The Three Colonies of Australia/Part 2/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV.
JOURNEY FROM PORT JACKSON TO PORT PHILLIP.
IN traversing the coast from Port Jackson to Port Phillip there is a singular absence of good harbours. The first. Botany Bay, fourteen miles from Port Jackson, receives the waters of the George River, on which the township of Liverpool was planted by Macquarie, but has not flourished; and the Cook's River which has been dammed, for the purpose of affording a supply of fresh water to Sydney. Botany Bay is unsheltered, and offers indifferent accommodation for small vessels. A brass plate on the cliffs marks the spot where Captain Cook first landed; and the stranger may drink from the well of fresh water opened by that illustrious navigator.
Between Botany Bay and Shoalhaven is Illawarra, also known as the Five Islands, one of the most fertile and wildly beautiful districts in the world, which, from the peculiarity of its situation, bounded by the sea for eighteen miles, running north and south, and by a mountain chain which encircles about 150,000 acres, unites the peculiarities of both temperate and tropical climates,—a sort of Norway or Switzerland, rocks, lakes, fat alluvial valleys, under a southern sun, tempered by breezes from the sea. We descend from the landward side by crossing a range of hills 1,500 feet in height, so precipitous that it is difficult for a horseman to ride down, and, without dismounting, impossible for a loaded dray to descend.
The communication with Sydney, which Illawarra supplies with large quantities of fruit, vegetables, and agricultural produce, is chiefly carried on by coasters from the small harbour of Wollongong, a favourite resort for invalids. Here is a celebrated show-garden, where may be seen fruits and English watercress, tropical oranges, pomegranates, nectarines, and bananas, and avenues covered with grape-bearing vines of all colours. Here is Illawarra Lake, too, than which it is scarcely possible to conceive anything more picturesquely beautiful, environed by rocks and tropical vegetation, peopled with bright-coloured birds.[1]
At Illawarra the palm and the tree-fern flourish, and from land as fertile, and cultivation as careful, as that of Devonshire, a short walk may bring you to a camp of aborigines sheltering from the warm rain
BLACKS UNDER GUNYAH.
beneath their gunyah, the nearest approach to a hut which these poor creatures have contrived.
Jervis Bay—in the county of St. Vincent where the township of South Huskisson has been founded is eighty miles from Sydney, with an entrance two miles wide, and an inner harbour three leagues in length, safe for ships of the heaviest burden, with access to ample supplies of wood and water, and presents a total change of climate. Unfortunately, this fine port is surrounded by a hopelessly barren country. It has been suggested by Mr. Ralfe, an experienced Australian surveyor, that Jervis Bay should become the terminus of a railway from the Bathurst district. A railway for wool and tallow would be a very doubtful speculation; but recent events have laid the foundation for more important exports and imports. Perhaps by following the course of streams it would be possible to find workable gradients for a tramway on the Welsh coal-mining or American plan.
The next ports, Ulladulla and Bateman's Bay, the outlet of the Clyde River, are only accessible for coasters; but the latter has recently come into notice from the discovery of the gold-diggings, distant only thirty miles: that thirty miles being over a country of so difficult a character that a party with loaded packhorses were three days in crossing it.
The last harbour in the New South Wales district is Twofold Bay, 240 miles from Sydney, on which two townships have been founded, Eden by the government, and Boyd Town by the late Benjamin Boyd, with the funds of a Scotch company which he represented. Eden has never been anything better than a government project at the expense of a few foolish land speculators. Boyd Town enjoyed a brief period of factitious prosperity, when the steamers, whalers, and yacht of the founder lay in harbour. It was at Boyd Town he appeared with almost viceroyal state, when laying the first stone of the never lighted lighthouse; and it was there that he landed the island cannibals whom he had purchased from their savage conquerors, with the view of reducing wages by introducing slavery into Australia, rather than encourage shepherd families upon his boundless sheep-runs.
The steep range of hills which separates Twofold Bay from the vast squatting district of Maneroo has hitherto, in spite of a road constructed at much expense by Mr. Boyd, to a great degree neutralised its advantageous position as the only harbour for large ships on a long line of coast. It is still used as a station for shore whalers being almost the only station for that purpose in the colony. There has been a great falling off in the whaling operations of the Sydney merchants.
