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for the healthful exercise and recreation of its outpouring wallpent, work-wearied, people.

COLLINGWOOD, OR NEW-TOWN,

is but half a mile from the city, about the size that Melbourne was four years ago. On higher ground, it is, with its many good and more poor buildings, a cleaner and healthier place than Melbourne.

RICHMOND:

Whether called after the Richmond I know not, is a quarter of a mile, or rather more, perhaps twenty minutes' walk, from the Eastern Hill on past the Government domain. It is pleasantly situated on a mount, and the agreeableness of the locality would be much augmented had it the Thames, or a river like it, curving about it. Its houses are those of the richer town's-peoplesuburban retirements. It is a breezy, elegant, and increasing place. The Cottage-of-Gentility of the sub-governor, Mr. La Trobe, is Swiss-looking-a very tasteful abode-and I do not doubt, a very happy one, for the spirit of the man may be supposed to be the presiding atmosphere of the place, and he is a scholar and a gentleman. This residence, of course, stands solitarily in the Government ground with the Yarra rather distantly in front.

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BURIAL-GROUNDS.

Twenty minutes' walk from Melbourne are the burial-grounds -union in division-of all religious denominations. They are not far from the Telegraph-station, on a commanding eminence, whence you may see the Snowy Mountains eastward-Mount Macedon, north-west, Mount Cotterel-and south-west, Station Peak but your eyes rest, and your thoughts too, on the Bay of Port Phillip up, over whose blue waters most of the many who lie at your feet have come in hope. From the weary sea voyage --and the rough voyage of life, more than eight hundred persons are here quietly havened. Peace to them! Though the spot is neat, orderly, and contains some graceful monuments, I never visited it without the most melancholy feelings. I felt as though the greater portion of the sleepers were wrecked mariners on desert shores. When we think of it, the place is peculiarly a solemn one-more so than churchyards generally. They are foreign graves. For those few hundred silent innates, thousands in Britain, thinking of the long hoped-for, but never-returning, have wept. Yes, and in the colony too. And here are beautiful monuments, that have been sent for to England—most touching records of the purest affections and regrets.

120

A COLONIAL GOVERNMENT LAND SALE.

As the land sale of April was a disappointment to our monied men who were shipmates, the sale of the 10th of June following was looked forward to with eagerness and hope. Other persons of property there were in the colony, other emigrants who had been long anxious to locate themselves before our arrival; and they too, with keen land-appetites—whetted evermore by delay, by interested speculators, and newspaper reports-were all anxiety for the government land sale of the 10th of June.

Long before the arrival of the happy day, that blissful and ever-memorable 10th of June, strangers were dropping in from afar as to some great festival. Ships from Sydney, Hobart Town, Launceston, had their cabins crowded by rich people, all eager for a slice of that famous and fortune-making region Australia Felix. The Land-office was daily and hourly besieged by impatient inquirers as to the whereabouts of the multifarious allotments which were to lap in Elysium the land-buyers of the 10th of June. At the inns, too, were signs of the times, loud was the noise, and restless the fret of preparation. Go whereever you would, far and near, in the bush were lively groups on foot, on horseback, and in carriages; there were dancing of plumes, veils and parasols startling the wild creatures, and filling with glimpses of refinement the rude wilderness. Many in imagination were taking possession of future locations. Ladies in pleasant companies were chatting on prostrate gumtrees, eating sandwiches and drinking champagne, whilst their grave and silent lords were considering how much the chosen allotments would fetch, or they would like to give for them; for those very delightful land-portions where they were then enjoying themselves, on the slowly, very slowly approaching 10th of June. The day did at length arrive! A day remarkable in Melbourne for its joyous holiday feeling, and for its sprinklings of blithe company. There, at the auction-room, were assembled, the government auctioneer Mr. Broadie, Captain Lonsdale the treasurer, ever ready with the ever-hungry statepurse; and all the bank-managers of all the banks were in attendance, to afford every facility to the colonists in being disburthened of their money.

Immense was the crowd of people: a goodly and respectable assemblage. There were generally nods and smiles of recognition betwixt old friends and neighbours, formerly located in

each other's vicinage, but thence scattered by the restless colonial spirit to the four winds of heaven. Here they met again, from the vineyards and orange-groves of Parramatta; from the banks of the Hunters' River, the Goulbourn, and the Murrambidgee. There were the Walkers, the Ebdens, the Murrays, the Mantons, -Australians and Tasmanians, of wealth and renown. There were also

"Captains, and colonels, and knights in arms."

Settler greeted settler, from the banks of Jordan, from Jericho, Bagdad, and Jerusalem *. Others there were from the Derwent and the Tamar, from the Lake River and the Esk. All cheerfullooking; yea, happy people were they all. They knew nothing of what had been done in the English privy council: they were in blissful ignorance that Lord John Russell had decreed, sanctioned by her Majesty, that those very allotments, for which they were giving twenty-two, thirty-two, and forty-two pounds per acre, were only worth one pound per acre. The ship containing the instructions was blown steadily on at sea, day after day, but months and months must elapse before it could arrive to enlighten the ignorant, and to dash the hopes and expectations of the to-day happy. All was excitement and eagerness; vigorous was the competition, full of energy was the auctioneer, loud was the chink of money, and the thoughts of good fortune seemed to brighten up every countenance. It was par excellence the Australian government land-sale of June the 10th, 1840.

