been the talk of all the budding young ladies for the month before, and its incidents form the topic for the month thereafter. The outlay it occasions enters regularly into the calculations of the Sydney tradesfolk, and probably tends to derange the general "balance of trade;" and certainly strangers are not a little struck with the costliness of the attire in which the ladies are wont to appear. That knot of French naval officers whom you may observe, are in a state of respectful wonderment. Two years have gone by since they left Brest harbour, and since then they have been cruising in the South Seas, cultivating friendly relations with the cannibals; and suddenly the scene is changed into this glittering gala of European civilisation. And if the fair colonists do not exhibit the toilette irréprochable of Parisian life, they may still, under the circumstances, be objects of special admiration to the chivalric gentlemen of the French marine. See with what enthusiasm, grave withal in its manifestation, after the manner of their nation, those aiguilletted aspirants rush into the waltz. They are bringing up arrears, evidently; and also laying in a stock of dancing for the next twelve months. They have lost not an atom of their politeness by their intercourse with Tahitians, Owhyeans, and Tongatabooans, and listen with profound respect to the Anglo-Australian French, and only laugh at their own English. It was on some such occasion that I tried to draw out Monsieur le Commandant, a broad-beamed elderly capitaine-de-corvette, who appeared to have given up dancing himself, but to contemplate with serene pleasure the enjoyment which it afforded to his young officers. He was eloquent in praise of the gay scene before him, and ended his encomium with"But you English do understand colonisation!" And Monsieur le Commandant had reason; for a better proof of successful colonisation was not to be had. It argued money made as well as money expended.

These birth-day affairs are not widely dissimilar to the extinct Lord Mayor's balls of London; though the rush for the custards is more decorous, and a man has no chance of losing the tails of his coat, as nearly happened to a friend of mine at the civic entertainment. But the very élite of society affect to contemn this annual re-union, and ridicule the "mixed" character of the company. So much, however, is this birth-day ball regarded as forming part of the political system of the colony, that there is a popular, and therefore, no doubt, very incorrect notion, that its expense is defrayed out of the British treasury. I suspect no such item as this can now-a-days be smuggled through, under any head of public expenditure; but probably, if this should be fortunate enough to meet the economic eyes of Mr. Cobden, he may make a note of the matter, and in due season demand explanation.

I should have noted, as forming a remarkable feature in society in Sydney, as throughout the colonial population, the religious divisions of its members-by which I mean its marked separation into different religious communities. Settled as the country has been by English, Irish, and Scotch, what may be regarded as the three national religions of the United Kingdom have all taken root there, and flourish with an equality of rights and privileges; or perhaps, more correctly speaking, with an equal absence of any. Nevertheless, the three Churches have not yet agreed to differ on doctrinal points. There is usually a standing controversy between Rome and Geneva; and occasionally the conflict is varied by each taking a turn with the Anglican. I am not aware that any fruit results from these theological exercises but ill-will.

It is worthy of remark, that the only personages in the colony in whose favour the lordly style has been conceded, are the prelates of the Churches of England and Rome. I am not among those who would deny to the notables of a large and important ecclesiastical body, the personal distinctions bestowed upon laymen of high station, according to the usages of their common country. What becomes, in the sentiment of modern times, a mere ve bal token of respect, may be applied to the bishop as well as the peer or the chief justice. But to transplant the seignorial style from Europe to the Antipodes in favour of the Christian prelate alone, I must venture to regard both as an inconsistency and an impolicy. The concession as respects the Romish prelate is but of recent date, having been only made in the course of the past year by Lord Grey. But the English bishop of Sydney has from the first been "My Lord" by royal license.

I remember noting, and I have heard others make the same remark, how frequently the Sydney gentry, and especially the clerical portion of it, took occasion to belord his lordship, as though determined to make the best of their sole opportunity to attune their voices to sounds so aristocratic. It is this sort of thing which goes to make the colonial prelate less of the Christian pastor than the great man-less the missionary bishop, which he ought to be, than a kind of extra member of our own lordly bench.

Very lately the number of bishops in both Churches has been increased in the Australian colonies. The Anglican bishop at Sydney has been elevated to the rank of metropolitan, and three suffragan bishops appointed under him. And I believe three Catholic bishops have also been named to the different colonies of Port Phillip, South Australia, and Van Diemen's Land, all subordinate to the archbishop at Sydney.

