their ignorance. Even amongst well-educated persons, I have found much surprise to be excited when I have spoken, since my return, of the great difficulty of visiting any of the other colonies from Swan River. The fact is, that the very lowest passage money from Fremantle to Adelaide, the nearest Australian port, is six pounds, and that as no steamboats whatever ply on the coast the voyage must be made in a sailing vessel, of perhaps 250 tons burden, and may last a fortnight or three weeks.
These facts are but little known at home, and the poor fancy that, when arrived at Government cost in West Australia, they will be able, by the savings accruing from a week's work, to make their way to any other part of the continent in which they may have friends or relations, amongst whom they wish finally to settle. When these people, unwarned at home, land in the colony and find out their mistake—find that they are, as it were, compelled to remain for years in a place where they had intended to spend only months—they are naturally angered and wrathful, and the consequence is that they learn to hate and abuse the place from the very first, and when they have succeeded at last in getting away to Sydney or Melbourne, they spread an evil report of Swan River amongst all their fellow-artisans.
The excuse made by emigration agents for not having published freely all the disadvantages of the colony, is the following. They say that free emigrants were clamorously demanded during the era of transportation, and that it was not their business to deter people from accepting the Government offer of a free passage, a boon which they could get nowhere else. They would also say that wages
