Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/141

 be a good prospect of such an amount of roadside traffic as to render a railway a paying concern at once; but as there is none, it can only be formed by Government funds, and must depend for success upon a future traffic, to be developed by the increased activity which it would call forth. The same argument applies to almost every public work which can be named—the various districts are so far from one another that each place stands alone; its interests are not the same as even those, perhaps, of its nearest neighbour. The settler at Albany has nothing in common with him at Bunbury; the agriculturist at York knows nothing of the wants of the pearl-fishers at Roebourne; each district has its own needs and its own habits of thinking, and does not trouble itself about what the other parts of the colony may be doing. The expense and the difficulty of travelling are both so great, that the inhabitants of one part of the colony very seldom seem to visit the other districts, and I even knew a lady at Barladong who had not visited Perth, or indeed left her own home, for more than twenty years.

The stationary habits involved in these obstacles to locomotion naturally impart a great sameness to life in West Australia, and furnish little to relate concerning it that is either of exciting interest, or that partakes of the character of adventure. One day is an exact counterpart of the other, with no variety but a change of occupations in accordance with the different seasons of the year. A relation of events therefore, in regular sequence, during the five years that we spent in the colony, could only weary by its monotony; nor have I a hope of interesting my readers, excepting by the selection of such incidents