LAKE SCENERY.
"Then we came back by railway through Ballarat as far as Geelong, where we turned off to Colac and Camperdown to see the famous Lake district of Victoria. At Colac we climbed a hill, and from its summit counted fifteen lakes varying in size from tiny ponds to that of the Dead Sea of Korangamite, with an area of forty-nine thousand acres, and a circuit of more than ninety miles. It is so salt that no fish can live in its waters—salter a good deal than the sea.
"A strange feature of the lakes of this region is that they are alternately salt and fresh. Almost at our feet, as we sat on the summit of the hill, were five lakes, two fresh and three salt, and they were separated by very narrow strips of land. The salt is said to come from the drainage of the rocks, the water being evaporated faster than it flows in. In summer the lakes fall below their winter level, and leave great quantities of salt on the banks, where it is gathered by the people.
"We all agree that we have never seen prettier lake scenery anywhere in the world than in this famous western district of Victoria. The lakes are at various levels, the larger ones studded with islands, and the shores of the salt lakes glistening with snowy crystals. In the landscape are plains, undulating areas, and mountains. The plains are dotted with trees, there are flocks of sheep and herds of cattle scattered over them, and here and there we can make out the houses of the prosperous farmers, and trace the fences that enclose fields of grain. Most of the smaller lakes are in the craters of extinct volcanoes, and there is abundant evidence that this region was once the scene of great convulsions of nature.
"Warnambool and Belfast are the ports of this district, and they supply the markets of Sydney, Brisbane, and Adelaide, as well as the nearer one of Melbourne, with potatoes. The people claim that their potatoes are without competitors, quality and quantity being of the highest class. The maximum yields are from twenty to thirty tons an acre; land sells for four hundred dollars an acre for growing potatoes, and one happy land-owner lets out two square miles of ground for twenty-five dollars an acre annually! This is the part of the country that was originally named Australia Felix, and it certainly deserved the title."
"Where will we go next?" queried one of the youths, as the party was returning from Colac to Melbourne.
"Where do you wish to go?" said the Doctor, answering one question by asking another.
"According to what they tell us," responded the original questioner, "there is still a great deal to be seen—at least from a resident's point of view.
"We are urged to visit cattle and sheep stations in the interior, but there can hardly be anything especially new about them after what we have seen in New South Wales and Queensland; so I vote against any more pastoral visits."
The other members of the party assented to his opinion, and it was decided that time did not permit them to stay longer among sheep and cattle.