fashionable men, had never before been found in a colony; every one fancied himself the hero of a great enterprise, and enjoyed all the pleasures of gambling, while dreaming that he was helping to found an empire.
In the morning the men dashed about on horses, in dog-carts, barouches, and four-in-hands, which cost fabulous sums, in search of eligible sections and sites for villages. In the evenings grand dinners were given in tents and huts, where champagne, hock, burgundy, and every luxury that could be preserved in a tin case abounded; fashionable dance music and the songs of Rossini and Donizetti resounded from the cottages of the "great world;" and at cock-crow beaux in beards and white waistcoats, "half savage, half soft," might be met picking their way, in the thinnest, shiniest boots, through the dust or mud of a projected crescent or arcade. There was scandal written and spoken; political intrigue; a court party and an opposition, with each a newspaper; and everybody flattered everybody else that building, dining, dancing, drinking, writing, and speechifying, "was doing the heroic work of colonisation."
Young men of spirit were not satisfied to retire into the bush and look after a flock of silly sheep while it was possible to buy a section of land at 1 an acre, give it a fine name as a village site, sell the same thing at 10 an acre, for a bill the bank would discount, and live in style at the Southern Cross Hotel; for when a man had made such a speculation he could not, and did not, do less than invite a party of new-made friends to celebrate his good fortune by a dinner, a ball, or a pic-nic, with a few cases of champagne imported by the merchant on credit.
At this period a romantic air was infused into the simplest transactions. For instance, in the old colony exploring expeditions had been undertaken either by a government surveyor, who marched out from some remote station without any special demonstration, or by a squatter who, with a friend or two, a stockman, and perhaps a couple of black boys, all on horseback, set out as quickly as possible to find new pastures for his stock. In South Australia they managed things very differently. Mr. V. Eyre having undertaken to explore the interior of the province, on the day appointed for his setting out a grand entertainment was given, over which the governor presided. At the close of an affecting speech a band of young ladies clothed in white garments marched up the room, and presented, amid the cheers of the men and the sobs of the women, a banner which they worked, to be planted on the limits of his proposed discovery.
Mr. Eyre's journey, and a second expedition, proved the hopeless barrenness of a great part of the province. He afterwards became
