Adelaide has been called the city of churches, and as already intimated it certainly is well supplied in that respect; but it is still better entitled to be called the city of public parks.
There was a grand Industrial Exhibition open at Adelaide during our visit, to which all the sister colonies had contributed; and hosts of strangers were consequently attracted to the town, imparting a business aspect to everything and a general life to its streets which doubtless was not its normal condition. Still, be this as it may, the capital of South Australia is growing steadily in population and material wealth. The present Exhibition Building stands in the Adelaide Park lands, fronting North Terrace, adjacent to the Botanical Gardens. A direct line of railway, seven miles long, connects the Exhibition with the wharves at Port Adelaide, where ships of the largest tonnage can lie at the pier and discharge their cargoes. The completeness, thorough organization, and amazing variety of this Exhibition of Industries here in the South Seas was a subject of great surprise and admiration to us. It is not, however, our intention to go into a description of the Exhibition, but it was certainly worthy of all commendation.
The Australian ladies of this section are essentially unlike their sisterhood of the colonies in general. They are characterized by a bright, buoyant, piquant manner which charms and captivates the stranger who is so fortunate as to enjoy their proverbial hospitality. Without being in the least flippant, they are debonair and winsome in the display of their many accomplishments, which always embrace music, drawing, and dancing. They are more like the women of America in height and general figure than their English progenitors. They have none of the English stoutness which indicates a plethora of blood and vigor; indeed, there was a marked delicacy generally apparent in the matter of health, which is to be attributed doubtless to climatic influences,—and yet statistics show a low scale of mortality in Adelaide, as in most parts of Australia. Regarding amusements, dancing is a favorite one, quite as much so here as among the ladies of Spain. Among gentlemen belonging to what is termed the best society in Adelaide, it is a fact worth remarking that one finds no idlers; all have some legitimate calling, and would evidently feel ill at ease without it. Idling is not popular; each citizen is expected to contribute in some form to the general condition of thrift and progress, as well as to do his share toward developing the natural resources of the State. This is imperative in a youthful colony, and not out of place in any community.
It is believed that the interior of the continent, which is largely embraced within the territory of South Australia, was at a comparatively recent period covered by a great inland ocean. Here are found the mammoth bones of animals of the marsupial species, now extinct, which have afforded much interest to scientists. On some portions of these plains it is said that the heat absorbed from the sun in the daytime is radiated from the soil at night to such a degree as to be insufferable to human beings. The soil is represented to be at such times like burning coal; and when the air moves over it, an effect is produced as from a furnace, or from a sirocco blowing off the coast of Africa. The effect of these winds is occasionally felt in Sydney and Melbourne; and while it lasts, humanity becomes inert, and exertion impossible. It rarely continues, however, more than three days, and in the vicinity of Adelaide is seldom experienced more than twice in a season.
Several lakes are represented to exist in the interior, as shown by maps of Australia,—among them Lake Torrens, Lake Eyre, Lake Gardiner, and Lake Amadeus, apparently covering large areas; but these localities are little more than muddy swamps or salt marshes, which are completely dried up in summer. Their level is believed to be considerably below that of the sea; and it has been proposed to cut a canal from Torrens to Spencer Gulf: if that proved advantageous, then Lake Eyre could be connected with comparatively little labor. Spencer Gulf is the deepest indentation upon the south coast, and would flood these swamps with permanent water, rendering them not only navigable, but producing a favorable change in the climate. At present, during the summer season the thermometer rises in the lake region to 110° and even to 115° Fahrenheit.
This district is regarded as a desert waste because of its want of a permanent supply of water, being "eaten up," to use a local phrase, with drought. And yet this want of water at certain seasons while there is an abundance at others is a matter so obviously within the ability of the people to remedy, that one cannot sympathize much with them in their present deprivation. Why the intelligent means of irrigation so well known and so thoroughly tested elsewhere are not adopted here, it is difficult to understand. We heartily agree with the position assumed in regard to this matter by a certain English Bishop, of whom we were told. He came to Australia to make it his home; and being applied to in a dry season to issue a circular-prayer for rain, he answered that a fair average quantity of water fell upon the land already, and that he declined to petition the Almighty to work a miracle until the colonists had themselves done what they could to preserve the rains by constructing proper reservoirs and sinking artesian wells. These people must not expect that Hercules will help them, unless they first put their own shoulders to the wheel.
The river Darling shows well upon paper, and judged by its aspect on the map it is a river which might rank with the Volga and the Amazon. But the truth is that it forms a watercourse dependent at present upon floods, admitting of navigation for hundreds of miles at certain seasons, and at others being as dry as the Arno at Florence or the Manzanares at Madrid. By a series of dams and canals this river might be navigable all the year round. The same remark applies to several of its tributaries, and to rivers generally running toward the inland centres and flowing into the Murray. The governments of the several colonies have long realized the importance and the necessity of a grand and comprehensive system of irrigation. They seem to be never tired of talking about the matter; but the time has now come for action. Some of the most enterprising of the pioneers as they have advanced inland have built dams on the small tributaries of the two rivers named, and have found it to pay them tenfold. Some have sunk artesian wells, and have in their turn reaped commensurate advantages. We were shown great reaches of country where ten years ago cattle would have starved had they been turned out to find a living there, but which now support large herds of domestic animals.
Africa's interior is scarcely less mapped out and explored than Central Australia. There are thousands of square miles upon which the foot of a white man has never trod. Tartary has its steppes, America its prairies, Egypt its deserts, and Australia its "scrub." The plains so called are covered by a low-growing bush, compact and almost impenetrable in places, composed of a dwarf eucalyptus. The appearance of a large reach of this scrub is desolate indeed, the underlying soil being a sort of yellow sand which one would think could surely produce nothing else. We were told of one large section of South Australia ten thousand miles square, which is solely covered with this scrub. "Yet," said our informant, himself an agriculturist of experience and a large landholder, "experiment has shown that if a watercourse were turned upon this ground and the scrub cleared away, it would give us a soil nearly as fertile as the valley of the Nile." And he added: "After a year or two more of useless talk, irrigation will be applied in all directions."
The climate of Adelaide and the surrounding country is of much greater warmth than that of the region about Brisbane, Sydney, or Melbourne. It is not uncommon for the thermometer to register 100° in the shade during the summer months. The vegetable products are almost identical with those of South Africa, and the soil is equally productive, yielding crop after crop with no signs of exhaustion. The food of the common people is cheap, abundant, and good. Mutton and beef do not cost one tenth as much as is charged for them in England or America, while bread is but four cents per pound. The flour produced here we were told won prizes wherever it was exhibited, and was considered as ranking with the very best manufactured anywhere. All kinds of vegetables are also cheap, and thanks to the Chinamen they are also in good supply: no one but John pretends to raise them. Everybody eats meat three times a day, rich and poor; but of the cooking,—well, as we cannot say anything complimentary about it, we will not dilate upon this theme.
The large number of German residents in and about Adelaide is particularly observable, and whole villages were found to exist in South Australia where German was the one language spoken. This people form the best class of settlers, for they come hither with a well-considered purpose, almost always in the direction of agricultural enterprise; and this they pursue undeviatingly. Many of them are from the Rhine districts of Germany, and interest themselves in the planting and culture of the grape and in winemaking, having brought with them a special and valuable experience obtained in their native land.