Travels & Adventures In South Australia 1836-1838 by W. H. Leigh

Travels & Adventures In South Australia 1836-1838

by W. H. Leigh

Currawong Press, 1982, 215 pages, ISBN 0908001355, black and white plates, hardcover, dustjacket, facsimile edition limited to 2000 copies

Like New Condition, protected dust jacket

'First published in 1839, this facsimile edition provides a vivid - if sometimes draconian - view of early settlement in South Australia.  From squalid 'slave-ship' conditions aboard an immigrant ship to the often miserable struggle of early bush life, Dr Leigh's account spares little for the romantic.  Cruelty misled from the outset by the South Australian Company, the settlers were appallingly equipped to meet the privations they faced from the moment they landed at Kangaroo Island.  The weak soon fell into idle hopelessness.  Those of character needed all the resilience they could muster, like the large family - with Piano! - who faced eviction from company tent to virgin bush within days of their arrival.'