By this time my readers will be glad to escape from the Town and have a look at the country round, more particularly such of them as may contemplate a Squatter's life or have friends settled in the Bush. I confess I was impatient to see somewhat of the interior of a country, the anticipated natural resources of which had given rise to the outlay of so much capital as must have been expended in making Melbourne what it is; and it was with no ordinary feelings of interest that one afternoon in the beginning of June, I set out to visit the station of a gentleman who had very kindly invited me to stay with him. He was one of the earliest settlers in Australia Felix, to which province he had, with no less enterprise than trouble, driven his herds of cattle from the neighbourhood of Sydney where he had long been resident, and which he relinquished under the conviction that the new settlement offered superior grazing land. He possessed one of the

*

finest stations in the country, and some of the best cattle, besides several flocks of sheep. He was also to a small extent a breeder of horses. It may be added, that he was a magistrate, and universally liked and respected. These circumstances are mentioned to show that I fell into good hands, and that the reader may more fully enter into the expedition which is about to be narrated. My friend kindly volunteered to escort me, and we had for a companion another gentleman who had been a fellow passenger of mine from England, and was also well acquainted with Australia Felix, having previously resided there some time. His opinion of the province had been so favourable, that he had gone home for the purpose of purchasing some choice stock to introduce upon the station which had been granted to him.

It was well that there were others to lead the way, for alone I should probably not have arrived at my friend's station by this time. There is no map o the country showing its various roads or tracks,

* By a letter from Port Phillip, dated April, 1844, I was extremely concerned to hear that this gentleman, in conjunction with another, had sustained a severe loss by the atrocious malice of a servant. This man having overdrawn his salary, and been refused a further advance, revengefully poured sea water, instead of pickle, into 150 casks of beef which his employers had salted for exportation. Unfortunately the greater part of the meat thus utterly damaged had been shipped before the discovery was made. My correspondent, in mentioning the circumstance, adds, that the gentleman "is one of a million; his enemies (if he have any besides the villain who has done him this injury) cannot speak ill of him."

neither are there any signposts, and a man may wait at some places until he starves before any human being can be found to direct him. Besides this, when once he wanders from the track, such is the nature of the country that he is almost sure to be lost. Let the reader imagine himself off any beaten road, and surrounded by trees, not generally dense, but contracting the view, and presenting such similarity of scene, that after wandering in a circle he comes back to the point whence he started without recognising it again! This difficulty of finding his way across country, leads every colonist to carry with him a small pocket compass, and to inquire particularly before starting to what point his destination bears. Nor does he neglect to seek aid from the sun or stars, according as either may be visible. In spite of all precautions, however, instances are constantly occurring of even experienced travellers losing their track, and being obliged to "bush it" for the night; that is, to tie their horses to trees, or to tether them (if the animals carry a tethering rope round their necks, which is almost always the case on a long journey), and then to choose some soft place whereon to sleep till daylight, if gnawing hunger, cold, or rain should not disturb repose. I heard of a gentleman who did this within two or three hundred yards of his own hut, in perfect ignorance of his "whereabouts"! and I knew another who, having about a quarter of a mile

to walk in the dark from his own house across the "bush," in order to dine with the Superintendent, lost his way, and was obliged to go a considerable distance into the town of Melbourne, for the purpose of procuring a butcher's boy to accompany him to Mr. Latrobe's house, for fear that, in making further unsuccessful attempts to find the haven he desired, he should lose the dinner which it promised him. He had traversed the same ground more than once in the daytime, and, from frequently passing that way, knew well the direction in which the house lay; and, in fact, he found afterwards that he had given up the search when within 100 yards of the object he sought. It is surprising his nose did not better direct him; for I can personally speak to the savoury odours with which "his Honour's" good things scented the air, giving ordinary hunger the feeling of starvation, whilst the company were all waiting for the lost guest.

But to go back to the ride. We were all mounted, and having met at our appointed rendezvous by the river near Melbourne, our first step was to cross the ferry, whence we continued on the right side of the Yarra Yarra. Our host's station extensively skirted both banks, but chiefly that on the right, where his "huts" were. The distance from Melbourne by the river might be computed at 100 miles, but across the country it was about forty. It was intended, however, that we should ride that afternoon about half

way only, where our friend expected to find a cordial welcome for us all in the hut of a gentleman squatter. The frontage on both sides of the Yarra Yarra, for several miles, in its very serpentine course immediately above Melbourne, has been sold by the government in small allotments at high prices, and many of these allotments have been again and again sold at still advancing sums. On some of them handsome residences and expensive buildings have been erected one of these in which I had the pleasure of dining on a previous occasion, would find few equals on the Thames, for design, strength of building, or picturesqueness of situation.

We had ridden about four miles, when we suddenly came upon a military encampment, startling, indeed, in the wilds of Australia! It consisted of a body of aborigines, the drollest-looking set of recruits ever seen, but whom, nevertheless, the Government was attempting to drill into soldiers. Instead of tents, the sable warriors had wigwams, after the manner of their ancestors, and which were all disposed in proper cantonment line, a man and his family in each. The wigwams are soon formed with the aid of a few sticks supporting a cover of bark, turf, or small leafy branches. They somewhat resemble, in shape, the quarter of a globe, have one side open, scarcely higher than three feet or so from the ground, and their interior, in the widest part, may be about three or four feet. In wet or cold weather,