CHAPTER IX.

VICTORIAN PORTS.

All allowance being made for the great number of wide roads for trade, there is still a singular absence of traffic in the Melbourne streets. Trade may be said to be transacted only upon paper in the city, while the tallow, grain, and wool, which form the basis of Australian commerce, do not pass through Melbourne, but skirt it, and go by railway to Williamstown, Sandridge, and Geelong.

Geelong, once expected to rival Melbourne, and become the first port of all Australia, I found grass-grown and half deserted, with but one vessel lying at her wharf. At Williamstown a great fleet of first-class ships was moored alongside the pier. When the gold-find at Ballarat took place, Geelong rose fast as the digging port, but her citizens chose to complete the railway line to Melbourne instead of first opening that to Ballarat, and so lost all the up-country trade. Melbourne, having once obtained the lead, soon managed to control the legislature, and grants were made for the Echuca Railroad, which tapped the Murray, and brought the trade of Upper Queensland and New South Wales down to Melbourne, in the interest of the ports of Williamstown and Sandridge. Not content with ruining Geelong, the Melbourne men have set themselves to ridicule it. One of their stories goes that the Geelong streets bear such a fine crop of grass, that a free selector has applied to have them surveyed and sold to him, under the 42d clause of the New Land Act. Another story tells how a Geelongee lately died, and went to heaven. Peter, opening the door to his knock, asked, “Where from?” “Geelong.” “Where?” said Peter. “Geelong.” “There‘s no such place,” replied the Apostle. “In Victoria,” cried the colonist. “Fetch Ham‘s Australian Atlas,” called Peter; and when the map was brought and the spot shown to him, he replied, “Well, I beg your pardon, but I really never had any one here from that place before.”

If Geelong be standing still, which in a colony is the same as rapid decline would be with us, the famed wheat country around it seems as inexhaustible as it ever was. The whole of the Barrabool range, from Ceres to Mount Moriac, is one great golden waving sheet, save where it is broken by the stunted claret-vineyards. Here and there I came upon a group of the little daughters of the German vine-dressers, tending and trenching the plants, with the round eyes, rosy cheeks, and shiny pigtails of their native Rudesheim all flourishing beneath the Southern Cross.

The colonial vines are excellent; better, indeed, than the growths of California, which, however, they resemble in general character. The wines are naturally all Burgundies, and colonial imitations of claret, port, and sherry are detestable, and the hocks but little better. The Albury hermitage is a better wine than can be bought in Europe at its price, but in some places this wine is sold as Murray Burgundy, while the dealers foist horrible stuff upon you under the name of hermitage. Of the wines of New South Wales, White Dallwood is a fair Sauterne, and White Cawarra a good Chablis, while for sweet wines the Chasselas is singularly cheap; and the Tokay, the Shiraz, and the still Muscat are remarkable.

Northwest of Geelong, upon the summit of the foot-hills of the dividing range, lies Ballarat, the headquarters of deep quartz mining, and now no longer a diggers’ camp, but a graceful city, full of shady boulevards and noble buildings, and with a stationary population of thirty thousand. My first visit was made in the company of the prime ministers of all the colonies, who were at Melbourne nominally for a conference, but really to enjoy a holiday and the International Exhibition. With that extraordinary generosity in the spending of other people‘s money which distinguishes colonial cabinets, the Victorian government placed special trains, horses, carriages, and hotels at our disposal, the result of which was that, fêted everywhere, we saw nothing, and I had to return to Ballarat in order even to go through the mines.

In visiting Lake Learmouth and Clunes, and the mining district on each side of Ballarat, I found myself able to discover the date of settlement by the names of places, as one finds the age of a London suburb by the titles of its terraces. The dates run in a wave across the country. St. Arnaud is a town between Ballarat and Castlemaine, and Alma lies near to it, while Balaklava Hill is near Ballarat, where also are Raglan and Sebastopol. Inkerman lies close to Castlemaine, and Mount Cathcart bears the name of the general killed at the Two Gun battery, while the Malakhoff diggings, discovered doubtless toward the end of the war, lie to the northward, in the Wimmera.

Everywhere I found the interior far hotter than the coast, but free from the sudden changes of temperature that occur in Melbourne twice or thrice a week throughout the summer, and are dangerous to children and to persons of weak health. After two or three days of the hot wind, then comes a night, breathless, heavy, still. In the morning the sun rises, once more fierce and red. After such a night and dawn, I have seen the shade thermometer in the cool verandas of the Melbourne Club standing at 95° before ten o‘clock, when suddenly the sun and sky would change from red and brown to gold and blue, and a merry breeze, dancing up from the ice-packs of the South Pole and across the Antarctic seas, would lower the temperature in an hour to 60° or 65°. After a few days of cold and rain, a quiet English morning would be cut in half about eleven by a sudden slamming of doors and whirling of dust from the north across the town, while darkness came upon the streets. Then was heard the cry of “Shut the windows; here‘s a hot wind,” and down would go every window, barred and bolted, while the oldest colonists walked out to enjoy the dry air and healthy heat. The thick walls of the clubs and private houses will keep out the heat for about three days, but if, as sometimes happens, the hot wind lasts longer, then the walls are heated through, and the nights are hardly to be borne. Up country the settlers know nothing of these changes. The regular irregularity is peculiar to the Melbourne summer.