Page:Victoria, with a description of its principal cities, Melbourne and Geelong.djvu/48

 alongside of the bay until you reach Geelong; one portion of it alone, Laverton, the station of Mr. Thompson, running out some distance into the bay, is thickly wooded; the remainder seems a boundless arid plain, though, in point of fact, it is not so, and several thousand sheep and cattle are annually fed on it; the landscape is, however, relieved by the high hills of Ude Youang far away in the distance. The railroad to Geelong runs through this plain, which is considered one of the best natural levels as yet known to engineers, and is now open for traffic.

There are two entrances to the city—by a steamer, up the Yarra-yarra, which passes every half-hour, calling at each newly arrived ship, or by the Sandridge Railway, which, though the most expeditious, has the drawback of a second shipment from the boat to the railway pier. Ere these pages come before the public, a third route, by Williamstown, will be open, which, when the largest vessels can wharf alongside, will be the most preferred. The Terminus of each railway brings you into the busy part of the town, and there are few cities in the world present a more bustling appearance to the stranger than Melbourne, for in laying out the city great care was taken that the locality intended for the wharfs, and the grand mercantile thoroughfare facing them, should be sufficiently extensive, and, running along a dead level opening on the river, gives you a view of the whole at a glance. Entering the city by the river, the view —if you overlook the scrubby swamp around you—