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FOUNDATION OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

+Source.+--Six Months in the new Colony of South Australia (J. Horton
James, 1839), pp. 1, 28-37

The settlement of South Australia was undertaken to test
Wakefield's theory; but instead of turning their land to good
account the colonists left it idle, hoping to sell at a high price.
The result was disastrous.

SITUATION AND EXTENT

The New Province, called South Australia, which, by an Act of the
Imperial Parliament, was erected into a free British colony on 15th
August, 1834, is situate on the South Coast of the Great Island
Continent of New Holland, in the Southern or Indian Ocean, extending
from 132 deg. to 141 deg. E. longitude, and from 38 deg. to 26 deg. S. latitude, and
contains nearly two hundred millions of acres. It is twelve thousand
miles distant from Great Britain.

This distance of twelve thousand miles ought to be performed by a fast
sailing ship in twelve weeks, at the rate of a thousand miles per week,
which is the fair average running of a good ship on distant voyages; but
it is better to allow something for light winds and calms near the
Equator, and to say in round numbers one hundred days in all, which is
rather more than fourteen weeks.

This is Port Adelaide! Port Misery would be a better name; for nothing
in any other part of the world can surpass it in everything that is
wretched and inconvenient, packages of goods and heaps of merchandise
are lying about in every direction as if they had cost nothing. Stacks
of what were once beautiful London bricks crumbling away like
gingerbread, and evidently at each returning tide half covered with the
flood; trusses of hay, now rotten, and Norway deals, scattered about as
if they had no owner--iron ploughs and rusty harrows--cases of
door-frames and windows that had once been glazed--heaps of the best
slates half tumbling down--winnowing-machines broken to pieces--blocks
of Roman cement, now hard as stone, wanting nothing but the staves and
hoops--Sydney cedar, and laths and shingles from Van Diemen's Land in
every direction; whilst on the high ground are to be seen pigs eating
through the flour-sacks, and kegs of raisins with not only the head out,
but half the contents; onions and potatoes apparently to be had for
picking up. The sight is disheartening. What with the sun and the
rain--the sand and the floods--the thieves with four legs and the
thieves with two--the passengers hug t