CONCLUSION.
Table of Contents Many years have elapsed since our departure from the shores of Tasmania, and, during that period, many changes have taken place. A Natural History and Royal Society have been established; and the members have published the results attending the discoveries both of subsequent travellers and other parties engaged in developing the resources of that island; and whose exertions are published in the "Transactions of the Royal Society", to whom we refer our readers for information on these topics. It is but justice to add that, at the time of our arrival, it was in every sense of the word a "penal colony"; and, as a natural consequence, the state of persons and properties was represented to us as being insecure in the highest degree. On our arrival here, we found that the reputation thus acquired was undeserved, as nothing could have afforded a better guarantee of the safety of property in the town of Hobart than the utter carelessness observed by the inhabitants, in leaving the doors unlocked during the night time. The system of unshingling, or taking a hat from the traveller's head in the darkness of night, during his wanderings through the streets, did not fall to our lot to experience.
In the "Ross's Van Diemen's Land Almanac for 1836," among the chronological order of events, appears the following notice:-
"ROSS'S VAN DIEMEN'S LAND ANNUAL FOR 1885.
"A nursery fruit and seed garden, on a scientific and extensive scale, is commenced at Mr. Lightfoot's, on the New Town Road. Mr. Lightfoot also deserves credit as having been the first to introduce the present choice stock of pear trees.
"The plants, of which there is already a very extensive collection, both exotic and indigenous, are arranged by Mr. Bunce in two departments: the one according to the classification of Linnæus; and the other agreeably to the natural orders of Jussien.
"The establishment is highly deserving the support of the public."
This establishment we subsequently purchased, and opened as the Denmark Hill Nursery; and the same year we introduced the first importation of English forest trees, and other choice British shrubs and plants, from the well-known establishment of the Messrs. Whitley and Osborne, of Fulham, London. We may take credit to ourselves, as having been the first to commence the arrangement of our indigenous and exotic plants, agreeably to the Linnæan and natural systems, to which we had large cross wooden labels attached, indicating their class, order, and natural relationships. After three years close observation of the climate, and its effect upon garden produce, we composed a monthly magazine, or periodical, to be completed in twelve monthly parts, under the title of "Bunce's Manual of Practical Gardening." This work was very favorably received; and finished in due course at the printing office of the Hobart Town Courier, the property of Mr. W.G. Elliston, who succeeded Dr. James Ross as the proprietor of that establishment. We must also conscientiously admit that, with unshingling, and other interesting peculiarities which we had been led to expect on our arrival, we also appear to have escaped the epoch when the shopkeeper's profits would not afford the indulgence to purchasers of paper wherein to enclose or wrap whatever may have been the kind or character of commodity.
We were more particularly struck with the character and various kind of currency; and, in receiving change for a pound note or sovereign, it was difficult to ascertain, with any degree of certainty, whether you had obtained your right change or otherwise. Our first change for a pound consisted of two dumps, two holy dollars, one Spanish dollar, one French coin, one half-crown, one shilling, and one sixpence. The last three were the only legitimate British currency with which we were then acquainted. There were at that time loud complaints from the country districts regarding the rapid increase of the wild dog, partly owing to the departure of the aborigines to their settlement at Flinders Island, leaving behind them several which had bred in the bush, but more through the carelessness of persons engaged in the distant out-districts.
In May, 1836, intelligence was received that his Majesty had been pleased to release Colonel Arthur from the Government of this Colony; and, in the August following, the intelligence arrived that Sir John Franklin had been appointed as his successor.
