Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria

Produced by Sue Asscher asschers@bigpond.com
(PLATE: EDWARD HENTY. Died August 14th 1878. George Robertson & Co. Lith.)
(PLATE: JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER. Died September 4th 1869. George Robertson & Co. Lith.)
Oh, call back yesterday, bid time return. —Richard II.
A story of the mount and plain, The lake, the river, and the sea; A voice that wakes to life again An age-long slumbering melody. —GEORGE GORDON McCRAE.
Ah! who has ever journeyed, on a glorious summer night, Through the weird Australian bushland, without feelings of delight? The dense untrodden forest, in the moonlight cold and pale, Brings before our wondering eyes again the dreams of fairy tale. —A. PATCHETT MARTIN.
The genius of Australia now uprears Her youthful form, like hope without hope's fears; While o'er her head our Cross, with loveliest rays, Heralds the brightness of her future years. —R.H. HORNE.
DAVID CHARTERIS McARTHUR, FATHER OF VICTORIAN BANKING.
Pleasure and action make the hours seem short. —Othello.
I had long looked forward to one more visit to Victoria, perhaps the last I should expect to make, and the opportunity of the opening of the great Centenary Exhibition at Melbourne on 1st August of this year was too good to be lost. Accordingly, having been able to arrange business matters for so long a holiday, I took passage, with my wife and daughter, by the good steamship Coptic of the Shaw, Savill New Zealand Line, as it is curtly put. She was to land us at Hobart about 27th July, in good time, we hoped, to get across by the Launceston boat for the Exhibition opening, and she bids fair, at this moment, to keep her engagement. We would have taken the directer route, with its greater number and variety of objects, via Suez and Colombo, but we feared the sun-blaze of the ill-omened Red Sea in summer. We purpose, however, to return that way towards the coming winter.
More than thirty-one years have elapsed since I left Melbourne, after a residence there of seventeen years, broken, however, by two intermediate visits Home. I think with wondering enjoyment of what I am to see in the colony and its capital after such an interval. Previously, when I returned after only a year or two's absence, I was wont to mark with astonishment all that had been done in that comparatively brief time. I am thankful to Mr. Froude, whose delightful work, Oceana, I could read to all full enjoyment during the leisure and quiet of the voyage, for somewhat preparing me for what I have to see, for I must infer from his graphic accounts, especially of interior progress—while already three more years have since elapsed—that even my most sanguine anticipations will be exceeded. Our great Scottish poet and novelist has finely said:—