Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/481

Rh to London, Paris, or New York; and the same is the case with the Post-office, Houses of Parliament, Law Courts, Public Library, National Gallery, Government House, Ormond College, and other public structures.

"We turned down Swanston Street in the direction of the river, the Yarra, or, to speak more properly, the Yarra-Yarra, as it was originally known, though few now call it by the double name. Anybody who comes here expecting a great river will be disappointed, as the Yarra isn't much of a stream on which to build a city like Melbourne. It answers well enough for people to row upon with pleasure-boats and for occasionally drowning somebody, but is altogether too small and shallow for large vessels. Steamers and sailing-craft drawing not more than sixteen feet can come up to the city, but large vessels must stop at Sandridge, or Port Melbourne, two and a half miles away. The Yarra supplies water for the Botanical Gardens, but not for the city generally.

"We reached the river at Prince's Bridge, where a fine viaduct of three arches replaces the former one of a single arch. There are several bridges across the Yarra, which separates Melbourne proper from South Melbourne and other suburbs, and we were told that new bridges are under consideration, and will be built as the necessity for them becomes more pressing. A great deal of money has been expended in deepening and straightening the river, and it is certainly vastly improved upon the stream which Batman and Fawkner ascended in 1835, when they