Almost contemporaneously with Colonel Arthur's departure from the Government of the island, Tasmania was honored by the arrival of some distinguished visitors from Port Phillip, which had been just discovered by Mr. John Batman, in the persons of two of its princes, or chiefs: Derrimut, King of the Werriby district; and Betbenjee, of the adjoining district, two brothers; and with whom was the tall and gigantic prototype of Robinson Crusoe-Buckley, whom Batman had discovered among the natives on his first visiting Port Phillip, where he had resided for thirty-three years. Among others, we, in company, paid our respects to the renowned Buckley, in company with the late Dr. Ross. Our visit was not absolutely void of self-interest, as we had contemplated the probability, or rather possibility, of obtaining from the great semi-barbarian materials of his long residence among the aborigines in Port Phillip, for an interesting shred of autobiography. Our visit, however, proved a failure, as we could obtain no information from the party whose memoirs we were desirous of perpetuating, and whose conversation consisted merely of a few monosyllabic words. Since that time, however, a most elaborate, and as interesting as elaborately written work has been published by Mr. John Morgan, of Hobart Town. Of this production, we know not which most to admire, the extreme facility of acquiring information from a to us dumb man, or his remarkable powers of imagination. Of the two native chiefs, a singular instance of the effects of strong drinks may be related. On their arrival, they both got extremely intoxicated, and they both felt the sickening effects the following morning. Poor Derrimut was induced to taste "a hair of the dog that bit him," and recommenced his debauch, and still continues a drunkard to this day. But his brother Betbenjee was so heartily disgusted, that he never could be induced to taste spirits since. Betbenjee is now dead; Buckley is dead; and Derrimut we saw on Sunday evening, April 27th, 1856, at Moordyyallack, and who, we may as well state, was the first to greet us on our first arrival in Port Phillip, in 1839; from which date our "Reminiscences of Van Diemen's Land" must end, and those of Victoria commence.
AUSTRALIA.
Table of Contents MELBOURNE.
We bade farewell to Tasmania in the early part of the month of October, in the year 1839, and reached Port Phillip after a protracted and rough passage of nearly three weeks, in the Lord Hobart, Thomas Nichol, master.
As was usual with those who arrived for the first time in Hobson's Bay, the captain of our vessel took the ship's boat up the Yarra Yarra. The river was then densely covered on both banks with mellaeuca or tea-tree, and the monomeeth parbine. This latter was called by the aborigines "the good mother", from the seed pods, or receptacle for the developing process of the seeds, being attached in whirls to the stems or branches on which they are produced years after the trees at those parts have shed their blossoms. The long heavy branches of the monomeeth parbine hung in massive graceful arches over the river's side. Flocks of wild ducks were disturbed by our boat, as we glided up the stream. The notes peculiar to the ornithorinchus paradoxus, or platipus, wattle bird, and leather-head or old soldier bird, added in no small degree to the novelties which on every side thrust themselves upon our awakened attention. The wattle bird has been not inaptly termed the "what's-o'clock?"-the leather-head, the "stop-where-you-are." Lofty eucalyptus or flooded-gum trees formed a back ground to the natural plantation of tea-tree. As we approached the site whereon Melbourne has been built, the reverberating echoes from a blacksmith's shop, and the unmistakeable odour of a fellmonger's yard, reminded us that the elements of civilization had preceded our arrival. In the latter part of the year one thousand eight hundred. and thirty-nine, we landed on the low muddy bank on the north side of the river, the site known as the wharf. Proceeding eastward, we passed a neat and tasteful building, situated on a small hillock, called Batman's Hill. Wandering over the undulating ground in the locality, the place where Melbourne now stands, we noticed two or three hotels, which had recently been erected in different quarters of the township, a few stores, and an auction mart. We also noticed a small brick building in Little Collins-street, opposite the spot where Temple Court has since been erected, which was called the Treasury. There was a small wooden house used for a Police Court, and another for a Post Office. Mr. La Trobe was the Superindent [sic] of this newly-formed settlement of Port Phillip, or "the Settlement", as it was then termed. Wild fowl were very plentiful both in the swamp, near Batman's Hill, and at the Salt Water River. On the hill where the Supreme Court stands we gathered large quantities of mushrooms. The lagoon formed by the back waters of the Yarra Yarra abounded in snipe. Proceeding up the river by the bank, passing through what is now the Richmond Paddock, we found that a gentleman, named Arden, had erected a residence in that locality. The hill on the eastern side of Melbourne was then thickly wooded. In the streets of the township there were numerous...
