especting
Southern Australia is derived.

To attempt to state accurately what the soil and capabilities of so
vast an extent of country may be, would evidently be to attempt an
impossibility. Of that small part of it which is already occupied, much
is barren, hilly land, especially upon the coast. Nevertheless, it would
appear that South Australia has, so far as we can at present judge, its
full proportion of good and available soil, both for the purposes of
farming and for pasture.[154] The situation of that part of the colony,
where the principal settlements have been commenced, is very well
chosen, for it lies upon the Gulf of St. Vincent, a very deep inlet of
the sea, and is well backed with a range of hills to the eastward,
beyond which the country yet unexplored extends to the banks of the
river Murray; so that, in fact, the Murray and the Gulf of St. Vincent,
form natural boundaries to those settlements which are already begun,
and within these limits it is said that there are the means of
supporting comfortably from one hundred to two hundred thousand
inhabitants. This statement agrees with Captain Sturt's report of the
existence of several millions of acres of very beautiful and fertile
land in the same district. The climate of South Australia is healthy,
though very warm;[155] and the usual disorders of Australia, complaints
of the eye and relaxation of the bowels, were the ailments least
uncommon among the new settlers. In March 1841, the population of the
colony was estimated at about 14,000, and the amount of land under
tillage about 2000 acres. But since that time there has been a
considerable increase in both items. The quantity of provisions in
proportion to the inhabitants was considerably greater than in England.
A small commerce is springing up, and slate, which abounds in South
Australia, and oil, the produce of the adjacent seas, together with wool
from the flocks fed upon the neighbouring hills, begin to form materials
of traffic.[156]

[154] In these matters it is impossible to get at truth. Each man judges
upon certain data, but though the conclusion of each may be correct, yet
because the data were partial and imperfect, so likewise will the
conclusions be. Mr. Mann, who was examined by the Committee upon South
Australia, gives it as his opinion that about four-fifths of the land in
that colony were bad. However, he had never been more than three weeks
in it nor above fourteen