PROSPERITY CREATED BY THE OVERLANDER.

The first entrance of an Overlander into a district may be compared to the rising of the Nile upon the thirsty land of Egypt; then does the country bear fruit and the land give forth her increase, he enters the district silently, noiselessly, unexpectedly, but his influence is soon felt everywhere; merchant vessels can now obtain cargoes of wool, and no longer sail empty away.  England receives raw materials, and in exchange are sent out luxuries and manufactured goods.  New clearings are made by the farmer, who has now abundance of manure; the artisan plies useful trades, and ceases to labour in the place of beasts of draught or burden; hateful scurvy, the scourge of new colonies, is expelled, not by medicine, but by fresh meat, milk, and vegetables.  But the worker of all this good is unmindful of it; he has bargained to get the highest price he can for his stock, and is already plotting new enterprises; he sought to serve himself, not others, and has accomplished both.

The first Overlander having entered a district nothing can check the tide that follows on.  It is in vain for him to declare (perhaps really conscientiously) that he conceives the risk of loss of stock to be so great that none should undertake the journey; this is only ascribed to his cupidity and a desire to keep others out of the market; HE has done it, and why cannot more?  This argument is irresistible, and adventurer after adventurer marches upon his track.

CONSEQUENCES OF HIS SUCCESS UPON OTHERS.

Now comes a hurrying into the new district of speculators from the old colonies:  the fact of a road being found to it from the stock country is a guarantee that it will succeed, and it is in a new settlement that the largest profits are realized.  These arrivals bring with them from the older colonies experience, capital, and extensive connexions; fresh sources of industry and speculation are at once opened up by them; all town-land and landed property to be purchased at a cheap rate they secure; money circulates from hand to hand, and an impetus is given, and a progress made, which must be seen to be credited.

OPENINGS TO WEALTH IN NEW COLONIES.

The tide of emigration coming in from the older colonies is a certain sign of rapid success; those who arrive from these places are men who have done well in the first country of their adoption; but to this they had repaired when it was thinly inhabited, when land was of very low value and to be procured near the capital; there they have realized largely, but it appears to them that nearly all the good things have now been picked up; property has attained such a value that it rises but slowly, indeed is almost stationary in price; and the country is so largely stocked that they are driven to establish their sheep-stations at such a distance from the sea coast that the expense of the transport of their wool thither greatly detracts from its value.  Under these circumstances once again do they emigrate, to repeat in a new land the operations which have before yielded them so lucrative a return; and, strong in past experience, they smile at the errors committed by the younger settlers, from which they reap many advantages.