Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/16

 by a declivity, which leads down to a succession of low flats, while on the south-east it slopes down to the river. The west end of the town thus occupies a comer of high ground, which rather increases in elevation for about half a mile, as it stretches to the northward. In the other direction, that is, on the river-front, there is an open valley, which, running at right angles with the river, divides the two hills which I have spoken of. Across the valley the town extends, and also up the eastern hill. The principal street, Collin's-street, running from the western limits of the town, in a direction nearly parallel to the river, crosses the valley, and stretches up the eastern hill to its eastern limits. About a quarter of a mile further on in this direction is a suburb called Collingwood. As all the other streets and lanes are either parallel to, or at right angles with Collin's-street, the plan of the town is perfectly regular, and simple enough to please the greatest lover of parallelograms.

There is great variety in the style of architecture of the buildings which compose the town, ascending, as it does, from the frail weather-boarded tenement of the first settler, to the new court house, a substantial cut-stone building, which may be taken as the extremes of a series, the mean terms of which include the baby-house-looking imported wooden house, the neat four and five roomed brick cottage, the substantial store, the flashy shop, the square solid-looking bank, the plain dissenting chapel, a gloomy and, strange to say, antique-looking Church of England church, built of a dark brown stone, and a Roman Catholic chapel of more pretension but less solidity. I am sorry to add that