CHAP. XII - ADELAIDE

Summary

The capital of South Australia is reputed the hottest of all the cities that are chiefly inhabited by the English race, and as I neared it through the Backstairs Passage into the Gulf of St. Vincent, past Kangaroo Island, and still more when I landed at Glenelg, I came to the conclusion that its reputation was deserved. The extreme heat which characterizes- South Australia is to some extent a consequence of its lying as far north as New South Wales and Queensland, and so far inland as to escape the breeze by which their coasts are visited; for although by “South Australia” we should, in the southern hemisphere, naturally understand that portion of Australia which was furthest from the tropics, yet it is a curious fact that the whole colony of Victoria is to the south of Adelaide, and that nearly all the northernmost points of the continent now lie within the country misnamed “South Australia.”

The immense northern territory, being supposed to be valueless, has generously been handed over to South Australia, which thus becomes the widest of all British colonies, and nearly as large as English Hindostan. If the present great expenditure succeeds in causing the discovery of any good land at the north, it will of course at once be made a separate colony.