The Australian whalers are for the most part from 200 to 300 tons 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.[2]
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 range of hills, with extensive outline, mark the bounds of Port Phillip Bay. On the other side the lowlands of Indented Head and Shortland Bluff present a dull scene, sprinkled with funereal shiak or "she oak trees."
The rush of waters through the narrow canal into this Great Lake, nearly fifty miles in length by twenty-five in breadth, which forms Port Phillip, in certain states of the wind and tide, creates a foaming-, stormy whirl of water not a little alarming to the inexperienced landsman. Within the bay the waters calm down, and a beautiful and picturesque scene is unrolled.
At Port Phillip Bay the great dividing range which runs parallel at varying distances with the coast from Wide Bay, penetrating New South Wales under various names (the Blue Mountains near Sydney, the Australian Alps in Gipps's Land), seems to sink into the sea across Bass's Straits, where its course is marked by a chain of islands, and reappears with the same character in Van Diemen's Land.
Thus it is that, sailing up the bay, the scenery changes: the rugged cliffs and alpine ranges of the east coast give way to undulating grassy plains, sprinkled with picturesque hills. The western arm of Port Phillip, extending about twenty miles, opens the course to Geelong. In sailing up the bay the hills around Geelong appear, covered with cultivation.
Ships of burden for Melbourne cast anchor in Hobson's Bay, at the mouth of the River Yarra, off Williams Town, which is built on a flat promontory, with three sides to the water. Williams Town was laid out by Sir Richard Bourke as the seaport of Port Phillip, for which the situation affords advantages; but the want of good drinking water has hitherto hindered it from making any progress since the years of the mania when town lots were sold there at a great price. It contains the harbour-master's residence, two or three public-houses, a few butcher's shops, a clergyman's house, and a small temporary church. An aqueduct or water-pipes would soon make Williams Town an important place.
The shores of the Yarra are so even with Hobson's Bay that from the anchorage the entrance can scarcely be distinguished.
From Hobson's Bay, taking a boat for a mile, a walk or ride of a mile and a half will bring the traveller to Melbourne; but by the winding-channel of the river, which is just wide and deep enough to admit the steamers which ply constantly from Sydney and Geelong, the distance is seven miles.
"Passing the junction of the Maryburrong, or Salt-water River, on the bank of which are beautiful villa sites, the Melbourne race-course, and several establishments for boiling down sheep and cattle into tallow, which give out a most villanous odour, the city, of which only an indistinct glimpse was to be observed from the bay, comes in view; the cathedral, a heavy building, without a tower or a steeple; and the government offices, built of stone, without ornament, on the highest point of the hill." The voyage ends in a sort of pool where steamers can find room to turn round and take up a berth alongside the quay. A breakwater has been erected on the foundation of a natural ledge of rocks which effectually divides the fresh water from the salt.
Melbourne occupies two sides of a valley, East Hill and West Hill, of very fertile soil. Inferior in port accommodation and in picturesque beauty to Sydney, it has the advantage of being in the midst of productive corn-fields, gardens, vineyards, and pastures.
The principal street is a mile long, crossed at right angles by other streets of half that length: a macadamised causeway runs down the middle, leaving a strip on each side to be converted into mud in the rainy season. The footpaths for the most part are of gravel, with kerbstones. So far there is an improvement. Some years ago a traveller was shocked the day after his arrival by seeing among the announcements in a local paper, "Another Child drowned in the Streets of Melbourne."
The buildings present the irregularity incident to all colonial towns; occasionally great gaps of building land were to be found representing investments made eight or ten years ago by absentee speculators. But the gold revolution has covered every vacant space with weather-board huts and tents. The chief lion [work of Melbourne is a stone bridge across the Yarra, of the same size and proportions as the centre arch of London-bridge, which cost an enormous sum.
The population was about twenty thousand in 1851; what it is at present it is impossible to say. It is to be feared that houses will be built more rapidly than the present streets will be drained and rendered wholesome. The lower part of Melbourne is subject to sudden floods from the falling of rains and melting of snow in the range of hills in which the Yarra takes its rise. An Australian flood is "short, sharp, and decisive."
