AUSTRALIA;

A HIGHLY ELIGIBLE FIELD FOR EMIGRATION,

AND THE

FUTURE COTTON-FIELD OF GREAT BRITAIN :

WITH A DISQUISITION ON

The Origin, Manners, and Customs of the Aborigines.

BY

JOHN DUNMORE LANG, D.D. A.M.

Senior Minister of the Scots Church, Sydney, and one of the Representatives of the City
of Sydney in the Parliament of New South Wales: Honorary Member of the
African Institute of France, of the American Oriental Society, and

of the Literary Institute of Olinda in the Brazils.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:

EDWARD STANFORD, 6 CHARING CROSS.
1864.

PUBLIC LIBRAR

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE greater part of the following work, for which the author had been making researches and collections in Australia a long time previous, was written on board the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steam-ships Jeddo, Nemesis, and Ceylon, on the voyage by the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean, from Sydney to Southampton, in the months of December, January, and February last. Its object was fourfold:-First, to point out to the British public the highly eligible field which the new colony of Queensland presents, under the liberal and enlightened arrangements of the Local Government, for the emigration and settlement of thousands and tens of thousands of the industrious classes of Great Britain and Ireland. Secondly, to demonstrate the perfect suitableness of the soil and climate for the growth by means of European and British labourers, of cotton, sugar, and other tropical productions that are elsewhere raised almost exclusively by coloured and slave labour, and thereby to create a counterpoise in Australia to negro slavery in America. Thirdly, to prevent the threatened influx of hordes of coolies and Chinamen into Queensland-a consummation which would not only effectually destroy the

thoroughly British character of the colony and greatly impede its material progress, but would prove an insurmountable obstacle to its moral welfare and general advancement. And, finally, to interest the future colonists of Queensland in the fortunes and fate of the aborigines. How far these objects are of importance, or how far they are likely to be attained by the following work, the reader will judge for himself.

London, 22nd April. 1861.