Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/298

 indistinct glimpse was to be observed from the bay, comes in view; the cathedral, a heavy building, without a tower or a steeple; and the government offices, built of stone, without ornament, on the highest point of the hill." The voyage ends in a sort of pool where steamers can find room to turn round and take up a berth alongside the quay. A breakwater has been erected on the foundation of a natural ledge of rocks which effectually divides the fresh water from the salt.

Melbourne occupies two sides of a valley, East Hill and West Hill, of very fertile soil. Inferior in port accommodation and in picturesque beauty to Sydney, it has the advantage of being in the midst of productive corn-fields, gardens, vineyards, and pastures.

The principal street is a mile long, crossed at right angles by other streets of half that length: a macadamised causeway runs down the middle, leaving a strip on each side to be converted into mud in the rainy season. The footpaths for the most part are of gravel, with kerbstones. So far there is an improvement. Some years ago a traveller was shocked the day after his arrival by seeing among the announcements in a local paper, "Another Child drowned in the Streets of Melbourne."

The buildings present the irregularity incident to all colonial towns; occasionally great gaps of building land were to be found representing investments made eight or ten years ago by absentee speculators. But the gold revolution has covered every vacant space with weather-board huts and tents. The chief lion [work of Melbourne is a stone bridge across the Yarra, of the same size and proportions as the centre arch of London-bridge, which cost an enormous sum.

The population was about twenty thousand in 1851; what it is at present it is impossible to say. It is to be feared that houses will be built more rapidly than the present streets will be drained and rendered wholesome. The lower part of Melbourne is subject to sudden floods from the falling of rains and melting of snow in the range of hills in which the Yarra takes its rise. An Australian flood is "short, sharp, and decisive."

From the summit of either East or "West Hill, by which the valley of Melbourne is formed, may be seen Mount Macedon, the crowning mountain of a range of the same name thirty-five miles from the city, three thousand feet in height, covered with open forests, and the richest vegetation of Australia. Thence may be viewed the richest mountain in the world, the Mount Byng of its discoverer Mitchell, the Mount Alexander in gold-digging records. To the north of Mount Alexander is Mount Hope, from the summit of which the weary eyes of Mitchell were gladdened by all the sylvan pastoral glories of "Australia Felix."