Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/135

 mud-flats at its mouth, there are, on its banks, at least 60,000 acres of stagnant swamps covered with high reeds and water; and the decomposition constantly going on in the dense mass of vegetation on the alluvial lands, must also evolve a great quantity of noxious gases.

Notwithstanding these obvious causes of impure exhalations, and the greater heat of the climate, the ague at the MacLeay river is much milder than in the fenny counties of England; the cold fit occurs every other day, but is seldom so severe as to prevent a man from attending to his daily avocations. Change of air, and sulphate of quinine, remove the ague directly, but it is liable to return by fresh exposure to the causes which produced it. Although I have resided upwards of four years at the MacLeay river, I have never known there a single instance in which ague has been attended, even in bad constitutions, with serious symptoms of an inflammatory or typhoidal character.

Should it happen, that, at any future period, labour became sufficiently cheap and abundant, to render it profitable to clear and cultivate the rich brush land on the banks of the Brisbane and Bremer rivers at Moreton Bay, for the production of cotton, sugar, coffee, indigo, rice, &c. that district will become the most flourishing part of the colony.

Dr. Lang, the present member for Port Philip in the Legislative Council, and whose long residence in New South Wales, and intimate acquaintance with