From Cape Jarvis the coast line tends to the north along the eastern shore of St. Vincent’s Gulf.  The scenery, as you turn the point, is extremely diversified.  Dark cliffs and small sandy bays, with grassy slopes almost to the water’s edge, succeed each other, backed by moderate hills, sparingly covered with trees, and broken into numerous valleys.  Thus you pass Yankelilla, Rapid Bay, and Aldingis; but from Brighton the shore becomes low and sandy, and is backed by sand hummocks, that conceal the nearer country from the view, and enable you to see the tops of the Mount Lofty Range at a distance of from eleven to twelve miles.

Port Adelaide, a bar harbour, is about nine miles from Glenelg, and situate on the eastern bank of a large creek, penetrating the mangrove swamp by which the shore of the Gulf is thereabouts fringed.  This creek is from ten to eleven miles in length.  Its course for about two miles after you cross the bar is nearly east and west, but at that distance it turns to the south, and runs parallel to the coast; and there is an advantage in the direction it thus takes, that would not be apparent to the reader unless explained.  It is, that, as the land breeze blows off the shore in the evening, and the sea breeze sets in in the morning vessels can leave the harbour, or run up to it as they are inward or outward bound.

The landing-place of the early settlers was too high up the creek, and was not only the cause of great inconvenience to the shipping, but of severe loss in stores and baggage to the settlers; but at the close of the year 1839, Mr. McLaren, the then manager of the South Australian Company commenced and finished a road across the swamp to a section of land belonging to his employers, that was situated much lower down the creek, and on which the present Port now stands.  The road, which is two miles in length, cost the Company 12,000 pounds.  It has, however, been transferred to the local Government, in exchange for 12,000 acres of land, that were considered equivalent to the sum it cost.

The removal of the Port to this place was undoubtedly a great public benefit; and whatever perspective advantages might have influenced Mr. McLaren on the occasion, he merited all due praise for having undertaken such a work at a time when the Government itself was unable to do so.  Both the wharf and the warehouse belonging to the Company are very creditable buildings, as is the Custom House and the line of sheds erected by the Government; but the wharf attached to them is defective, and liable to injury, from the chafing of the tide between the piers, which are not placed so as to prevent its action.  Mr. Phillips’ iron store is also one of a substantial description; but there was not, when I left the province, another building of any material value at the Port.  Numerous wooden houses existed in the shape of inns, stables, etc.; but the best of these were unfortunately burnt down by a fire a few days before I embarked for Europe.