you have a reluctance to move, and may not rest
so well as usual; but the spirits are in no way affected; nor indeed, in
the ordinary transactions of business does a hot wind make the slightest
difference. If there are three or four months of warm weather, there are
eight or nine months of the year, during which the weather is splendid.
Nothing can exceed the autumn, winter, and spring of that transparent
region, where the firmament is as bright as it would appear from the
summit of Mount Blanc. In the middle of winter you enjoy a fire, the
evenings are cold, and occasionally the nights are frosty. It is then
necessary to put on warmer clothing, and a good surtout, buttoned across
the breast, is neither an uncomfortable nor unimportant addition. Having
said thus much of the general salubrity of the climate of South
Australia, I would observe, in reference to what may be said against it,
that the changes of temperature are sudden and unexpected, the
thermometer rising or falling 50 degrees in an hour or two. Whether it is
owing to the properties I have ascribed, that the climate of this place
as also of Sydney should be fatal to consumptive habits, I do not know,
but in both places I have understood that such is the case, and in both I
have had reason to regret instances. It has been said that influenza
prevailed last year in Adelaide to a great extent, and that it carried
off a great many children and elderly persons. An epidemic, similar in
its symptoms, may have prevailed there, and been severe in its progress,
but it hardly seems probable that the epidemic of this country should
have been conveyed through constant change of air, the best cure for such
a disease, to so distant a part of the world. With all its salubrity,
indeed, I believe it may be said, that South Australia is subject to the
more unimportant maladies like other countries, but that there are no
indigenous disorders of a dangerous kind, and that it is a country which
may strictly be called one of the healthiest in the world, and will, in
all probability, continue so, as long as it shall be kept clear of
European diseases.

Having thus endeavoured to give a description of the general character
and climate of this limited but certainly beautiful portion of the
Australian continent, without encumbering my description with any remark
on the principal and particular sources of wealth it possesses, which not
being usual, could not, or rather would not, have b