The absence of good water communication is the greatest defect of Australia. It has not one great river which at once penetrates deeply into the country and communicates by a navigable course with the sea. The best of its rivers are not equal to those of the fourth or fifth order in America, and it has no lake at all of commercial value. Another almost equally great disadvantage is frequent and long-continued droughts, even of its southern parts, which, however, as strength and wealth increase, may in time be, at least, mitigated by the erection of great works of irrigation, such as those on which the existence of whole populations depend in the warmer regions of Asia. In salubrity of climate Australia has a great superiority, not only over America, but over every other country. For the rearing of sheep and the production of fine wool, it may be said to possess almost a natural monopoly; and in this respect, it will soon become as necessary to us, and probably as important, as America is for the growth of cotton. Its adaptation for pastoral husbandry is such, indeed, that we have often thought, had it been settled by Tartars or Arabs, or even by Anglo-Saxons of the time of Hengist and Horsa, that it would have been now thinly inhabited by nomade hordes, mere shepherds and robbers, if there was any one to rob. One immense advantage Australia possesses over America, which must not be omitted--the total absence of a servile population and an alien race. In America the bondsmen form a fourth part of the whole population, and in Australia little more than one sixtieth, speedily to vanish all together. If the comparison between America and Australia have reference to the facility of achieving and maintaining independence, all the advantages are unquestionably on the side of Australia. It is at least six times as far away from Europe; and a military force sufficient to have even a chance of coercing the colonists could not get at them in less than four months, while the voyage would force it to run the gauntlet of the equator and both tropics. When it reached its destination, supposing its landing to be unopposed, it would have to march every step to seek the insurgents, for there is neither river nor estuary to transport it into the interior of the country. The colonists, rifle in hand, and driving their flocks and herds before them to the privation of the invader, would of course take to the bush, and do so with impunity, being without tents or equipage, or risk of starvation, having a wholesome sky over their heads, and abundant food in their cattle. With a thorough knowledge of localities, the colonial riflemen, under such circumstances, would be more than a match for regular troops, and could pick off soldiers with more ease than they bring down the kangaroo or opossum.