FITZROY DOWNS TO PANDORA'S PASS.

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by the river of the same name. These downs are part of a system of high table lands continued toward the north, where its boundaries are indefinite, by the Fitzroy Downs, discovered by Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1846, and toward the south by the New England district and the Liverpool Plains, bounded on the south by the great dividing or Liverpool Range, through which Pandora's Pass gives exit to the Hunter River; and thus, with intervals of mountain range or desert, a series of pastoral plains run parallel with the interior of the mountain range which encircles the eastern coast of Australia, including the Goulburn, Bathurst district, the Maneroo or Brisbane Downs, and the Murray district, which flow into, if we may use the term, the province of Victoria. And in this series of pastoral plains the climate is considerably modified by their altitude above the sea. It was these plains, where fine woolled sheep increase and multiply at the least possible expense, which first gave exports and wealth to Australia. Before the shepherd and his flock, the savage and the emu gradually disappear.

CHAPTER XXIV.

JOURNEY FROM PORT JACKSON TO PORT PHILLIP.

BOTANY BAY—ILLAWARRA-RAILWAY, TO JERVIS BAY-TWOFOLD BAY-BOYD TOWN AND EDEN-PORT PHILLIP BAY-WILLIAMS' TOWN-MELBOURNEGEELONG-PORTLAND BAY-DIVISIONS OF VICTORIA PROVINCE-GIPPS'S LAND -DISCOVERY-THE LYRE BIRD OF GIPPS'S LAND-GRASS TREES-THE PHEASANTS OR MOCKING BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA.

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IN traversing the coast from Port Jackson to Port Phillip there is a singular absence of good harbours. The first, Botany Bay, fourteen miles from Port Jackson, receives the waters of the George River, on which the township of Liverpool was planted by Macquarie, but has not flourished; and the Cook's River, which has been dammed, for the purpose of affording a supply of fresh water to Sydney. Botany Bay is unsheltered, and offered indifferent accommodation for small vessels. A brass plate on the cliffs marks the spot where Captain Cook first landed; and the stranger may drink from the well of fresh water opened by the illustrious navigator.

Between Botany Bay and Shoalhaven is Illawarra, also known as the Five Islands, one of the most fertile and wildly beautiful districts in the world, which, from the peculiarity of its situation, bounded by the sea for eighteen miles, running north and south, and by a mountain chain, which encircles about 150,000 acres, unites the peculiarities of both temperate and tropical climates, a sort of Norway or Switzerland rocks, lakes, fat alluvial valleys, under a southern sun, tempered by breezes from the sea. We descend from the landward side by crossing a range of hills 1,500 feet in height, so precipitous that it is difficult for a horseman to ride down, and, without dismounting, impossible for a loaded dray.

The communication with Sydney, which it supplies with large quantities of fruit, vegetables, and agricultural produce, is chiefly carried on by coasters from the small harbour of Wollongong, a favourite resort for invalids. Here is a celebrated show-garden, where may be seen fruits and watercress, with oranges, pomegranates, nectarines, and bananas. Here is Illawarra Lake, too, than which it is scarcely possible to conceive anything more picturesquely beautiful, environed by rocks and tropical vegetation, peopled with bright-coloured birds.

At Illawarra the palm and the tree-fern flourish, and from land as fertile and cultivation as careful as that of Devonshire. A short walk may bring you to a camp of aborigines sheltering from the warm rain beneath their gunyah, the nearest approach to a hut which these poor creatures have contrived.

Jervis Bay is eighty miles from Sydney, with an entrance two miles wide, and an inner harbour three leagues in length, safe for ships of the heaviest burden, with access to ample supplies of wood and water, and presents a total change of climate. Unfortunately, this fine port is surrounded by a hopelessly barren country. It has been suggested by Mr. Ralfe, an experimental Australian surveyor, that Jervis Bay should become the terminus of a railway from the Bathurst district.

A railway for wool and tallow would be a very doubtful speculation; but recent events have laid the foundation for more important exports and imports. Perhaps by following the course of streams it would be possible to find workable gradients for a tramway on the Welsh or American plan.

The next port, Bateman's Bay, the outlet of the Clyde River, is only accessible for coasters; but it has recently come into notice from

the discovery of the Australian gold-diggings, distant only thirty miles; that thirty miles being over a country of so difficult a character that a party with loaded packhorses were three days in crossing it.

