EMIGRATION TO PORT NATAL. (From the Watchman)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 416, 10 April 1850, Page 3

EMIGRATION TO PORT NATAL. (From the Watchman)

Among the many projects for immigration, one lh»t has come latest into favour, but is fast becoming popular, itt that to Port Natal, an inlet on the southeastern coast of Africa, about half way between Algoa Bay and Delagoa Bay. Some years ago all the intermediate tracts was marked upon the maps as Caffrnria, a term wind), not long since, included the entire apex of the African continent, south of ihe tropic of Capricorn. It was subsequently li.uited to the district we have indicated, which, on its eastern margin, is washed by the Indian Sea for a length of about six hundred miles. The depth of the country inwards is determined by the sweep of the tnountiiins of Quithlamba, a range which s're'ehes patalM to the coast, and at an average distance of a hundred and thirty miles fiom it. By this range, the physical characteriitics of the count ly are determined. Westward of it the waters flow, or— it might more properly be said, the water-courses (or tlnjy aie often dry) — lead to the inhospitable pLiins of the Gareep, which river, after flowing for a thousand miles, pours only a scanty tide into the Atlantic. Bur, eastward of the Quaihlamba mountains, South Africa wears n different aspect.— Huidretls of perennial sticams niih docvn from terrace to terrace of the hills, till, after a b.'ut" eomse, frequently interrupted by rupidit and waterfalls, they reich the Indian ocean. This long, narrow, slip of 1 nd, therefore, i* entirely to l>j excepted from our conceptions of African sterility, and is in reroaik.ible contrast with the opposite coast under the same latitudes. H. populous colouy settled upon this territory — which, in the order of Providence, seems to have been made over, together with two-thirds of the best part of the earth's surface, to the great Anglo-Saxon, race, would soon rise to immense political importance. Already seams of coal have been found channelled through by the torrents, and steam commuuica • tion would be easily arranged with Europe — not by the round-about way of the Cape and St. Helena, but to Aden, it would meet the grand line of mails between India and Great Britain. '1 bus it would bfc several weeks nearer home than Sydney and New Zealand. It cannot tail to s'rike an obseivaut mind how the coasts of the old Erythraean Sen, which, since the days of Nearchus had been vwted only by the wand ri ig iail of the Arab or the Portuguese merchant, h-ive now come into the power of a Protestant nation. Aden commands for us the navigation of the lied Sea ; iho vast peninsula of India give 1 ; m supiatnacy over the immense ba>s on rit'ier side; Singapore and the settlement made by Rajah Brooke on the northern shores of Borneo, prolong the chain of British supremacy to the coasts of Australia Between the latter and the shores of Souih Afiica there intervenes only a few Bpotß imd the important island of M wlagarcar' which it can (scarcely be doubted would soon bu within the influence of a flmmhing Biitish colony, if such were settled in Niital and separated from Madagascar only by the Mozambique Channel.

Pueachkus in TUB ICast — Mr. Luyard, author of 11 Nineveh and its Remain-.," left Constantinople on tl c 2}>th August, in a Turkish steamer, for Tiebizofld, on his way for the scene of his late diGcoveries. He is accompanied by an artist, a medical man, and a SBcretrtry. Mr. Layard w.H extend h ; s visits to Mount Ararat, and the whole ot that part of the East which abounds in religious and historical associations. The scientific and literary world may anticipate a rich treat whi-n ihe fruit ot Mr. Layard' i present expedition will he given to the press. Shortly behre the | üblitation of his late work, Mr. Layard wus appo lit* d by Lord Palmerbton Paid Ati.iolx' to the Bnttbh Eml assy at Constantinople— an act which does honour to tha Minister of Foreign Affuiis.