The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-13 00:00:00

unfortunately there is a difference between them) to
the wise and sententi,)us piges of the Hone Tracive.

EXCURSIONS AND ADVENTURES IN
NEW SOUTH WALES By John Henderson,
Esq., 6'e.
We have seldom met with a work more likely to
fix public attention than the one bearing the above
title, particularly at this time, when the swelling
ocean of politics is strongly urging the tide of emi-
gration towards distant, and, to the inhabitants of the
Western Hemisphere, unknown settlements. And
though a careful perusal of " Excursions and Adven-
tures in New South Wales," replete as these volumes
decidedly are with multifarious information on all
practical points, leaves us is considerable doubt as to
the moral which the author wishes us to draw from
his tale ; though we are at a loss to say whether his
intention is to hold out inducement to future settlers
in favour of that colony, or to deter them from the
attempt, by an unflinching and positive account of
the difficulties that await them in that region ; though
we cannot even discover whether the writer's enter-
prising spirit was ultimately rewarded for his un-
wearied exertions by a moderate share of success, or
whether sore disappointment was the result of his
strenuous efforts, certain it is that the picture he
draws of life in Australia is such as deeply to interest
all classes of readers, but most of all those who may
be now contemplating the selection of a spot whereon
to "commence the world anew ;" and on these last
in particular the author has a strong claim for grati-
tude. For, though the picture is not a flattering
one; nay, more, because it lays bare all the disadvan-
tages they, the intended emigrants, will have to con-
tend with—because it gives a real insight into things
as they really are, so far as to enable them to pause
and ponder ere they come to a decision, their best
thanks are due to him, the honest chronicler of the
present history of a country which bids fair, under
good management, to become one day one of the most
important colonies of Great Britain. But the author's
claims for popularity do not rest only upon the utility
of his work to emigrants. To the general reader,
also, it will prove highly entertaining, from the vast
fund of information it contains upon many points
connected with travels, natural history, botany,
geology, &c., and last, though not least, from the
many personal adventures of the writer, which would
make the account of his residence in New South
Wales almost as fabulous, and of course attractive, as
the once incredible, and therefore by many readily
believed, adventures of Defoe's hero; but that such
things are now of daily occurrence, and consequently
divested of much of the prestige which attaches to the
marvellous, but not of the admiration due to patient
endurance, energetic perseverance, indomitable cour-
age, under most trying circumstances. But to
the book, as a book, we hasten to return. After a
humorous, though in some respects ominous, descrip-
tion of his departure from the mother country, and
progress to the antipodes, and of his safe arrival in
Sydney (for which he is in duty bound most grate-
ful to the captain of his ship, seeing that he had well
nigh commenced operations by a most venturesome
and dangerous enterprise), we find him employing
several months in reconnoitring the ground, procur-
ing information, visiting localities, and at last going
to work in earnest. From that moment we follow
him through several years of a settler's life, and can-
not but wonder at his good fortune in escaping un-
scathed the many dangers to which Europeans are
exposed from ungenial climate, from the host of
natural enemies which the very soil generates against
man, or from the still more fierce hostility of the na-
tive tribes; at his having been able to retain through-
out his severe trials that taste for literature and the
arts—that admiration of the beauties of nature—that
aptness to see, discern, and judge, for which he was
indebted to the civilization of the Old World, and
which we find amply recorded and exemplified in the
pages of his book, particularly in the latter part, in
which he takes a scientific view of the subject he had
before treated in the light of a great and important
speculation. Finally, we leave him with the only
regret of not knowing precisely what conclusion to
draw from the whole, and recommend our readers to
do as we did—read and Judge for themselves, only
promising them that they will find room for merely
one disappointment, viz., the omission of a chapter
which the author doubtless deemed unnecessary, as
being entirely personal to himself.