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CHAPTER XXIX.

N the month of April, 1851, New South Wales and Port Phillip were enjoying an unexampled condition of financial and commercial prosperity; the demand for labour was steadily increasing, and in the elder colony several manufactures and copper-mines were affording new investments for colonial capital. The leading colonial journal was amusing its readers with calculations of the period when all the pastoral land of the colony would be overstocked with sheep and cattle. The politicians had their grievances to discuss, among which was the long delay in establishing a steam post.

In the midst of this satisfactory state of affairs, "through the