What a lot of splendid fellows, to be sure! All the men I have named were gentlemen by birth and education. It may be imagined what a jolly, genial society it was, what a luxurious neighbourhood, when a few miles' ride was a certain find for culture, good fellowship, and the warmest hospitality. While at the race meetings at Portland and Port Fairy, when these joyous comrades amalgamated confessedly for enjoyment, as the old song has it—
And for that reason,
And for a season,
We'll be merry before we go,
there was a week's revelry fit for the gods on high Olympus.
Not only from across the Adelaide border—for Mount Gambier was on the farther side—did both knights and squires wend their way in pilgrimage to the Port Fairy revels, but from Trawalla and Mount Emu, from Warranbeen, Ercildoune, and Buninyong. Adolphus Goldsmith from Trawalla, William Gottreaux from Lilaree, Philip Russell from Carngham (I can hear him now ordering his gray colt's legs to be bandaged the night he rode in), Charley Lyon, Compton Ferrers, Alick Cuningham, Will Wright. Ah!
We were a gallant company,
Riding o'er land, sailing o'er sea.
•••••
And some are dead and some are gone,
• • • ay di mi—Alhama!
And some are robbers on the hills,
That look along Epirus' valleys.
Well, perhaps not exactly. They abide on those hills
