burden. 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 to keep their men together. Supplies arc frequently 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.[1]
VICTORIA.
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 it is obstructed by a bar. Then follows Western Port, discovered by George Bass in his whale-boat, a port formed by two islands, Port Phillip, Port Fairy and Portland Bay. 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 towards 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
- ↑ The runaway sailors and escaped convicts dwelling in the islands of the Pacific have been estimated at many thousands, but great numbers have been attracted from their retreats by the Californian and Australian gold diggings.
