It may easily be conceived that such hopes as these,--hopes which might be gratified any day by an accident, but which could not assure themselves of success by steady industry,--would lead to a state of feeling which I may best describe as the Micawber condition. If only gold would turn up! Gold might turn up any day! But as gold did not turn up,--then would not Providence be so good as to allow something else to turn up? This feeling, than which none can be more pernicious, is likely to befall every population which seeks after hidden and uncertain gains. The gain may come any day,--may come in any quantity,--may turn squalid poverty into wealth in an hour. The splendid transformation has been made over and over again, and may be repeated. Why should it not be repeated here, with me, on my behalf? And, if so, how vain, feeble, and contemptible would be a paltry struggle after daily wages? No doubt there was much of the Micawber spirit in the colony, and many waited, thinking that gold would turn up,--or if not gold, pearls, or coal, or copper, or gas made out of blackboys. For there have been promises made by the cruel earth of all these brilliant things. By the earth or by the water;--for perhaps the promise of pearls has been, of all these promises, the one best performed. In 1861 I find the mention of mother-of-pearl found on the northern coast, at Nickol Bay,--far away beyond the limits of the colony which had been explored, but which was geographically a portion of the seacoast of Western Australia. Now there is a settlement at Nickol Bay. At present horses and sheep are reared there; but Nickol Bay is best known for its pearl fishery. This has gradually increased. In 1862 pearl-shell was exported to the value of £250. In 1863, none. In 1864, £5. In 1865, none. In 1866, £7. In 1867, £556. In 1868, £5,554. In 1869, £6,490. For 1870 I have not the amount. In 1871 it arose to £12,895. This enterprise can hardly be regarded as having been carried on by colonial industry, as strangers have come to the coast, and pearl-divers are men of migratory habits, who know little of homes, and are not subject to much patriotic enthusiasm; but they attach themselves for a time to the coast that is nearest to them, and spend upon it some portion of their gains. The fishery on the northern coast of Western Australia, not for pearls, but for pearl-shell, will probably become a prosperous trade.