In the principal street, most of the houses stand alone, each proprietor having a garden, or paddock of three quarters of an acre in extent, about his dwelling. The great misfortune of the town is, that the upper portion of it is built upon sand, which is many feet deep. The streets, not being yet paved, are all but impassable; but happily, each possesses a good foot-path of clay, and it is to be hoped that the cart-ways will ere long be similarly improved. Sydney was originally in the state that Perth presents now; but there the natural unfavourableness of the soil has been entirely overcome. Increasing wealth and population will ere long do as much for us. It is not until we reach Guildford, eight miles farther inland than Perth, that the stratum of sand ceases, and a cold and marly clay succeeds, which reaches to the foot of the Darling range of hills, and extends many miles down the coast. The banks of the Swan River, as well as of the Canning and most other rivers of the colony, contain many miles of rich alluvial soil, capable of growing wheat sufficient for the support of a large population. Many of these flats have produced crops of wheat for sixteen years successively, without the aid of any kind of manure. It must, however, be owned, that a very slovenly system of farming has been generally pursued throughout the colony; and, in fact, is commonly observable in all colonies. The settlers are not only apt to rely too much upon the natural productiveness of the soil, but they are in general men whose attention has only lately been turned to agriculture, and who are almost entirely ignorant of practical farming in its most important details. The Agricultural Society of Western Australia has for some years exerted itself to improve this state of things, and has in some measure succeeded. It must be observed that with the exception of the rich flats of the Swan and Canning rivers, the vast extent of country between the coast and the Darling Hills is a miserable region, scarcely more valuable for the purposes of cultivation than the deserts of Africa, except where occasional swamps appear like oases, and tempt the hardy settler to found a location. As all the worst land of the colony lies unfortunately near the coast, those who visit only the port and capital usually leave the country with a very unfavourable and a very erroneous impression of its real character. It is not until the granite range of the Darling Hills is passed over, that the principal pastoral and agricultural districts are found. There are the farm settlements, the flocks, and herds of the colony. From the Victoria plains north of Toodyay, for hundreds of miles to the southward, comprising the fertile districts of Northam, York, Beverley, the Dale and the Hotham, is found a surface of stiff soil, covered over with straggling herbage, and many varieties of trees and shrubs. But I am travelling too fast: I must pause for the present at Perth.