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.

Ships of burden for Melbourne cast anchor in Hobson's Bay, at the mouth of the River Yarra, off Williams Town, which is built on a flat promontory, with three sides to the water. Williams Town was laid out by Sir Richard Bourke as the seaport of Port Phillip, for which the situation affords advantages; but the want of good drinking water has hitherto hindered it from making any progress since the years of the mania when town lots were sold there at a great price. It contains the harbour master's residence, two or three public-houses, a few butchers' shops, a clergyman's house, and a small temporary church. An aqueduct or water-pipes would soon make Williams Town an important place.

The shores of the Yarra are so even with Hobson's Bay that from the anchorage the entrance can scarcely be distinguished.

From Hobson's Bay, taking a boat for a mile, a walk or ride of a mile and a half will bring the traveller to Melbourne, but by the winding channel of the river, which is just wide and deep enough to admit the steamers which ply constantly from Sydney and Geelong, the distance is seven miles.

"Passing the junction of the Maryburrong, or Salt-water River, on the bank of which are beautiful villa sites, the Melbourne racecourse, and several establishments for boiling down sheep and cattle into tallow, which give out a most villanous odour, the city, of which only an indistinct glimpse was to be observed from the bay, comes in view; the cathedral, a heavy building, without a tower or a steeple; and the government offices, built of stone, without ornament, on the highest point of the hill." The voyage ends in a sort of pool where steamers can find room to turn round and take up a berth alongside the quay. A breakwater has been erected on the foundation of a natural ledge of rocks which effectually divides the fresh water from the salt.

Melbourne occupies two sides of a valley, East Hill and West Hill, of very fertile soil. Inferior in port accommodation and in picturesque beauty to Sydney, it has the advantage of being in the midst of productive corn-fields, gardens, vineyards, and pastures.

The principal street is a mile long, crossed at right angles by other streets of half that length: a macadamized causeway runs down the middle, leaving a strip on each side to be converted into mud in the rainy season. The footpaths for the most part are of gravel, with kerbSo far there is an improvement. Some years ago a traveller was shocked the day after his arrival by seeing among the casual announcements in a local paper " Another Child Drowned in the Streets of Melbourne."

stones.

The buildings present the irregularity incident to all colonial towns:

occasionally great gaps of building land are to be found representing investments made eight or ten years ago by absentee speculators. The chief lion work of Melbourne is a stone bridge across the Yarra, of the same size and proportions as the centre arch of London-bridge, which

cost an enormous sum.

The population was about twenty thousand in 1851; what it is now would be difficult to say. It is to be feared that houses will be built more rapidly than the present streets will be drained and rendered wholesome. The lower part of Melbourne is subject to sudden floods from the falling of rains and melting of snow in the range of hills in which the Yarra takes its rise. An Australian flood is "short, sharp, and decisive."

From the summit of either East or West Hill, by which the valley of Melbourne is formed, may be seen Mount Macedon, the crowning mountain of a range of the same name thirty-five miles from the city, three thousand feet in height, covered with open forests, and the richest vegetation of Australia. Thence may be viewed the richest mountain in the world, the Mount Byng of its discoverer Mitchell, the Mount

Alexander in gold-digging records. To the north of Mount Alexander Mount Hope, from the summit of which the weary eyes of Mitchell were gladdened by all the sylvan pastoral glories of "Australia Felix."

Fifty-four miles from Melbourne, by sea or land, with access by steamers several times in the day, is Geelong, the western arm of Port Phillip, which opens on the larboard hand of a vessel immediately upon clearing the shoals at the entrance of the Great Lake, standing between the miniature Bay of Corio with its picturesque green hills and sheltered water, and the River Barwon, which flows into the Lake Connemarra.”

The situation in the centre of one of the best grazing and agricultural districts, near a gold-field, will probably render it an important town. A bar at the mouth of the harbour at present restricts the entry of vessels drawing more than ten feet water; but this, it is thought, may be removed by dredging.

Should this be the case, the province of Victoria will enjoy the advantage of two excellent available ports, and have two great towns. In the other provinces there seems no probability of any rival competing with Sydney or Port Adelaide.

Forty miles from Geelong the Buninyong range forms part of the second series of mountains, after the termination of the Australian Alps. At Ballarat, one of the spurs of Buninyong, the first gold-field in Victoria was worked, in the midst of plains of unequalled fertility.

In proceeding along the coast to the point where an engineering line divides Victoria from South Australia, the whole coast line of the former, being about 600 miles, the most important harbour is found in Portland Bay, 255 miles from Melbourne.

Three streams, none of them navigable, fall into this bay, which is little better than a roadstead, considered especially dangerous when the south-easterly gales, which prevail during the summer months, are blowing. The government has recently been compelled to pay one pound a ton more for vessels despatched to Portland Bay than to Hobson's Bay. The north shore is low; the western rises in bold cliffs, upwards of 150 feet.

It was at Portland Bay that one of the earliest settlements was formed by one of Messrs. Henty's whaling parties, on which the land explorers came to their great surprise, after many weeks' journey through an unknown, uninhabited country.

The Portland Bay district receives streams from the Grampians, a range running to the northward, of which Mount William, the extreme eastern point, is 4,500 feet in height. Mitchell ascended Mount