The South Australian Government retained the services of some of the regular non-commissioned officers as instructors, and of some of the officers for staff duties. At the time I joined the staff some of these were still going healthy and strong. Well I remember Major Williams, our staff quartermaster, Captain Powell, our cavalry instructor, Sergeant-Majors Ryan and Connell, infantry instructors, two of the best. They were with me then, they were under me for years; they never wavered in their zeal, nor had I once, in our long association together, ever to find fault with them or their work, not even in later days, when the holders of the public purse set the pruning knives clicking and the military vote suffered so severely as to necessitate much extra work on the part of those who remained on the staff. The growth of the colony steadily continued, never halting, though occasionally bad seasons checked its progress. In the 'seventies South Australia was fully established. Adelaide was becoming a rich and populous city, the capital of a great territory. A stupendous pioneer work, the overland telegraph right through the continent from Adelaide in the south to Port Darwin in the north, had been completed, some 2,000 miles through unoccupied country. The Burra-Burra copper mines had given forth their store of the copper. The Moonta and Wallaroo district was still richer in that precious metal. Even now there appears to be no end to the wealth of metal lying below the ground waiting for the pick of the miner. Millions of acres of wild bush land had been turned into rolling grass plains on which millions of sheep browsed in peace. In the settled districts along the Northern Railway line to Port Augusta paddocks after paddocks of smiling and rustling wheatfields waited for the harvesting machines each autumn time.