The last harbour in the New South Wales district is Twofold Bay, 240 miles from Sydney, on which two townships have been founded, Eden by the government, and Boyd Town by the late Benjamin Boyd, with the funds of a Scotch company which he represented. Eden has never been anything better than a project at the expense of a few foolish land speculators. Boyd Town enjoyed a brief period of factitious prosperity, when the steamers, whalers, and yacht of the founder lay in harbour. It was at Boyd Town he appeared with almost viceroyal state, when laying the first stone of the never-lighted lighthouse; and it was there that he landed the island cannibals whom he had purchased from their savage conquerors, with the view of reducing wages by introducing slavery into Australia, rather than encourage shepherd families upon his boundless sheep-runs.

The steep range of hills which separates Twofold Bay from the vast squatting district of Maneroo has hitherto, in spite of a road constructed at much expense by Mr. Boyd, to a great degree neutralized its advantageous position as the only harbour for large ships on a long line of coast. It is still used as a station for shore whalers, almost the only station in the colony. There has been a great falling off in the whaling operations of the Sydney merchants. The Australian whalers are for the most part of from 200 to 300 tons burthen. All on board, from the captain downwards, are paid by a share of the oil procured, which share is called, in whalemen's parlance, a "lay," and is proportioned of course to the rank and ability of the man. There is one feature of this trade in the Pacific which is not generally known,—the intercourse of those who follow it with the tribes of Polynesia. Whaling captains generally seek some of the islands for the purpose of procuring supplies of provisions, or of repairing slight damages sustained at sea; because in the first place, they can obtain provisions there at infinitely less cost than in any of the colonial ports; and in the second place, they find it easier by this course to keep their men together. Supplies are frequently also procured in boats, without bringing the vessel to an anchor. These supplies, consisting of pigs and fowls, with yams, cocoanuts, bread-fruit, and other productions of a similar nature, are procured by barter: calicoes, hardware, common trinkets, and other matters likely to be prized by the untutored islanders, being carried for that purpose. These articles are technically known as "trade." All the precautions which the captains can take are insufficient to prevent

occasional desertion; and extraordinarily numerous as are the islands of the Pacific, there is scarcely one of them which has not one or more runaway sailors domesticated among the people who inhabit it.

From Twofold Bay, passing Cape Howe, which receives the point of the imaginary line dividing the provinces of New South Wales and Victoria, no harbour presents itself until we reach Corner Inlet, within which is Alberton, on the River Albert, the capital of the fine district of Gipps's Land, unfortunately obstructed by a bar. Then follows Western Port, discovered by George Bass in his whale-boat, a port formed by two islands. Leaving Western Port, we enter the now world-famous Port Phillip, an inland sea, which receives the ships whose cargoes or passengers are destined for the towns of Melbourne and Geelong.

The entrance to Port Phillip Bay is little more than one mile and a half across. On the one hand Point Nepean, a low, sandy promontory, like a rabbit warren without rabbits, at the base of the cape: beyond rises for a thousand feet Arthur's Seat, a woody range of hills, precipitous toward the sea, with barely room for a road between its foot and the flood-tide. In the distance, on the same margin, Mount Eliza, a range of hills, with extensive outline, mark the bounds of Port Phillip Bay. On the other side the lowlands of Indented Head and Shortland Bluff present a dull scene, sprinkled with funereal shiak or "she-oak trees."

The rush of waters through the narrow canal into the Great Lake, nearly fifty miles in length by twenty-five in breadth, which forms Port Phillip, in certain states of the wind and tide, creates a foaming, stormy whirl of water not a little alarming to the inexperienced landsman. Within the bay the waters calm down, and a beautiful and picturesque scene is unrolled.

At Port Phillip Bay the great dividing range which runs parallel at varying distances from the coast from Wide Bay, penetrating New South Wales under various names (the Blue Mountains near Sydney, the Australian Alps in Gipps's Land), seems to sink into the sea across Bass's Straits, where its course is marked by a chain of islands, and reappears with the same character in Van Diemen's Land.

Thus it is that, sailing up the bay, the scenery changes: the rugged cliffs and alpine ranges of the east coast give way to undulating grassy plains, sprinkled with picturesque hills. The western arm of Port Phillip, extending about twenty miles, opens the course to Geelong. In sailing up the bay the hills around Geelong appear covered with cultivation.