with kindness; hospitality unostentatiously extended both to friends and acquaintances, residents and strangers; a noble property gradually and surely increasing in value; family affection exhibited in its purest form. But
It is written on the rose—
Alas! that there, decay
Should claim from love a part,—
From love a part!
Where are now the energetic, kindly husband and father, the merry boys and girls, the tender mother, then sheltered and united in that most happy home? The mournfullest task of memory lies in realising how large a toll is yielded in a few fleeting years to the unsparing tax-gatherer Death.
Portland, although devoid of the fertile lands which encompass Port Fairy and Warrnambool, had yet beauties of its own. Its situation was romantic. Lofty cliffs rose from the beach, and from many a picturesque eminence the residences of the townspeople looked on the broad ocean and the peaceful waters of the bay. Still were visible when I first saw Portland the grass-grown furrows turned by the hand of Edward Henty, who had not only accomplished that highly important feat—vitally necessary, indeed, in a settlement poorly provided with grain—but put together the plough with which the first rite to Ceres was performed. In those days a deep-rutted, miry road connected the port with the rich lands of the Wannon—forty miles of sore affliction to the driver of any species of vehicle, bullock drays included. Now the rail has simplified all difficulties. From the glorious "downs country"
