Page:The History of Ballarat.djvu/32



CHAPTER I.

BALLARAT BEFORE THE GOLD DISCOVERV. ir U111.— FoundiiD; of Uuninyont,-.~A Wide Diocese. - Appmninre ot Ballaiit.-The Lv-es.— AhorigiDHl Nsines.-The Squatters. -Pi-emonitloTis of the Gold Discovery.

B A L L A R A T is one of the wonders of this century. Young in years its mutations have been many and rapid, and its marvellous progress has given to it n seeming antiquity beyond its urban years. Our task is to trace I outline of the rise and pi-ogress of this , golden city. This task takes us back to SyjJI days that seem, in the swift inarch of colonial events, to belong already to a remote antiquity, While the sailor- King William IV. was but newly buried, and Queen Victoria was still an uncix)wned maiden; while only a few rude liuts, sprinkled about the still uncleared slopes and gullies, failed to scare away the native animals that haunted the bush where the City of Mel- bourne now stands; while the pleasant borders of the Bay of Corio, where Geelong is to-day, were not graced by a single house, but only bore on their silent slopes a few scatt«red tents, a small band of settlers started from the Corio shore to explore the un- known country to the north-west. This was in the month of August, 1837. The party comprised Mr. Thomas Livingstone LearuiontI); Mr, D'Arcy, a surveyor; Dr. Thompson, late of Geelong; Mr. David Fisher, then maiutger of the Derwent