From the summit of either East or "West Hill, by which the valley of Melbourne is formed, may be seen Mount Macedon, the crowning mountain of a range of the same name thirty-five miles from the city, three thousand feet in height, covered with open forests, and the richest vegetation of Australia. Thence may be viewed the richest mountain in the world, the Mount Byng of its discoverer Mitchell, the Mount Alexander in gold-digging records. To the north of Mount Alexander is Mount Hope, from the summit of which the weary eyes of Mitchell were gladdened by all the sylvan pastoral glories of "Australia Felix."
Fifty-four miles from Melbourne, by sea or land, with access by steamers several times in the day, is Geelong, the western arm of Port Phillip, which "opens on the larboard hand of a vessel immediately upon clearing the shoals at the entrance of the Great Lake, standing between the miniature Bay of Corio with its picturesque green hills and sheltered water, and the River Barwon, which flows into the Lake Connemarra."
The situation, in the centre of one of the best grazing and agricultural districts, near a gold-field, will probably render it an important town. A bar at the mouth of the harbour at present restricts the entry of vessels drawing more than ten feet water; but this, it is thought, may be removed by dredging. Should this be the case, the province of Victoria will enjoy the advantage of two excellent available ports, and have two great towns. In the other provinces there seems no probability of any rival competing with Sydney or Port Adelaide.
Forty miles from Geelong the Buninyong range forms part of the second series of mountains, after the termination of the Australian Alps. At Ballarat, one of the spurs of Buninyong, in the midst of plains of unequalled fertility, the first gold-field in Victoria was worked.
In proceeding along the coast to the point where an imaginary line divides Victoria from South Australia, the whole coast line of the former being about 600 miles, the most important harbour is found in Portland Bay, 255 miles from Melbourne. Three streams, none of them navigable, fall into this bay, which is little better than a roadstead, and very dangerous when the south-easterly gales, which prevail during the summer months, are blowing. The government has been compelled to pay one pound a ton more chartering for vessels to Portland Bay than to Hobson's Bay. The north shore is low; the western rises in bold cliffs, upwards of 150 feet.
It was at Portland Bay that one of the earliest settlements was formed by one of Messrs. Henty's whaling parties, on which the land explorers came, to their great surprise, after many weeks' journey through an unknown, uninhabited country.
The Portland Bay district receives streams from the Grampians, a range running to the northward, of which Mount William, the extreme eastern point, is 4,500 feet in height. Mitchell ascended Mount Abrupt, on the south-eastern extremity of the Grampian range, and beheld from the edge of an almost perpendicular precipice, 1,700 feet in height, vast open plains, bordered with forests and studded with lakes. "Certainly a land more favourable could not be found. Flocks might be turned out upon its hills, or the plough at once set agoing 
GOLD-WASHING AT BALLARAT.
upon its plains. No primeval forests require to be first rooted out here, although there is as much timber as could be needed for utility or ornament." Australia Felix is one of the few regions in which the sanguine expectations of the discoverers have been realised.
It will be found on examining a map of the province of Victoria and of the Melbourne district—and a most excellent one has been published by Mr. Ham, of Melbourne—that it has three natural divisions. The central division, including Australia Felix and Mount Alexander, finds its natural port and capital in Melbourne. The western division, including Portland Bay, for want of a better harbour, finds its outlet chiefly at Geelong. The eastern division, including Gipps's Land, finds partly an outlet at Western Port; but Gipps's Land must export and import through Alberton.
Victoria has many streams and rivulets, mentioned in our table of the counties at page 255, but no rivers navigable in the European sense of the term.
Gipps's Land was discovered by Count Strzelecki, C.B., who is equally eminent as a scientific traveller and philanthropist. The honour has been claimed for a Mr. Macmillan, who communicated his discovery to his employers some months before the count published his report. This is probable. Stockmen have been the first explorers of most of the finest pasture districts of Australia; but it is contrary to the custom and interest of squatters to make such discoveries public.
