It is some months since I last wrote about Australia, but it is a question whether something is not gained by a delay in putting together notes of travel. If much is lost in vividness and particularity, yet the whole and its parts are thrown into better proportion, slight incidents that at first seemed of much interest, are relegated to a more humble position, and really salient points have a better chance of receiving their due share of attention.
On the 20th May, I went to Adelaide from Melbourne by the steamer Adelaide, and, among the fine steamers of the Southern Hemisphere, there is none better appointed than this, in respect of food, ventilation, and general comfort. Like many others, it is fitted with the electric light. The captain is a well-known character. Some time before, he had been to blame in a collision with another steamer on the river Yarra. The Marine Board at Melbourne suspended his certificate for six months, but his employers, I was told, held him in such esteem that during that time he went on his own ship as purser, until he could resume command. I was confined in the cabin with a gentleman, who kindly informed me, beforehand, that he undertook this voyage in order to be seasick, on account of his health, and so he kept me in a continual state of expectation, like one who, in the night, every moment expects a cock to crow. At the end of the voyage he expressed his regret that he had not been ill, which I could scarcely share. The journey, by sea, takes about 48 hours; that is, from Port Philip Heads (the entrance to Melbourne Harbour) to Port Adelaide, and the steamers run twice a-week from each end. Soon there will be direct railway communication between Melbourne and Adelaide, but at present the land journey takes three days, and is much more expensive, as a good deal of it has to be done by coaching. The large mail steamers from Europe of the P. & O. and Orient lines stop for a few hours off Glenelg (about seven miles from Adelaide), to land the mails and cargo; but the intercolonial and other steamers come up, by a long detour, to Port Adelaide, which is also about seven miles from the city; but here they come alongside the wharf. Some of the other colonies have been utilized as penal settlements, or rather begun as such. South Australia was founded consciously and deliberately in 1836. No convict is allowed to land, and a tax of £10 is imposed on every Chinese. The site of Adelaide was chosen for that of the capital. From Port Adelaide to Adelaide the rail runs through a level tract, and the city itself is placed in the centre of a plain, bounded by hills on the north and east at about six miles distance. South Australia appears to be named on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle, because, as a fact, almost the whole of South Australia is to the north of Victoria; and, since 1863, it stretches right across the continent to the north coast of Australia, which is far away into the tropics. Indeed, this northern territory seems to be tacked on to South Australia, because it is not yet of sufficient importance to have a government of its own, and it is difficult to know what to do with it. It is separated by an enormous tract of country, and has nothing in common with South Australia proper. The Bishop told me he supposed he should have to make a visitation through it. If in time this district of the north becomes more populous, it is probable it will set up for itself, just as there have long been agitations for separating Northern Queensland from the Southern portion, and the Riverina from New South Wales, on the ground that their particular interests are not sufficiently represented at Brisbane and Sydney respectively.