There is little about Sydney of the present day that bespeaks its penal origin. It was very different, I learn, twenty years ago; when large gangs of convicts were seen marching through the streets, to and from their daily toil, and every domestic servant, male and female, was a transported offender. At that time, too, the "Emancipist" class, as they were gently termed, were yet a powerful interest, looking at the freesettlers as invaders of the territory to which they had acquired a prescription. Some time before that, they had been quite in the ascendant; and it required a stern, but honest, governor to put them in their right place. These folks are now either dead, or swamped into comparative insignificance by the free people.

At present, indeed, it is a common observation, that the New South Wales capital is more orderly than most garrison or sea-port towns. It has, however, a very efficient "Force," formed somewhat upon the London model; and some doughty magistrates to dispense the summary justice of the police court with great intrepidity and discretion.

Here, then, we have Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, with its constitutional government, its law courts, its bishops, its fashionable society, its municipality, its mob, its politics, its commerce, its press, its theatres-where sixty years ago was the wild forest, and its only inhabitant the wildest of the sons of men. It is still a singular contemplation that this flourishing city occupies four months of constant voyaging from the civilised world to arrive at; and that an hour's brisk walk from the Australian senate-house will take you to a hundred scenes where Nature still exists as she has done from the days of the deluge.

The juxta-position between the rudeness of aboriginal nature, and the transplanted civilisation of old Europe, was never so remarkably seen as

in New South Wales at this moment. The surprising commercial energies of Great Britain at the present day, coupled with her immense maritime resources, have enabled her to give to her colonisation in these regions almost the magical effect of creation. But there is a singular feature with respect to that particular field of colonial enterprise now comprised in the Australian settlements, which I take to be the great cause of their prosperity; though I say this with a due sense of my own temerity in hazarding an opinion on such a subject. I allude to the circumstance that there never before was a colony which so systematically took advantage of what Nature has done towards the creation of wealth. None other, indeed, has had the like opportunities. Here are boundless plains, in a serene climate-no costly process of clearing and cultivation is needed to render them productive. A few thousands are originally expended in the importation of sheep, which, increasing in rapid geometrical progression, in half a generation spread over these Australian steppes. And then come the necessities and the wealth of an old densely populated and manufacturing country like England to give immediate value to this great amount of production. May we not set it down as a corollary that to insure marked success to our new colonies, their inhabitants must be able to produce raw products cheaply for the great Mother Country? This seems the way to intermingle the interests of Parent State and Colony, and to impart to the latter the succouring wealth of the former. The small colonisation, which consists in grubbing patches of cultivation, may consist with the comfort of small settlements, and the rude happiness of a few families. It neither makes new nations, nor

adds to the wealth or prosperity of old ones.

Before quitting the metropolis of Australia I must advert to a scene, belonging to another phase of human existence, which I witnessed in its neighbourhood shortly before I left that part of the world. I had heard of the tribe of aboriginal natives, known as "the Sydney tribe ;" and that it was now reduced (though at no time, I believe, very numerous) to four or five families-perhaps not twenty persons in the whole. But accounts were various; and the existence of the tribe at all was a matter about which few people cared to give a second thought. I had, however, wished to see this relic of the old occupants of the locality, of the present aspect and appropriation of which I have here attempted a sketch; and I accidentally fell upon them after this manner. I had been out boating with some friends, and we had a fancy, as the evening was still and hot, and what slight air there was being against us, as well as the tide, to land in a quiet bay, and fish from the rocks. The spot thus selected had not a vestige of the civilised world which was within five miles of us It was as it might have been thousands of years ago, when Egyptian mummies were living men. We had not been very long with our lines in the water, intent upon unsuccessful sport, when a flicker of light shot up on the other side of the Bay, and drew our attention to that quarter. A fire we saw was kindling, which soon grew large enough to reveal a party of natives, apparently just returned for the night to their huts, which, we could now see, were in the rear of the fire. While dividing attention between our uncaught fish and the native huts, we suddenly heard a woman's voice raised to the highest pitch, and continuing to exercise itself with a volubility so sustained and emphatic that no manner of doubt was left on the minds of our partythat a matrimonial squabble

was presently taking place among the savages. We immediately voted her an aboriginal Mrs. Caudle, and waited the issue with some curiosity. For ten minutes the vociferation continued unabated in vigour and vivacity, bespeaking a keen sense of unmerited wrong, and, no doubt, increased aggravation from the taciturnity of the party to whom these upbraidings were addressed.

We were admiring the fortitude of the patient under this domestic infliction, when we heard distinctly the noise as of several smart blowsthe man's ire was at length roused! Never before was such a noise heard proceeding from lips of woman, civilised or savage.

Her vociferations grew more rapid than ever, louder than ever; in fact a shriek, yet still of distinctly articulated sounds. And at this rate she kept wagging her tongue for another five minutes. Then the bangs again, and the screams grew phrenzied.

