The whispered assurance which raises and soothes, That these are the phantoms, and those still the truths; And their trials and virtues, their tears and their mirth _Not_ faded like yesterday’s light from the earth! “CAPE” SKETCHES. There is a peculiarity evinced by such of the advocates of colonisation as have acquainted themselves personally with colonial life, which puts in a strong light the adaptability of most of our territories beyond sea for bettering the condition of enterprising emigrants. It is this:—each man vaunts loudly the superiority of the colony he has visited over all the others. “How is it possible,” writes a settler in New Zealand to us, “that people will be so blind as to risk their capital in Australia while there is New Zealand, the finest country, with the finest climate in the world!” The friend, who occasionally amuses and instructs us with his vivid sketches of Australian life, exclaims—“New Zealand!—Where are its markets?—What is a farmer to do with his produce when he has got it?—No, no; my advice is Sydney.” “By no means,” ejaculates a third, just home from Port Philip, “South Australia is the country for an energetic man to gain independence and wealth.” A successful emigrant, hot from Hobart Town, vaunts the advantages of Van Dieman’s Land. Our friend from Canada over-rides all these opinions. “Why,” he argues, “go to uncivilised, uncultivated, and far-off countries, when you can, at once, join established communities, and enjoy regular British institutions, only a three weeks’ sail distant; where markets are regular, food cheap, and where (on account of the intense cold) there is nothing to do for one-third of the year?” Lastly, we are favoured with the opinion of a five years’ resident in South Africa:—“Truly,” he says, “people who brave the regions of a northern climate, who expose their lives in dangerous proximity to savages, who heed not agues in swamps, nor thirst in deserts, forget there is such a place as the Cape of Good Hope.” Although all this one-sided enthusiasm does not prove either of the respective cases argued by the different advocates; yet it shows in a broad light the certain advantages of emigration in general. To whatever quarter of the globe the observer turns, he sees, amidst occasional instances of disappointment and loss, that emigration has, in general, answered the expectations of the emigrants. But this general success he does not attribute to the soundness of the principle in the abstract, but to the advantages of the particular country in which he has witnessed the most prosperity.