preference.  This is apparently for the benefit of the crown, twenty thousand pounds being thus added to the revenue under the pound per acre system; but it is certainly not advantageous to the country, as the large purchasers seldom buy for occupation, but for sale; and the smallholder, the squatter, is driven from the land in distress.  I have seen instances of persons being utterly ruined in this way.  My own opinion is, that the squatter ought to be allowed to purchase the land he occupies by private contract from government; or that an allowance should be made him, equivalent to his improvements.)

The detention we had experienced afforded me an opportunity of visiting the country; and having just seen between two and three hundred miles of the Province of South Australia, I was glad of the chance of comparing these two parts of the continent.  Accordingly, after making a series of magnetical observations, and others for the errors of the chronometers, I left Portland one morning in company with Mr. Tyers.  Taking Mr. Henty’s road to the northward we soon passed the rich land surrounding Portland, and entered a stringybark forest, eight miles in extent.  Then crossing a heathy tract we came to the Fitzroy, distant fifteen miles from Portland.  Here, as elsewhere, the presence of water improves the soil, for along the banks of the river there was some good land.  This was also the case near a hill just beyond it, called Mount Eckersley. where I saw Sir Thomas Mitchell’s initials cut in a tree at the time when he explored this country, and found to his surprise that Mr. Henty had a station in Portland Bay.

EXCURSION INTO THE INTERIOR.

With the exception of the flats near the Crawford, twenty miles from the Fitzroy, the road lies through a poor country, until it approaches Mr. J. Henty’s station, fifteen miles further.  Here we appeared to have turned our backs on the bad land; and entered a tract of country in which the herbage is so excellent that an acre is capable of feeding one sheep, whereas in other parts three or four are required.

From a pointed hill, called the Sugarloaf, fifty-eight miles from Portland, I had an extensive view of this fertile district:  the outlines of those magnificent mountains, the Victoria and Grampian ranges, that completed the distant part of the landscape, to the eastward, were distinctly defined against the clear morning sky; whilst, in the foreground, grassy round-topped hills, rose on either side of wide valleys sparingly dotted with trees, marking the course of the streams that meander through them, and the margin of the singular circular waterholes, with sides so steep as to render it necessary to cut through them to enable the cattle to drink, that were distributed around as if formed by art, rather than by nature.  Westward, I saw the winding course of the Glenelg, and was told that some of the squatters had located themselves on its banks, and that others were even talking of stations