I found no alteration in William’s Town, since a former visit made two years ago.  The place appeared to be completely at a standstill, as a small straggling village of 200 inhabitants, chiefly dependent upon the shipping for support.

ARRIVE AT PORT PHILLIP.  MELBOURNE.

Far different was it with Melbourne, the capital of the district.  On our way in a steamer up the Yarra-Yarra, several large and recently constructed boiling-down establishments in full work indicated the extensive operation of the tallow-manufacturing process.  The town (or city as it may, I believe, be termed) appeared to have wonderfully increased of late, and a quiet business-like air prevailed.  Everywhere we met bullock-teams and drays recently arrived with wool, or on their return to the sheep stations with supplies, but there were few loungers like ourselves in the streets, nearly everyone seeming to have his time fully occupied.

It appeared to be the general and loudly expressed opinion, so far as we could judge, that the separation of the Port Phillip district from New South Wales, and its formation into an independent colony, would materially advance the interests and conduce to the prosperity of the former; and that the large surplus revenue which is annually transmitted to Sydney ought to be spent among the people who have raised it.*

(Footnote.  These and other claims of the colonists have, I need scarcely add, been fully admitted by the recent separation from New South Wales of the Port Phillip district, now the colony of Victoria.)

GEELONG.

One day some of us made up a party to visit Geelong, the town in this district of next importance to Melbourne, from which it is distant, by water, fifty-five miles.  The western shores of Port Phillip, along which we passed, are low, thinly wooded, and bear a very monotonous aspect.  Vast numbers of a large sea-jelly (Rhizostoma mosaica) gave the water quite a milky appearance.  I was surprised to find the town, only a few years old, to be one already containing about 3000 inhabitants.  It is built on a range of low gravelly banks facing the harbour, from which it extends backwards in a straggling manner towards the river Barwon, which, at the distance of a mile and a half, was then 100 yards wide, deep, and without current.  The town of Geelong derives its consequence from being a convenient outlet for the wool and other produce of the southern districts of Port Phillip—­perhaps the best sheep country in Australia.  Four or five vessels were then loading for England.  Unfortunately, Corio Harbour, on the shores of which the town is built, is blocked up by a bar, and vessels of moderate size are obliged to remain in Geelong Bay, about five miles off, while discharging or receiving cargo.

PORT DALRYMPLE.

Five days after clearing the Heads of Port Phillip, we had crossed Bass Strait,* and anchored in Port Dalrymple, on the northern coast of Van Diemen’s Land, and remained there sufficiently long to obtain rates for the chronometers, and connect it by meridian distance with William’s Town, and Sydney.** The two lighthouses of Banks’ Strait only now remained unvisited, that on the Kent Group, and another on Cape Otway, having been left to Lieutenant Yule.