West Australia, of which Perth is the capital, is eight hundred miles in width and thirteen hundred long from north to south, actually covering about one third of the continent. It embraces all that portion lying to the westward of the one hundred and twenty-ninth meridian of east longitude, having an area of about one million square miles,--or, to make a familiar comparison, it is eight times as large as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It has but few towns, ports, or settled districts, and Perth itself has less than eleven thousand inhabitants. The city is represented to be an attractive place, possessing a fine climate. Its oranges and tropical fruits generally are said to be excellent. It is situated on the Swan River, better known locally as Perth Waters. This river runs from Fremantle to Perth, and is a noble water-way, commercially spoiled however by a dangerous ledge of rocks about six feet under water, which shuts off the entrance from the sea. Of course, in due time dynamite will settle the business for that ledge.
The population of the entire colony known as West Australia is at the present writing hardly forty thousand, scattered along the seaboard or within a hundred miles of it. The results accomplished by this small number of inhabitants show very clearly of what the country is capable, and indicate what it would doubtless yield under more generous cultivation. The colony exported last year over a million dollars' worth of wool, besides copper, sandal-wood, timber, cattle, and so on. Late statistics show that there are over two millions of sheep in this section of the country, and we were told that it could support as many more as are found in Queensland and New South Wales united.
Pearl-oysters abound on the coast of West Australia, and pearl-shells are a ready source of income to the people, being exported in large quantities. These are most freely procured at the north. There are merchants in Sydney who annually fit out boats of from six to ten tons each, and send them to this locality for the pearl-oyster fishing. This is best prosecuted nearest to Torres Strait, which separates Australia from New Guinea. Next to the great island-continent itself, New Guinea is the largest island in the world, being three hundred and sixty miles wide by thirteen hundred miles in length; but while Australia as a whole is so remarkably healthy, not even the African Gold Coast is so dangerous to health as New Guinea. Its flat, densely-wooded, swampy coast is simply deadly to white men, and even the natives suffer constantly from low fever. These natives are probably the most barbaric of any savages living in this nineteenth century; they have no notion of even the rudest agricultural operations, living altogether on fish, berries, and roots.