Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, volume 2.djvu/131

 sheep and cattle pasture, they had the more inducement to pursue their route to the southward cheerfully; and this they did until at length they reached salt water and a sandy shore.

On the 16th of December of the above year, Messrs. Hovell and Hume arrived at the northern shore of what they considered Western Port, notwithstanding they looked in vain for the large island, which the charts show us lying within it. This was, however, their mistake; for, without being aware of it, they had actually effected more than had been originally expected of them, for they had made the north-eastern side of Port Phillip—a large bay on the south coast, half a degree to the westward of the point at which they had supposed themselves at the time to have arrived. Of this fact the late Mr. Oxley was assured, when it was seen that their report of the extent of the Port they had made on the coast, and the country to the northward of it, agreed so fully with what was known of both from the year 1803; when Port Phillip was visited by Mr. Charles Grimes, at that time surveyor-general, who was sent to survey the harbour more minutely than either Captain Flinders or the discoverer of it, Lieutenant John Murray, R.N., were enabled, in the preceding year, to effect.

In their journey back to the colony, which they immediately commenced, Messrs. Hovell and Hume pursued a line of route altogether to the westward of their outward-bound track; and thus, by travelling on a much lower level, avoided entirely that broken hilly country, which had proved so harassing to their cattle in their former journey.

The extent to which this line of country will, doubtless, be ere long occupied by the colonists, may be understood by describing it as stretching south-westerly from 35° of latitude to the shores of Port Phillip in 38°. The boundary, on its eastern side, is a diagonal line, drawn from the meridian of 149°, as it passes the parallel of 35°, to longitude 145j°, cutting the latitude of 38°; as that line will, most probably, intersect the bluff terminating points of ridges, forming abutments against the great eastern chain: whilst its western limit may be defined by another diagonal line continued from about 147°, where the parallel of 35° passes it, until it meets the meridian of 145°, in latitude of 37°. The local knowledge of which we are now in possession, induces us to view it as extremely probable that, with the exception of any narrow belts of alluvial land which may extend along the immediate banks of the three rivers discovered by these travellers, a great extent of low steril [sic] region exists to the westward of the last-mentioned line of limitation, being, probably, a continuation of that arid desert which is shown on Mr. Oxley's chart, lying between the parallels of 33° and 35°, and under the meridians of 146° and 147°,—a country literally a perfect waste, entirely destitute of water at any