The Portland daily press., 1863-05-21

We take the following extract from forth
coming work upon physical geography by
Walter Wells, of this city:
The great island of Australia very forciblyil-
Illustrates the powerful influence exerted upon
the physical and moral state of man, by the
conditions of external nature. Upon nearly
all its features as a habitable region, there
seems TO have been set with unmistakable dis
tinctness the sign impress OF the curse of
God. Unlike'almost all the other grand divi-
sions of the earth which receive the waters and
influences OF the ocean through intersectng
CULTS and bays, this conironts and repels the
sea with an almost unbroken line of stone.
Throughout the immense extent of its 5000
miles o; coast, only two first class harbors Of
fer refuge TO the mariner; while destruction
threatens him along the rocky front of coral
reefs, or on the shifting depths of quicksands.
Deserts OF drifting sand, deserts of shingly
gravel and broken stone, alternate with enor-
nous lagons aud marshes upon its surface.
1t has no lakes of any depth or volume; its
rivers pour from the mountains in torrents,
but swallowed up in bays or sands, fail to
reach the sea. Its climate is marked with two
notwithstanding heat, intense arid
ity. Its rains intermit for years, then swamp
and desolate the country with their inunda-
tions. The cultivable and fertile districts scat,
tered here and there upon the lower slopes of
the mountain, and along the courses of the
rivers, are separated from one another by
wastes SO immense and terrible, that scarcely
could the ocean put a profounder obstacle be-
tween.
For crossing these or for any of the uses or
needs OF life, the aborignes had no animals
susceptible or worthy of domestication; no
camel, no dromedary, no horse, no donkey. no
lama, no buffalo, no zebra, or yurgga, or rein
Naft haA flAxr 3 no h. IL.
or the goat, or the yak nothing but misera-
bic variety of dogs. No wild animals as in
other countries inspired the ardor or reward
ed the tolls OF the chase; only a few hopping
kangaroos or wary birds subsisted in the land.
Here was no grain: no rice, no millet, no
dhourra, no wheat, rye, barley or maize.
There was no cultiyable root = no yam, no
manoc, no potatoe, no artichoke or ground
nat even. Fruits there were none: - no ba-
mana, no bread-irut, no olive, no grape; moth
ing but few raspberries and currants. All
man could find there to live uporf was she'll
fish on the shores, insects, snakes, lizards and
yenomous vermin in the boys. There was no
stuff for clothing no cotton, no silk-worm,
no flax, no fibrous root or shrub no tree yield
ing textile bark.
Now what sort of a man could we reasona-
bly, expect to find in a country in which ma
ture had thus piled upon him mountainous
weight OF disabilities? just such a man as
we do find there. The native Australian is
as much below the Congo negro as the Congo
negro is below the highest type of Caucasian
manhood. His body, thin and lean as the car
cass of sword fish, scarce hides its bones from
the light. His limbs, strung with attenuated
muscles, resemble the shanks OF an ostrich or
the arms of the ape. His scalp bears no uni
form growth of hair, but only tufts Of wool,
each fiber standing out and twisting with a
cork-screw spiral. His strength is scarcely
half the Europeans, his endurance less than
half The Australian goes stark naked. He
has no art or trade; he manufactures nothing
save the deadly boomerang; he raises nothing
from the ground he trades and barters moth
ing; nothing is property to him. Society he
knows nothing of; nothing of law, nothing Of
government. Does he want wife? He storms
woman with club and drags her OFF; even
wolves are wiser in the arts of love- He wor-
ships nothing, prays to nothing, not even the
devils he breads. He has only about three
hundred words to talk with no word for good,
for evil, for right, for wrong, for justice mercy,
love, but three synonyms for murder. To such
depths of degradation will man sink, when
without the stay and resistant power Of NOR
al Influences, the heel of an iron-tempered
memorable nature is upon his neck