more delightful appearance than Melbourne. From the Deep Creek you have a first-rate view of the shipping at William's Town, which to one coming from the interior is a more agreeable sight than could be imagined. Leaving the drays at the Broad Meadow, we struck across the country until we came to the old Sydney road, which we followed until we arrived at Flemington, where we met the governor starting on a tour through the gold-fields. After leaving Flemington, which is about three miles from Melbourne, if you have been the road before, you are perfectly bewildered at the change that has taken place in a short space of time. Wooden houses and tents have arisen as it were by the power of Aladdin's lamp, and have completely altered the appearance of the scene.
Now you begin also to see some of the bustle that necessarily characterises such a stirring place as Melbourne. You feel yourself, moreover, safer, as it were, than previously, although I doubt if you have any reason for so doing. However, your plan is to consider every man as a rogue you may meet between Bendigo and the Flag-staff. You now begin to get fairly in the city, and after a few minutes' walk you are in Collins Street, the principal street of Melbourne. Here you witness such a bustling scene as you are altogether unprepared for, notwithstanding your previously conceived opinions of the great traffic that must exist in Melbourne. It is literally impossible to walk through the streets without being jostled and squeezed at every step; and if you for a moment deviate from the foot-path, you run the most imminent risk of being knocked down by a cart or cab, which completely block up the streets. Melbourne is swarmed with Jews, and being easily recognised as a gold-digger as you are walking down the streets, you are every half-dozen yards accosted by them something in the following style:—"Any gold tor sale, sir?" "£3 10s. to-day for gold, mate." "I say, old fellow, have you got any gold to sell?"—the salutation being framed according to their different ideas of which will be most acceptable, the familiar or the polite style. You are so pestered with these wasps, that you are compelled at length, in self-defence, to return them some saucy answer, which, being well accustomed to, they receive with the most philosophical indifference. Next you take a stroll along the wharves, where goods of every description are lying piled in immense heaps, and completely exposed to the destructive influence of the weather. The wharves are, if possible, more crowded than the streets, and if not particularly alive to your own safety, you stand every chance of taking a cold bath in the Yarra.
Here and there are groups collected around some recent arrivals by the English vessels, who are selling off their superfluous goods, most of which they are obliged to dispose of at a loss. But what matters this? They have reached this El Dorado, the land of their long-cherished hopes. Look now to the south side of the Yarra, and there you will see a perfect city of tents. It is estimated that there are between three and four thousand individuals living there, and there certainly cannot be less. These are all new arrivals, sojourning here for a time, until they resolve upon whether they shall go to some employment, or shape their course for the gold-fields. Everywhere you go in this golden city your olfactory senses are disagreeably assailed with almost unbearable stenches, which must at no distant period occasion some frightful epidemic. The influenza is now raging in Melbourne to an unusual extent, and the great numbers of funerals that take place daily tell but too sadly the "common tale" of humanity. It needs no great wight to foretel that some terrible disasters will befal Melbourne if the people do not speedily bestir themselves to introduce a better state of social affairs.
