ke inquiries into the capabilities of the
country through which he had travelled, and who could therefore speak to
other matters, besides the description of landscape or the smoothness of
a road.

If we take our departure from Adelaide by the great Northern Road, we
shall have to travel 25 miles over the plains, keeping the Mount Lofty
Range at greater and less distances on our right, the plains extending in
varying breadth to the westward, ere we can pull up at Calton's Hotel in
Gawler Town, where, nevertheless, we should find every necessary both for
ourselves and our horses.

That township, the first and most promising on the Northern Road, is, as
I have stated, 25 miles from Adelaide; and occupies the angle formed by
the junction of the Little Para and the Gawler Rivers; the one coming
from south-east, and the other from north-north-east; the traveller
approaching from the south therefore, would have to cross the first of
these little streams before he can enter the town.

Still, in its infancy, Gawler Town will eventually be a place of
considerable importance. Through it all the traffic of the north must
necessarily pass, and here, it appears to me, will be the great markets
for the sale or purchase of stock. From its junction with the Little
Para, the Gawler flows to the westward to the shores of St. Vincent's
Gulf. It has extensive and well wooded flats of deep alluvial soil along
its banks, flanked by the plains of Adelaide--the river line of trees
running across them, only with a broader belt of wood, just as the line
of trees near Adelaide indicates the course of that river. If I except
these features, and two or three open box-tree forests at no great
distance from Albert Town, the plains are almost destitute of timber, and
being very level, give an idea of extent they do not really possess,
being succeeded by pine forests and low scrub to the north from Gawler
Town.

The Gawler discharges itself into a deep channel or inlet, which, like
the creek at Port Adelaide, has mangrove swamps on either side; still the
inlet is capable of great improvement, and the anchorage at its mouth, so
high up the gulf is safe, and if it were only for the shipment of goods,
for tran-shipment at Port Adelaide, Port Gawler as it is called, would be
of no mean utility, but it is probable that ships might take in cargo at
once, in which case it would be to the interest of the northern settlers
to establish a port there. Captain