MAP OF THE COLONY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
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SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

CHAPTER I.
EARLY HISTORY.

South Australia has a peculiar history of its own, differing very much from those of the other Australian colonies, though similar in some degree to that of New Zealand, which was founded after South Australia, and with aspirations of the same nature. New South Wales was taken up by Great Britain as a convict depôt, and grew as such till the free inhabitants who had followed and surrounded the convicts became numerous and strong enough to declare that they would have no more such neighbours sent among them. Van Diemen’s Land, which is now Tasmania, and Moreton Bay, which is now Queensland, were occupied as convict dependencies to the parent establishment. Moreton Bay was still part of New South Wales when New South Wales refused to be any longer regarded as an English prison, and Van Diemen’s Land did for herself that which New South Wales had done before. Even Port Phillip, which is now Victoria, was first occupied by convicts sent thither from the parent colony,—though it is right to say that the convict system never took root there, and that the attempt never reached fulfilment. On the same principle New South Wales sent an offshoot convict depôt to King George’s Sound, which is now a part of Western Australia,—an unhappy colony which, in its sore distress, was destined to save itself from utter destruction by delivering itself to the custody of compelled immigrants, who could be made to come thither and work when others would not come. In this way all the now existing Australian colonies, except South Australia, have either owed their origin to convicts, or have been at one period of their existence fostered by convict labour; but South Australia has never been blessed—or cursed—with the custody of a single British exile.

In 1829, when Australian exploration was yet young, Captain Sturt, who had already travelled westwards from Sydney till he found and named the Darling River, and had done much towards investigating the difficult problem of the central Australian waters, received a commission from the government of New South Wales to make his way across to the Murrumbidgee River, and to discover by following its course what became of it. It was then believed by many, and among others by Captain Sturt himself, that the great waters of the continent, which had been reached but of which the estuaries were not known, ran into some huge central lake or internal sea. With the view of proving or of disproving this surmise, Captain Sturt with a few companions started on his journey, carrying with him a boat in detached pieces, in which he proposed to solve the mystery of the river. For, it must be understood, none of those maritime explorers who had surveyed, or partially surveyed, the eastern, southern, or western coasts of the continent had discovered any river mouth by which it was supposed that these waters could escape to the sea. Sturt was very zealous and ambitious to make for himself a great name among Australian explorers,—as he has done. In his account of a subsequent journey,—made into the interior after he had found that the river did not conduct him thither,—he thus describes his own feelings:—“Let any man lay the map of Australia before him and regard the blank upon its surface, and then let me ask if it would not be an honourable achievement to be the first to place foot upon its centre.” This he did, subsequently, in 1845; but in 1829-1830 he and his companions made their way down the Murrumbidgee till that large river joined a still greater stream, which he first called the Murray. The upper part of this river had been crossed by Hovell and Hume in 1826, and had then been called the Hume. But the name given by Sturt is the one by which it will hereafter be known. He followed it till it was joined by another large river, which he rightly presumed to be that Darling which he had himself discovered on a former journey. Still going on he came to the “Great Bend” which the Murray makes. Hitherto the course of the wanderers down the Murrumbidgee and down the Murray had been nearly due west. From the Bend the Murray runs south, and from henceforth it waters a territory which is now a part of the province or colony of South Australia.

Sturt, when he had progressed for a while southwards, must have begun to perceive that that surmise as to a great inland sea was incorrect. For the waters both of the Murrumbidgee and the Darling he had so far accounted, and he was now taking with him down to the Southern Ocean the confluence of the three rivers. It is not my purpose in this book to describe the explorations of Australia, and I will not therefore stop to dwell upon the dangers which Sturt encountered. But it should be remembered that he was forced to carry with him all the provisions for his party, that he had no guide except the course of the waters which he was bound to follow, and that as he went he was accompanied along the banks by tribes of black natives, who, if not absolutely hostile, were astonished, suspicious, and irascible. Why they did not surround and destroy him and his little party we can hardly conceive. As far as we yet know, no white man had been there before, and yet it appears from Sturt’s account that the natives frequently evinced no astonishment whatever at firearms, looking on while birds were shot, and not even condescending to admire the precision with which they were killed.

