Soon after ten o'clock they were in the railway-train for Melbourne. They traversed a varied country, passing through a rich pastoral and agricultural region, through widely extended wheat-fields, and in sight of numerous flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, through stretches of forest more or less luxuriant, over plains and among hills, along winding valleys, and occasionally in sight of the mountains which lie between the Dividing Range and some portions of the coast. In due time the crest of the range was passed, and the train descended gently to Melbourne and deposited the travellers safe and sound at the railway terminus.
IMMIGRANT'S CAMP IN THE FOOT-HILLS OF THE RANGE.
[CHAPTER XX.]
THE FOUNDING OF MELBOURNE.—BATMAN AND FAWKNER.—GROWTH OF MELBOURNE, CHICAGO, AND SAN FRANCISCO COMPARED.—SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE AUSTRALIAN METROPOLIS.—COLLINS STREET, BOURKE STREET, AND OTHER THOROUGHFARES.—A GENERAL DESCRIPTION.—THE YARRA RIVER.—BOTANICAL GARDENS.—DINING AT A SUBURBAN RESIDENCE.—THE SUBURBS OF MELBOURNE.—HOW ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS BECAME ONE MILLION IN FIFTY YEARS.—SANDRIDGE (PORT MELBOURNE).—SCENES IN THE HARBOR.—REMINISCENCES OF THE GOLD RUSH OF 1851.—BUSH-RANGERS AND THEIR PERFORMANCES.—PLUNDERING A SHIP IN PORT.—HOBSON'S BAY AND PORT PHILLIP BAY.—WILLIAMSTOWN AND ST. KILDA.—SHARK FENCES.—QUEENSCLIFF.—CURIOUS ROCKS ON THE COAST.—GEELONG.—MELBOURNE NEWSPAPERS.
Frank and Fred were impatient to see Melbourne, the city of which they had heard so much, and whose praises are loudly chanted by every resident of the colony of Victoria. As they rode from the railway-station to their hotel they could hardly believe that they were in a city where half a century ago there was little more than a clearing in the forest on the banks of the Yarra.
Yet so it was. On June 2, 1835, John Batman ascended the Yarra and Salt-water rivers, and made a bargain with the native chiefs of the locality to purchase a large area of ground, more than one thousand two hundred square miles, for which he paid a few shirts and blankets, some sugar, flour, and other trifles—probably not a hundred dollars' worth altogether. The Government afterwards set aside his purchase, but paid to Batman and his partners the sum of £7000 for the relinquishment of their claim.