Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria

"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 an...

Up to that time, and for some time longer, the religious conversion of these natives was regarded as hopeless, so deeply "bred in blood and bone" was aboriginal character. Conse...

Here, too, we made acquaintance, pleasant and long protracted, with our neighbours, the gallant Major--since Colonel--Davidson, his quiet and amiable wife, and "Missie," as she...

I struck a little north towards Victoria Range, and passed one of my nights with a solitary shepherd in an out-hut, so far and away from all companionable life but that of his s...

The doctor was one of the most active of the colonists, both politically and generally. He was chiefly concerned in establishing the Geelong Corporation, of which he was several...

At last, when the public scandal of so grievous a spectacle made longer inaction impossible, when the disappointed and shiftless immigrants began to beat a retreat from the inho...

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The subject of this sketch might put in a claim for at least something towards redeeming Jack's dulness, for he had a few odd ways,...

I have the less need to expand further this inspiring section of my subject, seeing that I have been anticipated to some extent by a brother author, who, under the pseudonym of...

Both distinguished visitors honoured me and two of my sisters, who had by this time followed their brother to the land of promise, with a few days' residence at our cottage, wit...

We commenced with an unpretending budget, although memorable 1853, with all its gold and its progress, in what Wentworth happily called the precipitation into a nation, had dawn...

Then I turned to the old and early friends of the past. Some of them kindly called; others, less able, I had myself to seek out. Thus I met, besides Mr. J.S. Johnston, already m...

In estimating the future of these two great colonies and their respective capitals, I will endeavour to mark some distinctive considerations. Unquestionably the climatic differe...