many districts of West Australia, owing to the prevalence of "poison" upon most of the roads—another proof, were more proof wanting, of the serious injury which these plants have done to the colony. But besides these obstacles to the internal communication between the different districts, there are also others arising from the existence of large tracts which are too sterile to repay cultivation, or too deficient in water to be of any use as sheep or cattle runs.
I have already mentioned the large extent of forest through which we passed on our journey from Perth to the eastern districts, and the completely wild character of the whole of the road, with the exception of the country immediately around Guildford. This is but a type of the general character of the whole colony, and of the distances by which the settled portions of its territory are divided from one another. The consequence is that each cleared and cultivated district becomes, as it were, an oasis in the midst of the general desert, only that the desert is not always a stony arid waste, but is often covered with magnificent forests of timber, whilst even its sand plains are for three months in the year brilliant with the most beautiful flowers.
This wide separation of most of the settled districts from one another has been the source of many disadvantages. It has led to a cramped and narrow manner of regarding the general interests of the whole colony, since each settlement has naturally fallen into the habit of looking at its own interests and its own wishes in the first place, without much reflection as to the general welfare of the whole country.
