Sir George Grey, who was at that time Governor of the Cape of Good Hope writing to Lord John Russell on 17th November 1855,--Lord John having then been Secretary of State for the Colonies,--expresses himself in the following glowing terms as to the region of which I am now writing. “The territory of the Orange Free State forms one of the finest pastoral countries I have ever seen. There is no district of country in Australia which I have visited which throughout so great an extent of territory affords so uniformly good a pastoral country.” A short time previous to this, Sir George Clerk, when he was about to deliver the State up to the Government of the Dutch, declared,--or at any rate is popularly reported to have declared,--that the land was a “howling wilderness.” I think that the one colonial authority was quite as far astray as the other. Sir George Grey had ever a way with him of contending for his point either by strong language or by strong action. He was at one time Governor of South Australia, but perhaps never travelled as far north as the Salt Bush country of that Colony. The Colony in his time was in its infancy and was not known as far north as the pastoral district in question. I do not know whether Sir George ever visited the Riverina in New South Wales, or the Darling Downs in Queensland. Had he done so,--and had he then become as well acquainted with the pastoral properties of land as he has since become,--he would hardly with all his energy have ventured upon such an assertion. It will be only necessary for any investigator to look at the prices of Australian and South African wool to enable him to form an opinion on the subject. The average price in London of medium Australian wool in 1877 was 1s. 6d. a pound, and that of South African wool of the same class 1s. 1d. a pound. In both countries it is common to hear that the land should be stocked at about the rate of 3 sheep to the acre; but in Australia patches of land which will bear heavier stocking occur much more numerously than in South Africa. The Orange Free State has not yet arrived at the ponderous glory of full statistics so that I cannot give the amount of the wool produced, nor can I divide her wool from that of the Cape Colony, through which it is sent to England without special record. But I feel sure that no one who knows the two countries will venture to compare the flocks of the Free State with those of either of the four great Australian Colonies, or with the flocks of New Zealand.