Mr. Edward Henty, from Launceston, first entered the future Victoria in
1834 by her remote portal, Portland Bay, and thus became the founder of
the colony. In the following year, John Batman, of Hobart, sailing from
the same stirring little Launceston, entered by the central and grander
portal of the Port Phillip Heads, and was thus the pioneer of Port
Phillip settlement; for we must really turn blundering Collins, with his
abortive doings in 1803-4, out of the running. I never saw Batman, as he
died the year before my arrival, so that, according to my rule, I have
nothing to say of him. But I must mention an incident occurring shortly
before my date, and characteristic of the times, namely, the raffling
for Batman's old and well smoke-begrimed pipe. This was at the famous
Lamb Inn, a little wooden edifice on the north side of West
Collins-street, opposite the Market-square, and fronting a small cliff
which the street levelling there had left for future disposal. There
were thirty tickets at a pound each, and the fortunate winner was to
compensate the disappointed by standing champagne all round. I was once
in the Lamb Inn ere its glories had quite expired, as might be inferred
from a charge of 4 shillings for a bottle of cider, for which I had
called in support of the house, and to while away time in waiting for a
friend. I had to share it with two others who happened to be in the
room, the waiter having promptly filled the three tumblers he had
brought, without even "Robert's" professional stereotype of "by your
leave," the tumblers, too, being as promptly emptied without any
ceremonious bother about acknowledgment. The Lamb Inn lived a brief
space longer, but utterly bereft of its old position in the revels and
extravagance of every kind of the young settlement, and was finally
levelled out of existence in company with the "cliff" at its back.
But I have to do also with nearer and dearer connections of Batman than
his tobacco pipe. I have to record the marriage, during 1844, of two of
his daughters, the elder, already a widow, Mrs. McKinney, to my pleasant
friend Fennell, as I have previously mentioned, and, happily, resulting
in a family of descendants to the Port Phillip founder, and the younger
to one of the two squatter brothers Collyer. The latter event, which
came off at the hospitable and comfortable homestead of old John Aitken
of that ilk (I mean of Mount Aitken), was a grand gala time to a very
wide circle. Guests, by the score together, trooped up from town and
country, headed, in the former direction, by Andrew Russell, then second
mayor of Melbourne, in succession to my friend Condell, and in the
latter by his cheery and ever-smiling uncle, Peter Inglis, of Ingliston,
a great station homestead in the comparisons of those early times, and
once, as Peter liked to tell, taken for a town, perhaps in the gloaming
hours, by a bush traveller when he inquired of one of the domestics, to
her great amusement, the name of the street he had confusingly got into.
Mrs. Aitken, as literally as by courtesy the good wife of the house, and
then in the full charm of her beauty and strong youth (now Mrs. Kaye,
and sadly changed in both respects), went busily about, her young family
at her skirts, administering plenty and preserving order, while, towards
genial eve, her good man occupied a quiet corner, indisputable king for
the nonce of the toddy race. The night accommodations were a difficulty,
although not a few, like the host himself, were in no great want. I and
a score or two of others turned into a wool loft, where a number of
little mattresses, mostly of a pro re nata kind, were provided, into one
of which I was soon ensconced and fast asleep. But well on, as I
guessed, in the small hours we were all awoke by loud and burly noise in
the loft, proceeding, as we soon recognized, from two Anakims of the
party, Isaac Buchanan and John Porter, who seemed on the eve of a
struggle for a Mace or Nolan belt. Porter had retired peacefully with
me, but Buchanan had been vieing in the toddy corner with his host, and
when inevitably knocked under--for the other had not yet been limited by
his doctor to that woman's wash, as he called it, sparkling moselle--he
had contrived to find the common loft. It is said, of unpractised topers
at any rate, that, after an extra indulgence, they either see nothing or
see double. Whichever it was with Buchanan, he insisted on berthing for
the night in Porter's occupied nest, while the latter, after standing
the all-round chaff for a little, got savage and threatened war.
Buchanan's sight getting by-and-by clearer, the remainder of the night
was, happily, peace. But it was not for long, as almost with the dawn
our host, alive as if nothing out of the usual had happened, woke us up
with the invitation to finish the champagne by way of refresher after
all the toils and toddy we had gone through.