He went on southwards till he entered a big lake,—now called Lake Alexandrina. There are indeed a succession of lakes or inland waters here, of which Lakes Alexandrina and Albert are very shallow, rarely having as much as six feet of water, which is fresh or very nearly fresh,—and the Coorong River, which is salt, and, although as much within the mouth as are the lakes, must be regarded as an inlet of the sea. Of Lake Albert and the Coorong River, Sturt appears to have seen nothing, but he did make his way with extreme difficulty through the tortuous, narrow, and shallow opening of the river which takes the waters of the lake down to the sea in Encounter Bay,—and then perceived that for purposes of seaborne navigation the great river of which he had followed the course must always be useless. “Thus,” he says, “were our fears of the impracticability and inutility of the chain of communication between the lake and the ocean confirmed.”

Having so far succeeded, and so far failed, he was called upon to decide what he would do next. He could see to the westward ranges of hills, which he rightly conceived to be those which Captain Flinders had described after surveying the coasts of Gulf St. Vincent and Spencer’s Gulf. Flinders had called these hills Mount Lofty, and Sturt could perceive,—at any rate could surmise,—that there was a fertile, happy land lying between him and them. But he had not the means nor had his men the strength to go across the country. He could not take his little whale-boat out to sea, nor could he venture to remain on the shores of Encounter Bay till assistance should come to him from seawards. He had flour and tea left, and birds and kangaroo might be killed on the river banks. So he resolved to go back again up the river, and thus with infinite labour he returned by the Murray and Murrumbidgee, and made his way to Sydney.

The results of this journey were twofold. Though Sturt did not discover the land in which the colony of South Australia was first founded, and on which the city of Adelaide now stands, the history of his journey and the account which had previously been given by Captain Flinders, led to the survey of the land between the two gulfs and the Murray River. There stands a hill, about twenty miles from Adelaide, called Mount Barker; in honour of Captain Barker, who was killed by the blacks while employed on this work. The land was found to be good, and fit for agriculture; not sandy, as is so large a proportion of the continent, nor heavily timbered, as is a larger portion of it. The survey was made immediately on the receipt of Sturt’s account, and the operations which were commenced with a view of planting the colony, were no doubt primarily due to him. And he solved the great question as to the Australian waters, proving, what all Australia now knows, to its infinite loss, that the river Murray,—the only considerable outflow of Australian waters with which we are as yet acquainted,—makes its way into the sea by a mouth which is not suited for navigation. There is already much traffic on the Murray, and no doubt that traffic will increase;—but there is very little traffic indeed from the Murray to the seaports, even on the Australian coast, and it is not probable that that little will be extended. It is yet possible that on the north or north-western coast navigable rivers may be found. Just now men who have visited the northern shore are beginning to tell us that the Roper River and the Victoria River may by certain processes of blasting and dredging become serviceable, not only for inland but also for maritime navigation. But hitherto Australia has had no river into which great ships can make their way, as they do on the open rivers of America, of Europe, and of Asia. The narrowness and shallowness,—or, as I may perhaps call it, the meanness,—of the mouth of the Murray is one of the great natural disadvantages under which Australia labours.

Tidings of the land between the Murray and the Gulfs came home, and then a company formed itself with the object of “planting” a colony, as British settlements were formerly planted in North America. The plan to be followed was that which came to be known as the Wakefield system, the theory of which required that the land should be sold in small quantities, at a “sufficient price,” so that the purchasers should settle on their own lands, and hold no more land than they would be able to occupy beneficially for themselves and the colony at large. This theory of occupation was to be adopted in distinct opposition to that under which large grants of land had been made in Western Australia,—the territorial estates so granted having been far too extensive in area for beneficial occupation.