become the aggressors in provoking hostilities.  In such a case resistance becomes a matter of personal defence, and however much such collisions may be regretted, the parties concerned can hardly be brought to account; but, it more frequently happens, that the men who are sent to form out-stations beyond the boundaries of location, are men of bold and unscrupulous dispositions, used to crime, accustomed to danger, and reckless as to whether they quarrel, or keep on terms with the natives who visit them.  Thrown to such a distance in the wild, in some measure out of the pale of the law, without any of the opposite sex to restrain their passions, the encouragement these men give to their sable friends, is only for the gratification of their passions.  The seizure of some of their women, and the refusal to give them up, provokes hostility and rouses resentment, but those who scruple not at the commission of one act of violence, most assuredly will not hesitate at another.  Such cases are gene rally marked by some circumstances that betray its character, and naturally rouse the indignation of the Government.  If the only consequence was the punishment of the guilty, we should rejoice in such retributive justice; but, unfortunately and too frequently, it happens, that the station belongs to a stockholder, who, both from feelings of interest and humanity, has treated the natives with every consideration, and discountenanced any ill-treatment of them on the part of his servants, but whose property is nevertheless sacrificed by their misconduct.

I have been unintentionally led into this subject, in the course of my remarks on the policy of Captain Grey, in establishing the post at Moorundi.  The consequences have been equally beneficial to the settlers and aborigines.  The eastern out-stations of the province have been unmolested, and parties with stock have passed down the Murray in perfect safety.  If any act of violence or robbery has been committed by the natives, the perpetrators have been delivered up by the natives themselves, who have learnt that it is their interest to refrain from such acts; and instead of the Murray being the scene of conflict and slaughter, its whole line is now occupied by stock-stations, and tranquillity everywhere prevails.

About seventy {fifteen in published text} miles below Moorundi is Wellington, where a ferry has been established across the Murray, that township being on the direct road from Adelaide to Mount Gambier, and Rivoli Bay.  A little below Wellington, Lake Victoria receives the waters of the Murray, which eventually mingle with those of the ocean, through the sea mouth.

The country immediately to the eastward of the Murray affords, in some places, a scanty supply of grass for sheep, but, generally speaking, it is similar in its soil and rock formation, and consequently in its productions to the scrubby country to the westward.  The line of granite I have mentioned, in the former part of my work, as traversing or crossing the Murray below Wellington, continues through the scrub, large blocks being frequent amongst the brushes on a somewhat lower level than the tertiary fossil limestone in its neighbourhood.  Round these blocks of granite the soil is considerably better, and there is a coating of grass upon it, as far as the ground consists of the decomposed rock.