Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/15

 only through the different parts of the district itself, hut had been connected with Sydney on the one hand, and with Adelaide on the other—each at a distance of about five hundred miles from the town of Melbourne, this by a population which, at the time I speak of, had not reached 10,000 souls, surrounded, too, by tribes of hostile natives. That part of this rapid growth might be attributed to the proximity of the older colonies, from whence a supply of stock was obtained with comparative ease, and that too much of it could be traced to the over-stimulus of excessive speculation, were facts with which subsequent experience made me acquainted, but which did not obtrude themselves to lessen my first surprise at the progress of the infant settlement; nor, even when I look back at this distance of time, can they destroy the feeling of admiration with which I regard the enterprise and energy of the men by whom these circumstances were turned to so much account.

The district of Port Phillip was occupied as a permanent British settlement in the year 1836, when a few huts were put up for the accommodation of the government officers, on the spot where Melbourne now stands,—a town, the population of which, at the close of 1841, was supposed to be underrated at 9000 persons.

Melbourne is built on the banks of the river Yarra, and occupies two eminences of moderate elevation, and the valley which divides them. Both of these hills slope gradually down to the river. The town covers a space of about a mile in length, by half a mile in breadth. The westernmost of these eminences, commonly called the Western Hill, is bounded on the south-