We at length thought ourselves bound to walk round the bay, to attempt a mediation between the contending parties. When we presented ourselves we found the pair both hard at it, the man with a thick grass-tree stick, belabouring his "gin" in a way which would have killed

white woman, and she continuing her abuse with unrelaxed energy. The man on seeing us suspended his exercise; when we held it judicious to attempt a little bounce, making some references to "the police,” a word well understood by the blacks. This had the desired effect on the man, who sulkily threw himself down by the embers of the fire; but our intervention had scarcely produced this happy result, when her ladyship began a volley of abuse against us! It was plainly a living example of Moliere's Madame Sganarelle-an illustration of that profound insight into human nature which has truly made Molière (in the critical formula) "a man for all ages and all nations."

Monsieur Robert.- -* * * Peste soit le coquin, de battre ainsi sa femme! Martine. Et je veux qu'il me batte, moi!

M. Robert.-Ah; j'y consens de tout mon cœur.

We had nothing to do but with Monsieur Robert to say "d'accord;" and laughing heartily at this unexpected turn of affairs, to walk away as quickly as consisted with our proper dignity.

The best of it was that the woman seemed in no wise incommoded with the terrible drubbing inflicted on her, beyond the momentary pain it had occasioned. As we got round to our "fishing-ground," her tongue ceased to wag, and the native broil was at an end. We remarked that a dozen other blacks were there, quite quiet and unmoved. They were wiser than Monsieur Robert.

This was, I was told by one of our party who had some knowledge of their haunts, and was able to identify one or two of the men, the last of the Sydney tribe. The best of the Australian aboriginals whom I have seen-and they have been those who, living in the far interior, have had little intercourse with Europeans-have always been wretched people, taken as a whole; but these were such deplorable objects that one's commiseration was unavoidably mixed with a sense of humiliation that they were human beings! The reader has now, it is hoped, some notion of Sydney and its inhabitants-here, also, is the last relic of the "olden time," when Sydney was not.

MR. GRAB'S ADVENTURES IN SEARCH OF GOLD DUST IN

CALIFORNIA.

There lies your way, due west.

AFTER all it is no fable. El Dorado exists!

Twelfth Night.

This is not a mere newspaper announcement, respectable as that source of information may be, but a positive, downright fact, which we have derived the assurance of from an authority that admits of no contradiction, nothing more nor less, in short, than a letter from a very enterprising young gentleman who was one of the earliest to take advantage of an opportunity, which, in his case, actually proved a golden one. That our readers may believe, as readily as ourselves, we shall suppress nothing,— not even names or private affairs, being perfectly certain that the individuals most concerned in the matter, will rather thank than giving publicity to the accompanying statement.

reprove us for

The writer of the letter in question, is Mr. Baldwin Grab, the youngest son of Mr. Marmaduke Grab, of the respectable firm of Snatcher, Grab and Sharper, of Bedford Row, one of the very highest eminence in the profession of the law. For reasons which it is not necessary here to enter into, the elder Mr. Grab was induced, about two or three years back, to send his boy Baldwin to complete his education in the United States; all we need say on the subject is, that in doing so, that worthy attorney believed he was adopting the course best calculated to advance his son's interests and qualify him, in the most appropriate manner, for representing the house in which he was himself an active and efficient partner. It was whispered-but they were censorious people who said so-that a violent personal disagreement, which ended in what is vulgarly called "being kicked out of doors," was the immediate cause of Mr. Baldwin Grab's expatriation; but when we consider that, after his arrival in New York, he wrote home for money (which his prudent sire refused to send him), and subsequently maintained a correspondence, which has ended in a manner so satisfactory to all parties, we need not hesitate to set down the story of the quarrel as a weak invention of the enemies of Mr. Grab senior, for (such is the turpitude of human nature) even that worthy man has encountered enmity in the course of his mild and amiable career. Besides, we are inclined to think more highly of Mr. Marmaduke Grab's intellect than to suppose him capable of being swayed by personal resentment, self interest being the only weakness his most malicious friends could ever accuse him of. Be this as it may, Mr. Baldwin Grab continued, somehow or other, to make his way among the Down Easters; but as the history of his earlier proceedings in the New World is foreign to the present subject, we shall confine ourselves to his most recent adventures. They are described in the following letter to his father.

San Francisco, November 1, 1848. Dear Governor,-You will open your eyes rather wider than usual when you know where this comes from, and what it's all about; but the fact is, I've been to the "diggins" and made a man of myself. When you