those over which a lady presided, and the most contented, and usually the most prosperous settlers, must be looked for among those who in woman's love have found a balm for disappointment, and the noblest stimulus to exertion.

But is the prospect of the bush, after all, so very alarming? How much can taste and refinement do to dignify and embellish the settler's home! It is far from uncomfortable; it has not been improved perhaps so much as it might have been, for the frequent changes in the government regulations respecting the bush have shaken the settler's confidence in his tenure, and he is unwilling to lay out capital on improvements which promise no return but it is not inconvenient, and woman's taste may make it elegant. As the nests of certain birds are distinguished by the delicacy of their texture and materials, so woman's home betrays itself, even in the bush of Australia. The garden, too, admits of improvement, and affords an agreeable out-of-doors occupation. At all stations there is an excellent kitchen-garden; the native fruits are few; the principal is a sort of currant, too acid to be generally popular, but the fruits of England and many other countries may be naturalized with ease: the vine will flourish in most parts of the colony. I have seen some good flower-gardens very far in the interior, and, as leisure increases, the cultivation of these may be more carefully attended to. The Flora of Australia is very beautiful and delicate, though truth compels me to own that Australian flowers have little perfume. The hours in the bush are early, but the wife will have no difficulty in keeping the hours of her husband; and what resident in Australia would not be amply repaid for the exertion of early rising by the beauty and delicious coolness of the dawn?

The evenings, after the business of the day is over, are sometimes rather long, for there is little or no twilight at the antipodes; but this time is precious in the bush, as it affords leisure for an important duty in the settler's life--the duty of keeping up whatever accomplishments and cultivated tastes he has brought with him, and most of all a taste for reading. Let a young married couple beware lest the novelty of bush life, its toils and cares, or the charms of each other's society, wean them from those habits of mental cultivation which are more easily lost

than acquired. The time will come when they will bitterly lament, for their own sakes, having neglected any means they once possessed of giving interest, variety, and even dignity to a pastoral life. This regret will be most severely felt for the sake of their family, when they have children of an age to be taught. The time will soon come when they must decide on the alternative of an early separation from their children (if indeed they have the means of sending them to school, and persons to whom they can entrust them), or, on the other hand, of seeing them grow up at home with hardly better manners and breeding than those of a shepherd or stock-keeper.

One great and painful difficulty is found in carrying on education in the bush-I mean that of preventing children from associating with, and learning the language and manners of those whom, from sheer necessity, the settler in the far districts is often forced to employ as house-servants. This is a source of much anxiety, and the evil can only be obviated by watchful care. But the subject suggests to me, naturally, what I conceive to be the true mission of woman in the bush of Australiato civilize and Christianize its rising population by her influence, example, and gentle persuasion. With so noble a field for utility before her, no woman, such as I picture her to my imagination, would repine at some curtailment of the luxuries, or rather, shall I say, the feverish excitements of life; while her usefulness, thus employed, may, in its remote effects, last to the end of time.

Man is too much occupied in the active and toilsome cares of the day; he wants the delicate tact, the instinctive sympathy to touch and persuade. It is woman that must prepare the way, and aid the diffusion of religious instruction, or the clergyman will labour in vain. The persuasion that "the bush" must now be the settler's home, and the consequently increased frequency of marriage, will do more for the civilization of the interior of Australia in a few years than a century could have done, had it continued to be tenanted by a rapid succession of temporary residents.

Before I conclude I have yet a few words of advice to offer to those who, without any previous colonial experience, intend to

visit Australia for the purpose of engaging in pastoral pursuits, or who, feeling, from their own peculiar circumstances, the oppressive solitude of a crowd in a crowded land, may wish to leave it,

"Perchance, beyond the waves to find

Some happier home, some country less unkind."

It is a common saying in Australia that nobody makes, eventually, so good a settler as the man who has bought his experience, or who, as the phrase goes, has been well "victimized." No doubt in the colonies, as in most other parts of the world, knowledge purchased at such a cost is most deeply impressed and longest retained; but experience itself may be bought too dear, and surely it is always bought too dear if it might have been bought at a cheaper rate. The capitalist who could not gain an insight into his intended pursuits without greatly decreasing the money which he travelled so far to invest, is in no better plight than a vessel which, after outliving a severe gale, arrives in port, but at the cost of having thrown overboard the greater part of

her cargo.

