Having so far succeeded, and so far failed, he was called upon to decide what he would do next. He could see to the westward ranges of hills, which he rightly conceived to be those which Captain Flinders had described after surveying the coasts of Gulf St. Vincent and Spencer’s Gulf. Flinders had called these hills Mount Lofty, and Sturt could perceive,--at any rate could surmise,--that there was a fertile, happy land lying between him and them. But he had not the means nor had his men the strength to go across the country. He could not take his little whale-boat out to sea, nor could he venture to remain on the shores of Encounter Bay till assistance should come to him from seawards. He had flour and tea left, and birds and kangaroo might be killed on the river banks. So he resolved to go back again up the river, and thus with infinite labour he returned by the Murray and Murrumbidgee, and made his way to Sydney. The results of this journey were twofold. Though Sturt did not discover the land in which the colony of South Australia was first founded, and on which the city of Adelaide now stands, the history of his journey and the account which had previously been given by Captain Flinders, led to the survey of the land between the two gulfs and the Murray River. There stands a hill, about twenty miles from Adelaide, called Mount Barker; in honour of Captain Barker, who was killed by the blacks while employed on this work. The land was found to be good, and fit for agriculture; not sandy, as is so large a proportion of the continent, nor heavily timbered, as is a larger portion of it. The survey was made immediately on the receipt of Sturt’s account, and the operations which were commenced with a view of planting the colony, were no doubt primarily due to him. And he solved the great question as to the Australian waters, proving, what all Australia now knows, to its infinite loss, that the river Murray,--the only considerable outflow of Australian waters with which we are as yet acquainted,--makes its way into the sea by a mouth which is not suited for navigation. There is already much traffic on the Murray, and no doubt that traffic will increase;--but there is very little traffic indeed from the Murray to the seaports, even on the Australian coast, and it is not probable that that little will be extended. It is yet possible that on the north or north-western coast navigable rivers may be found. Just now men who have visited the northern shore are beginning to tell us that the Roper River and the Victoria River may by certain processes of blasting and dredging become serviceable, not only for inland but also for maritime navigation. But hitherto Australia has had no river into which great ships can make their way, as they do on the open rivers of America, of Europe, and of Asia. The narrowness and shallowness,--or, as I may perhaps call it, the meanness,--of the mouth of the Murray is one of