average of life is at all more prolonged there
than in England, still it would really seem, that the enjoyment of life
was greater. Such declarations as these.--"To say we are all well is
really nothing;" "the full enjoyment of health is quite a marvel;"
occur in the letters of those who are settled in the great Southern
Land; and the descriptions with which we meet in books of its
exhilarating climate, completely justify and bear out the pleasing
accounts of it given us by its inhabitants. In so vast a territory, and
in so many different situations as the British colonies now occupy,
there must needs be great variety of climate; and the warmth of Sydney
and its neighbourhood forms a strong contrast to the cool bracing air
of Bathurst, which is only 121 miles distant; the heat of the new
settlements at Moreton Bay, which is nearly tropical, is strongly
opposed to the English climate, beautifully softened and free from
damp, which is enjoyed in Van Diemen's Land. In Australia, it has been
remarked, every thing regarding climate is the opposite of England; for
example, the north is the hot wind, and the south the cool; the westerly
the most unhealthy, and the east the most salubrious; it is summer with
the colonists when it is winter at home, and their midnight coincides
with our noonday. Near the coast, the sea breezes, which set in daily
from the great expanse of waters, are very refreshing; whilst in the
interior, except in Van Diemen's Land, or in very high situations, the
hot winds are extremely disagreeable. Especially in the colony of New
South Wales, during the summer season, the westerly wind, which blows
probably over immense deserts of sandstone, or over miles of country set
on fire by the natives, is scarcely endurable at certain times, but
feels like the heated air at the mouth of a furnace, and is then far
from wholesome or pleasant. However, this blast of hot wind is said
never to endure very long, and it is less oppressive than the same heat
would be elsewhere, because in New Holland the air is dry, and in other
countries, India for instance, when the heat is exactly the same, it is
felt much more intensely from the quantity of moisture with which the
burning atmosphere is surcharged. Still we may form an idea of the
occasional violence of the heat in the interior of New Holland, from
Captain Sturt's account of his expedition across the parched-up marshes
of the Macquarie River, where the sugar which his me