The
two classes often remind me of English squires and their grooms, as I
used to see them at Florence, just after the peace; masters drinking
at dinner, because they were abroad, and after dinner because they
were Englishmen; the servants drinking always, because wine and brandy
were cheap. Perhaps a generation must pass away before the people here
will accommodate their habits to the climate, which is that of Italy,
without either malaria or the sirocco.

The soil of New South Wales is not particularly fertile. The plains of
the Granges, and of the great rivers of China, the lowlands of the West
India islands, the swamps of the Gulf of Mexico, and even the marshes
of Essex, produce crops of which the people here have no conception;
but then, as we are without great masses of alluvial deposit, so are
agues and intermittent fevers absolutely unknown. In point of natural
fertility, I am inclined to compare this soil to that of France; and I
have no doubt that, if the same quantity of agricultural labour as is
employed in France, were here bestowed upon an area equal to the French
territory, the quantity of produce would fully equal that of France.
Timber, coal, iron, and other useful minerals, abound; the harbours and
rivers teem with fish; cattle of all sorts thrive and multiply with
astonishing rapidity; every fruit that flourishes in Spain and Italy
comes to the highest perfection; and Nature fully performs her part in
bestowing upon man the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life.

_Val