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Many a bustling person, with pencil and paper in hand, were noting down the results of the sale, to be felt afterwards. Some had mapped on strips of paper, rudely and at random, locations marked with the sectional number, &c., and especially ennobled with some peculiar remarkable quality :- Soil, a rich alluvial deposit"-" fine bed of freestone""good water-frontage;" and some might have marked upon them "silver" or "gold mine;" only the selfish Government had reserved all the precious metals to itself. No matter, better times are approaching for in that very ship at sea, in those famous Instructions, it is decreed that all mines of gold and silver, all wealth of rich gems, shall belong to the purchaser of the soil. Wealth and happiness no doubt, good Port Phillipians! are to be your portion in the rich freight of that ship. Yes! with the arrival of that ship the Government did give away its silver and its gold mines! Now are not the Austral Felicians a generation determined to

* Real places in Van Diemen's Land.

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be poor, a stupid and perverse people? They bought up land eagerly at enormous prices, when the Government sold the surface only of the soil: now when all beneath is to be their own, and that, too, for one pound per acre, they take the alarm and will have none of it! Not an acre will they purchase, though there is the possibility of the earth being full of gold and silver, of topaz, amethyst, and ruby, sapphire, carbuncle, and onyx-stone, "illumination of all gems.' So thoroughly have they been enriched by Government paternity and benediction, that were the Government auctioneer to offer them sovereigns at a penny a piece, nay, were it our most gracious Sovereign herself, they would look very narrowly into the nature of the bargain before they closed hands.

There is land on the Diamond Creek: surely the people would purchase that? a Diamond Creek is not an everyday affair. Let the Government try!

But, "to turn, and to return" to our never-to-be-forgotten day of June 10th.

There had been high-noon, golden sunshine, but sober evening was at hand; and a sadness came over most faces. All morning pleasures weary towards noon. Some were soberly happy in their new purchases; some were doubtful whether they had done good or harm; and others were vexed and mortified because they had done nothing.

"Good times, and bad times, and all times get over:" and so passed away the bankrupt-making, happy-seeming day of June 10th and from the pockets of the people passed-so stated the newspapers-into the Crown money-bag, one hundred thousand pounds!

Other land there is in the colony, as good, and other 10ths of June there will be, but it is not at all questionable whether even such another 10th of June can occur again!

WALK TOWARDS THE AUSTRALIAN ALPS.

These mountains were about fifty miles from our residence ; and to see them more nearly, if not to climb them, had long been a wish of ours. Moreover, residing on the banks of the Yarra, we naturally felt anxious to know something of its upward course, and the nature of the region whence it came.

On the 25th of October, 1843, we set off. My companion was J. C., a member of the society of Friends. The Alps were in prospect from the first-the lofty and far-seen sterile ranges

in which is found the lyre-bird, or Australian pheasant. We thought it possible that we might see that splendid-tailed creature in its native haunts; might also, perhaps, kill it, and enrich ourselves with a tail or two as mementoes of the country. Still it was rather improbable that we should at all be able to reach those dim blue distant mountains, having but little time.

We took each of us a blanket, and, as near as we could calculate, four days' provisions. We were thus prepared to be independent for a few days, it not being our intention to trespass, any more than was absolutely necessary, on the kindness and hospitality of the settlers in that direction. It was also possible that in a thinly-inhabited and mountainous region we might not find their locations, whereas our appetites were sure to find us. No people can be more hospitable than the pastoral Australians; yet as strangers we felt rather diffident of claiming either food or shelter, knowing very well how many, idly and knavishly, roam about the land, from location to location, committing frequently robbery, and sometimes murder. We knew that we were honest, decent kind of people, but how were others to know it? Now, for instance, we walked up one morning to Mr. Thompson's home sheep station, thirty-four miles from Melbourne. We knocked at the cottage-door; called loudly; looked in, not at the window, but at the vacant space its substitute; all was vacuity and silence. We paced on by another cottage, with its small garden and its plot of vegetables; this was deserted also. However, about two hundred yards from us, partly seen amongst clumps of trees, was the hutkeeper, attended by his dogs, busy hurdle-shifting. Here were the sheepcotes. The large dog was savagely loud as we approached. The hutkeeper was alone, and we were armed with a double-barrelled gun. He was a Highlander, a man of odd accent, but of plain good sense; and gave us what directions we needed. Returning as we did in the night to this same location, when the flocks were penned, the heavens starlight, faintly lit by a new moon, and still, the earth still also,-the hutkeeper in his sleeping-cot by the folds-coming back a day or two earlier than he, or the shepherds whom we had seen afterwards, could expect, coming thus there again, like thieves in the night, no wonder that when we called out to them, none replied to our calls. Loud was the bleating of sheep and lambs incessant the barking of dogs, which we had disturbed. Yet still, as the new moon and the stars above us, was the hutkeeper, and as undisturbed by the outward hubbub; still were the two young Scotch shepherds indoors, reading the works of their great national poet, Burns.

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