Soon after the site was definitely settled, the emigrants who had been holding on at Kangaroo Island and elsewhere removed to the "city", in the hope that they would soon be able to take up their country sections.

But in this they were disappointed, and many complications ensued. Amongst them was the question of food. Before the arrival of the Governor, when one of the most pressing wants of the colonists was a supply of fresh provisions, Colonel Light despatched the Cygnet to Van Diemen's Land for eight hundred sheep; but, in consequence of boisterous weather on the return journey, very few remained alive when the vessel reached Kangaroo Island.

Then the matter was taken up by the Governor and council, and a sum of £5000 was voted for the purchase of flour, horses, bullocks, waggons, barges, etc., and a committee appointed to select and purchase the same.

While in Sydney for this purpose, Messrs. Barnard and Fisher, two of the committee, made inquiries as to the practicability of conveying stock overland, when one Mr. Robert Clint offered, for the sum of £10,000, to convey to a given point 2000 young ewes in lamb, 300 mixed cattle, 30 horses, mares, and geldings, and 24 true-bred sheepdogs.

The offer was not accepted, but, as we shall see, the transit of cattle overland soon became an accomplished fact. Meanwhile the vessels chartered by the Commissioners continued to bring in supplies of live stock from the Cape of Good Hope and elsewhere.

After completing the town surveys, Colonel Light directed his attention to the country lands, but his work was carried on under great difficulties. A spirit of disaffection was abroad; owing to the lack of means for transporting goods, rations often ran low; and the survey vehicles were diverted from their proper use to convey the luggage of new-comers from Holdfast Bay to Adelaide.

The lack of fresh water at the harbour was a great drawback to progress. As an instance of the cost of conveying it to the bay, it may be mentioned that the Buffalo had twenty tons of water conveyed from Adelaide to Glenelg, the charge for which was £100, and nearly half this amount for bringing back the empty water-casks.

Alluding to his men, who were called "two-shilling-a-day slaves", Colonel Light wrote, "Their complaints had much truth. They had signed in England for twelve shillings a week and rations, the same in quality as allowed in his Majesty's navy, and they were sometimes many days with hardly anything but biscuit, sometimes not that.

Had there been no difficulty with the men, we could not have detached a party from the town, as not a single working bullock could be had. The tents were all in use by the immigrants as well as by the surveying parties.

The rations which came up from Holdfast Bay in small quantities were delivered almost immediately, not only to those entitled to them by agreement, but also to the immigrants, who had no other means of sustenance than from the Commissioners' stores, and the remaining part of the twelve months' stores purchased in England for the use of the survey alone were now shared out to all.

Humanity required this, but the consequence was a cessation of work, and an apparent neglect of duty on the part of the surveyor-general, for which, of course, there were many quite ready to abuse him."

When the stores were better supplied, surveying recommenced under more favourable circumstances, and a party was formed under Mr. Finniss to commence on the western side of Adelaide, with the Torrens on the right, the range of hills to the left, and the sea in front, while Colonel Light began on the right bank of the river.

Still the work was hindered by occasional strikes among the men and by bad weather. "During this period," wrote Colonel Light, "I began to feel a very evident change in my health, which, with anxieties of mind, wore me down very much, and I was obliged to neglect many days' working in consequence."

To the unavoidable delay in the progress of the country surveys may be mainly ascribed the overwhelming difficulties and disasters in the first years of the history of the colony; and, next to this, the error of the Commissioners in permitting emigration to take place to the extent it did before the country land was ready for selection.

By the 25th of May, 1837, not quite a year after the arrival of the first vessel at Kangaroo Island, sixteen vessels from England had landed upwards of a thousand emigrants, and twenty-five vessels had left Sydney and Van Diemen's Land with supplies of provisions and merchandise, besides conveying many settlers.

In November of the same year the population was estimated at 2500. All these people flocked to the city because, although they held land orders, they could not get possession, and therefore could not enter upon their proper business pursuits, or upon any productive labour. As a consequence there came a state of stagnation.

The very implements required for agriculture and the utensils for dairy work soon crowded the auction-rooms, and were sold at absurdly low prices, that the vendors might support themselves on the proceeds.

