he railroad long
since begun, has been nearly completed between the two cities, and may
possibly be open by the time these notes are printed. It has a
population, if we include the immediate suburbs, of fully fifty
thousand. Until 1860 it was an appendage of New South Wales, but was in
that year formed into an independent colony and named Queensland, after
the reigning queen of great Britain. The site of the city is a
diversified surface, with the river whose name it bears winding
gracefully through it about twenty-five miles from its mouth; though in
a direct line it would be but half that distance to its debouchment into
Moreton Bay, one of the largest bays on the coast of Australia. It was
discovered by Captain Cook in 1770, and is formed by two long sandy
islands running north and south, named respectively Standbroke and
Moreton Islands, enclosing between them and the mainland a spacious
sheet of water more than thirty miles long and six or eight wide,
beautified by several small and fertile islands. On approaching Brisbane
by the sea one is puzzled at first to find where the mouth of the river
can be, so completely is it hidden by mangrove swamps which skirt the
coast hereabout for many miles. A pleasant little watering-place is
located close at hand named Sandgate, which is connected by hourly
stages with the city. Several small rivers, all of which however are
more or less navigable, empty into Moreton Bay, showing that the
district of Brisbane is well watered.

It is less than fifty years since Brisbane was opened to free settlers,
having been previously only a penal station of the English government.
But of this taint here the same may be said as of Sydney or Hobart in
Tasmania,--scarcely a trace remains.

The principal streets run north and south, and are half a mile long,
being crossed at right angles by smaller ones. All of these
thoroughfares were originally laid out too narrow for the purpose
designed. Here one remarks the same system of verandas reaching from end
to end of the streets, and stretching over the sidewalks to the
edge-stones before the shops, which is observed in all the other cities
and large towns of Australia and New Zealand. For a city of its size it
is unusually well supplied with churches and places of public worship,
of which there are forty-one, embracing all sects of professed
Christians. Queen Street is the main thoroughfare and is lined with
handsome stores and beautiful edifices