However, when he ascends the river towards the capital, this feeling of despondency will gradually wear away; its various windings bring, to his eager and anxious eye, many a bright patch of park-like woodland; while the river, expanding as he proceeds, till the beautiful estuary of Melville water opens out before him, becomes really a magnificent feature in the landscape; and the boats, passing and repassing upon its smooth and glassy bosom, give the animation of industry, and suggest all the cheerful anticipations of ultimate success to the resolute adventurer. From about the centre of this lake-like piece of water, the eye first rests upon the capital of Western Australia, a large straggling village, partly concealed by the abrupt termination of a woody ridge, and standing upon a picturesque slope on the right bank of the river, thirteen miles from its mouth. The distant range of the Darling mountains supplies a splendid background to the picture, and the refreshing seabreeze which curls the surface of Melville water every afternoon, adds to the health, no less than comfort, of the inhabitants. The former inconvenience, caused by the shoal approach, and which rendered landing at low-water a most uncomfortable operation, has now been remedied by the construction of a jetty. Like all the Australian rivers with which we are yet acquainted, the Swan is subject to sudden and tremendous floods, which inundate the corn lands in its vicinity, and sweep away all opposing obstacles with irresistible impetuosity. NARROW ESCAPE OF THE FIRST SETTLERS. The first settlers had a most providential escape from a calamity of this kind: they had originally selected for the site of their new city, a low-lying piece of land, which, during the first winter after their arrival, was visited with one of these strange and unexplained invasions from the swelling stream: had the deluge been delayed for another year, these luckless inhabitants of a new world would have shared the fate of those to whom Noah preached in vain; but, warned in time, they chose some safer spot, from whence, in future, they and their descendants may safely contemplate the awful grandeur of similar occurrences, and thankfully profit by the fertility and abundance which succeed to such wholesale irrigation. During this, our first visit, I had no opportunity of penetrating into the country further than the Darling range: in journeying thither, we passed through Guildford, a township on the banks of the Swan, about seven miles north-east from Perth, and four from the foot of the mountains. It stands upon a high part of the alluvial flat fringing the river, and which extends from half to one mile from it on either side. The rich quality of the soil may be imagined from the fact, that, in 1843, after thirteen years of successive cropping, it produced a more abundant harvest than it had done at first, without any artificial aid from manures. SINGULAR FLIGHT OF STRANGE BIRDS.