Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/491

Rh "According to all accounts there was a great deal of disorder," Mr. Manson responded. "There were many runaway convicts here from Tasmania and New South Wales, together with other bad characters. Robberies along the road were very common. One Saturday afternoon in broad daylight four fellows armed with guns and pistols stopped some twenty or more people, one after the other, tied them up to trees, and robbed them, on the road from Melbourne to St. Kilda. The bushrangers carried on their performances up to the very edge of Melbourne, and sometimes they rode through the streets and out again before they could be stopped.

"The coolest piece of robbery was performed in the harbor one night. A ship was to sail for England at daylight, and she had several thousand ounces of gold on board. About midnight a party of eight or ten went out in a boat pretending to have business on board, and were admitted without suspicion. Their real business was to plunder the ship, and they succeeded; they 'stuck up' the officers and crew, bound them hand and foot, loaded the gold into their boat, and escaped. No alarm was given until some one went on board the next morning, as all the officers and crew had been gagged and locked in below. The robbers got clean away; nothing was ever learned about them, but it was suspected that they were ex-convicts from Tasmania."

The carriage had by this time brought our friends to Sandridge, and they alighted at the head of one of the piers. There are two piers at Sandridge (to use its former name in place of its more modern appellation of Port Melbourne), These piers run far out into the bay, and ships of almost any tonnage may lie alongside to discharge or receive cargoes. One is known as the town pier, and the other as the railway pier; on the railway pier trains of cars may load or discharge at the side of the ships, and thus effect a great saving in the handling of freight.

It was a busy scene from one end of the pier to the other, and as the strangers walked about they were obliged to be cautious lest they were