"The majority of the settlers were without income, and had to live upon their capital and by the sale of their town acres. Rents being very high, employment was given to artisans at extravagant wages to erect buildings in the city; but as houses soon increased and rents diminished, those who had embarked their capital in buildings had cause to regret making such investments."

Provisions were imported at ruinous prices; hard cash intended to be used in "making a fortune" was squandered in idleness; and labourers were employed upon works premature, if not unnecessary, for the mere sake of giving them employment.

The Government was largely dependent upon what it could make, and the principal source of its revenue, for emigration purposes only, was the sale of land, but the sales had not yet commenced; the duties upon spirits and wine licences yielded so small a sum that the Governor had not sufficient money to pay even the salaries of its officers. There were no other revenues. The Land Fund was sacred; the English Government could not he asked for money; the Colonial Treasury existed only in name.

On the 25th of May, 1837, the Governor, after much contention with the Resident Commissioner on the subject, proclaimed the harbour a legal port, but for some time afterwards it was not much used.

At this early date there was neither wharf, pier, nor jetty at either Holdfast Bay or the harbour, and considerable damage and loss was sustained in consequence.

At the bay heavily laden boats were sometimes in danger of being swamped, and if the water was smooth they could not approach near enough to the shore for the goods to be landed dry without great care.

As soon as vehicles were obtained, the bullocks or horses were driven into the water as near as possible to the boats, but even then a submerging of the package or case in course of removal was no uncommon thing. A tradition of those days records that, among other casualties, Mrs. Hindmarsh, soon after her arrival, had the mortification of seeing her piano floating ashore at Glenelg.

One of the first public works undertaken at the port at the head of the creek was the cutting of a small canal to enable lighters to discharge their cargoes on terra firma. The silt and mud excavated formed a bank above the reach of ordinary tides, and upon this bank the goods landed were piled until removed by carts or drays to their destination.* The cost of this little canal, which would receive some six or eight barges, was about £800.

[* There were for the first few months so few vehicles, oxen, and horses, that it was a long time before the colonists could get their belongings together, and sledges, skids, wheelbarrows, and other impromptu devices were in requisition to convey luggage from the landing-place to Adelaide.]

The arrival of large numbers of immigrants rendered a depôt for their immediate accommodation necessary, and a site was selected on a part of the western parklands, and wooden buildings, known as "Immigration Square", were erected. In one part of the square there was an infirmary and dispensary, and adjacent thereto the office of the immigration agent—a functionary who had by no means an easy time during the first few years of the colony's existence.

Up to the end of 1839 nearly all the large vessels arriving from England came to anchor in Holdfast Bay, and here, therefore, the immigrants were landed. Many were the strange and exciting scenes enacted there. In the absence of jetty or wharfs, passengers, luggage, and merchandise had to be landed in the surf on the beach, unless the bullock-drivers could persuade their teams to go sufficiently near to the boats to obviate this necessity.

As a matter of course, the greater number of persons landed had either to be carried ashore, or to wade through the water. Soon the beach would be thronged with the wondering and inquiring new-comers; a number of bullock teams stood about waiting to convey the women, children, and luggage to the town; and here and there a group of natives would welcome the visitors with strange grimaces and modest appeals for "biccity", "'bacca", or "black money". Then the procession would move off, bound for Immigration Square.

The city presented a strange appearance in the early days. The temporary dwellings of the settlers who had removed from Glenelg were strewn about the valley, or lined the banks of the river, presenting the appearance of a large gipsy encampment. Some of the "buildings" were composed of mud and grass, others of brushwood, and some of wooden frames covered with canvas.

One of the first residences close to the town was "the Vice-regal Mansion", as it was jokingly called—a building remarkable for its want of pretension to either elegance or comfort. It was built by the sailors of the Buffalo ** and consisted of three rooms, the walls being of mud and the roof of thatch. Unfortunately, "Jack" forgot to put in a chimney, which caused many a joke at his expense.

Of stone and brick houses there were, of course, very few in the first instance, and these few were erected at great expense. But soon a building mania set in; temporary erections gave "way to proper houses, and almost within a year of its foundation Adelaide began to assume the characteristics of an established town.

Unfortunately, it became the great centre of attraction, and, in addition to the mania for substantial buildings there, many were building castles in the air, instead of turning their attention to flocks and herds, the growth of grain and garden produce, and the development of the natural resources of the colony.