s to return to England, and therefore sought
to sell their land. But when nearly all wished to sell, and scarcely any
wished to buy, the price went down to a trifle, and men who had invested
fortunes in town allotments, realised no more than enough to pay their
passage home. In the meantime the English merchants declined to send
out any further supplies, and those who had not the means of leaving
Adelaide seemed in great danger of starving. But as land could now be
bought very cheaply, many industrious people of the poorer class settled
down to clear the country for farming. This was what should have been
done at the very beginning; for no colony can be prosperous, or look for
anything but bankruptcy, until it commences to produce grain, or wool,
or minerals, or some other commodity with which it can purchase from
other lands the goods which they produce. The lands of South Australia
are admirably adapted for the growth of wheat; and, after a time,
success attended the efforts of the farmers, who thus laid the
foundations of future prosperity.

[Illustration: PROCLAMATION TREE, GLENELG.
(The colony of S. Australia proclaimed a
British dependency, 28th December, 1836.)]

Another industry was also added about this time. The young squatters of
New South Wales, attracted by the high prices given for sheep in the
early days of Adelaide, had been daring enough, in spite of the blacks
and of the toilsome journey, to drive their flocks overland; and the
new-comers soon gave quite a wool-growing tone to the community. These
"overlanders," as they were called, affected a bandit style of dress; in
their scarlet shirts and broad-brimmed hats, their belts filled with
pistols, and their horses gaily caparisoned, they caused a sensation in
the streets in Adelaide, which rang all evening with their merriment
and dissipation. But as they brought about fifty thousand sheep into the
colony during the course of only a year or so, they were of essential
benefit to it. Many of them settled down and taught the new arrivals how
to manage flocks and prepare the wool, and thus they assisted in raising
Adelaide from the state of despondency and distress into which it had
sunk.

#8. Recall of Governor Gawler.#--The British Government eventually decided
to lend the colony a sufficient sum of money to pay its debts; but it
was resolved to make certain changes. The eleven commissioners were
abolished, Captain George