In the count's report to Sir George Gipps he says: "Seventeen miles S.S.E. from Lake Omeo, a beautiful stream, the first of the eastern waters, soon assumed the breadth of a river, and appeared to be a guide into a country hitherto unoccupied by white men. A hilly country closes the valley, narrows the river banks, and brings the explorer across the mountain ridges to an elevation whence there is a view of the sea on the distant horizon; to the south-east an undulating country, with mountain ridges to the north-east. Approaching or receding from the river, according to the windings of its bordering hills, the descent into a noble forest is effected. A series of rich pasture valleys, prairies, and open forests are intersected and studded with rivers, lakes, and wooded hills; the pastures opening out and sloping towards the sea." Strzelecki describes Gipps's Land, viewed from Mount Gisborne, as resembling a semi-lunar amphitheatre, walled from north-east to south-west by lofty picturesque mountain scenery, and sloping towards the south-east down to the sea.
In 1840 Strzelecki was engaged for twenty-six days in cutting his way through the scrub-covered ranges between Gipps's Land and Western Port, was obliged to abandon his packhorses, and he and his party did not escape without imminent danger both from famine and exhaustion.
In 1844 Mr. Hawdon, with a party of twelve able-bodied men, including black native police, was instructed by the government to open up a practicable route for cattle from Western Port to Gipps's Land. He has published a very interesting account of his expedition, with some spirited illustrations. He was engaged thirty days in the task, and he, too, very nearly perished in the scrub; yet he considered himself well repaid for the famine and fatigue he had endured "by the sight of the fine plains—Barney's Plains of the map—beyond the Glengarry." The good country lies upwards of fifty miles from the government township of Victoria founded on the Albert River.
It is the opinion of Mr. Hawdon that the greater part of the scrub country through which he travelled would be capable of cultivation if cleared. This scrubby tract is nowhere found in Victoria except between Gipps's Land and Western Port.
It was while performing this journey that he had an opportunity of closely examining the shy and curious lyre bird (Menura superba), which is peculiar to Australia, and only found on the south-eastern
LYRE BIRD.
coast. The settlers sometimes called it a pheasant, but it is in reality one of the thrush family.
"I was awakened," writes Mr. Hawdon, "at sunrise by the singing of numerous pheasants. These are the mocking-birds of Australia, imitating all sounds that are heard in the bush in great perfection; they are about the size of a small fowl, of a dirty brown colour, approaching to black in some parts; their greatest attraction consists in the graceful tail of the cock bird, which is something like a lyre. But little is known of their habits, for it is seldom they are found near the dwellings of civilised man.
"Hearing one scratching in the scrub close to the dray, I crawled out, gun in hand, intending to provide a fresh meal for breakfast. The sun having just risen, inclined it to commence its morning song; but the natural note (bleu bleu) was almost lost among the multitude of imitative sounds through which it ran—croaking like a crow, then screaming like a cockatoo, chattering like a parrot, and howling like the native dog—until a stranger might have fancied that he was in the midst of them all. Creeping cautiously round a point of scrub, I came in view of a large cock bird, strutting round in a circle, scratching up the leaves and mould with his formidable claws, while feeding upon a small leech which is the torment of travellers, and spreading open his beauteous tail to catch the rays of the sun as it broke through the dense forest. As I raised my gun a piece went off within six feet of me: it was one of the black police who had blown the bird's head off that had been amusing me for more than an hour."
These birds when disturbed never rise high, but run off into the densest scrub, scarcely allowing a sportsman time to raise his piece before they are out of his reach. Even the aborigines, who are so skilful in creeping up to game of all kinds, seldom kill more than three brace in a day. Their song is not often heard during rain, or when the sun is obscured. "The nest is about three feet in circumference, and one foot deep, having an orifice on one side: they lay but one egg, of slate colour with black spots. The female is a very unattractive bird, having but a poor tail, nothing like the male."
Gipps's Land, with its boundary of snow-capped precipitous mountains, its fine plains, many lakes, and temperate climate, may be considered as one of the several contrasts of soil, climate, and vegetation, of which Darling Downs, Moreton Bay, Illawarra, and Bathurst, each afford different examples.
- ↑ A beautiful and accurate view of this lake was given in Prout's Australian Panorama.
- ↑ 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.