About sixty miles to the E.S.E. of Wellington is the Tatiara country, once celebrated for the ferocity and cannibalism of its inhabitants, but now occupied by the settlers, who have of late crossed the Murray in considerable numbers to form stations there.  The distance from Wellington to the district of Mount Gambier, said to be the fairest portion of South Australia, whether as regards its climate or its soil, is more than 200 miles.  The first portion of the road, to almost the above distance, is through a perfect desert, in which, excepting during the rainy season, water is scarcely to be found, so that the journey is not performed without its privation.  After passing Lake Albert the traveller has to journey at no great distance from the Coorong over a low country, once covered by the waters of the ocean, the noise of whose billows he hears through the silence of the night.  The first elevation he reaches is a continuation of the great fossil bed, through which the volcanic hills, where he will ultimately arrive, have been forced up.  Mount Gambier, the principal of these, is about 40 miles from the Glenelg, and 50 from Rivoli Bay.  The country from either of these points is low for many miles, but well grassed, of the richest soil, and in many places abundantly timbered.  Mount Gambier is scarcely visible until you almost reach its base—­nor even then is its outward appearance different from other hills.  On reaching its summit, however, you find youself on the brink of a crater, standing indeed on a precipice, with a small sheet of water of about half-a-mile in circumference, two hundred feet below you; the water of which is as blue as indigo, and seems to be very deep; no bottom indeed has been found at 50 fathoms.  The ground round the base of Mount Gambier is very open, and you may ride your horse along it unchecked for many miles.  At the lower parts, and at some distance from it, the ground is moist, and many caverns have been found in which water of the very purest kind exists, no doubt deposited in the natural reservoirs by percolation from the higher ground.  The whole formation of the district, these capacious caverns, and the numerous and extensive tea-tree swamps along the coast, plainly demonstrate that they are supplied by gradual filtration, or find their way through the interstices, or cells of the lava to the lower levels.

It is generally admitted that the greater part of the land in the neighbourhood of Mount Gambier is equal to the richest soil, whether of Van Diemen’s Land or of Port Phillip, the general character indeed of this district, and the fact of its being so much farther to the south than Adelaide, its perpetual verdure and moister climate would lead to the supposition that it is capable of producing grain of the very finest quality, and there can, I think, be but little doubt that it will rival the sister colonies in its agricultural productions, and considering the nature of the soil is similar to that round the volcanic peaks in the Mediterranean, it will also produce wine of a superior description.  Settlers both from the province of South Australia and neighbouring colonies have vied with each other in securing stations in this fertile, but remote district, and it would appear from the number of allotments that have been purchased in the townships which have been established on the coast that settlers are fast flocking to it.