Among those who, a few years ago, visited the colony, a notion seemed to prevail that, although for other occupations some previous preparation might be necessary, a knowledge of the management of a stock establishment in the interior of New South Wales was to be gained by intuition. Whence this delusion arose it would perhaps be difficult to ascertain, but so it frequently happened, that young men, who had just left England, as ignorant of stock and farming in all its branches as a totally different education could make them, would take it for granted, when fairly landed in Sydney, that they were at once fully competent to be the managers of a large station in the interior. This notion, which has now fortunately become less frequent, cannot be too forcibly combated; for though no high order of intellect may be required to learn the routine of a settler's life, yet the new comer may be assured, that without the previous acquisition of knowledge, and the judicious application of it when acquired, it will be in vain to hope for success.

The first object of the young colonist when he lands in Australia should be to endeavour to see things as they are, not through the magnifying glass of his hopes and wishes. Many a

capitalist is so impatient to plunge at once into the full tide of business, that all reflection is laid aside; he has come out for the purpose of buying stock, and stock he must buy, reasonably if possible, but stock at any sacrifice: the consequence is, that when experience, the only monitor in such cases, brings home to him the consequences of his error, he blames the country, its ways, his bad fortune, in short anything but the real cause—his own rashness, and that ignorance "which finds not, till it feels."

There is something in the very atmosphere of Sydney which seems to inspire the new comer with rashness, and to hurry him on to inconsiderate purchases. The novelty of his situation, the recollection of his professed purpose on leaving England, and perhaps of all the castles in the air which he has built during his passage out, tend to augment his impetuosity. The passion for wealth, which his previous education has hitherto allowed to lie dormant, is roused into sudden and ungovernable activity. He looks around him and finds, in this his new sphere, that the love of gain reigns paramount and supreme. If he takes up a 'Sydney Herald,' he finds it full of advertisements "to capitalists and monied men," urging them "not to lose a moment in availing themselves of this excellent opportunity now offered," which the auctioneer "feels confident in stating may never occur again," of "making a fortune." An afternoon's walk through the streets shows him scarcely anything but the eager look and puckered mouth of the man of business; his acquaintances all talk to him about "investment," and at the dinner-table he still meets his friends with "speculation in their eyes." It is therefore very difficult for the stranger to resist the force of an example so constantly acting upon him; his coolness soon deserts him; he is carried away by the stream, and learns to think, and act, with the rest of the world around him.

Passion makes men credulous, and credulity has been the bane of many a new comer. When some promising bargain in stock, duly ushered forth in the daily papers, meets his eye, it must always be obvious to the reader who consults his reason, that the advertiser probably finds, owing to circumstances not mentioned in the catalogue, that the stock which he is offering for sale is not repaying him. The advantages set forth may very likely really exist, as far as they go, but are in all likelihood coun

terbalanced by drawbacks which a stranger in the country will not have sufficient judgment to discover in time. Human nature is much the same everywhere, and greater candour cannot be reasonably expected from the Robinses of Sydney, than from him whose lively imagination has made him so famous at home.

The safest course, and indeed the only one likely to lead to good results, is to wait with patience. Let the newly-arrived capitalist give up all intention of purchasing stock for at least two years, during which time he should go into the interior and reside upon some large grazing establishment, where he may have facilities for learning the necessary routine of “bush life.” By this mode of proceeding he will gain a twofold advantage: should the sort of life really not suit him, he will be able to withdraw in time; but if, on the other hand, he should wish, after his trial, to carry out his first intentions, he ought, after two years' experience, to have gained sufficient knowledge of the intrinsic value of colonial property to enable him to invest his capital with the prospect of a fair return. By this previous residence at a station he will acquire the necessary knowledge of the sort of business. A capital of experience is as indispensable to a settler as a capital of money: a stock establishment in the hands of a novice is little better than a spirited horse in the possession of a bad rider—it will only give him a fall.

Nor let it be supposed that time is lost by thus waiting to gain experience. Surely it is better to remain stationary than to be drifted in the wrong direction. It is cheaper to buy experience by giving up for a time all hope of gain, than by incurring immediately a positive and heavy loss. The capitalist who has been able to exert this forbearance, will find himself, after a few years, considerably in advance of those who have pursued the usual course. Many who have lost their time and their capital in Australia would, if they had followed the plan here recommended, have been comparatively rich; they would not perhaps have equalled their first expectations, but they would at least have added something to their capital, instead of seeing it dwindle away through their own mismanagement.

At the commencement of the settler's career it is of the greatest consequence to fix at once upon a part of the colony where the pasture is most favourable to the sort of stock which it is intended to put upon it, since inferior stock in a good coun