Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/126

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114

“As to coming out, I am still reluctant in giving advice to any one on the subject. It is a serious responsibility to hold out strong inducements, when success depends so much upon the taste, bodily fitness, and preparation for it. To come here costs much; a considerable sum is also further necessary to support you until you can maintain yourself. Land must be paid for—if obtained from Government, at the rate of 5 s. per acre.” …. “Two or three stout hard-working brothers, or a father with a grown-up family able and willing to assist him, with some money to establish themselves in rough comfort and plenty, would be independent in a few years; but there must be no squeamishness as to food, nor daintiness as to luxuries; it is a plodding, matter-of-fact, business-like, and hard-working life, until you get yourself established; with very little of that romance and adventure about it, which is so tempting and alluring to young minds. Yet it has its pleasures; but it is quite right that people should prepare themselves for what it really is. I am still unwilling to recommend emigration to any one; for the sort of life is so different from that at home, that many would be discontented with it, and blame the adviser instead of themselves. I had made up my mind to endure every kind of hardship and privation for three years at least; yet here, at the end of two years (Oct. 1833), I live almost as well as I could wish, and certainly lead a healthier, and happier, and less anxious life,[1] now that the first struggle is over.”

The writer, after carefully reviewing what has been stated in the preceding pages respecting the colony of Western

  1. In this last sentence there appears to he some obscurity. From conversations the author has had with Mr. Moore on the subject, lie has no doubt that the comparison intended to be instituted was between the life Mr. Moore was then passing as a settler, and that which he had led before he went out to the colony.