Then I turned to the old and early friends of the past. Some of them
kindly called; others, less able, I had myself to seek out. Thus I met,
besides Mr. J.S. Johnston, already mentioned, Mr. J.A. Marsden, Mr.
Alfred Woolley, Mr. E.B. Wight, Mr. Damyon, Mr. Brahe, Mr. John Barker,
Mr. R.W. Shadforth, the Messrs. Ham, and Dr. Black. Mr. Germain
Nicholson, another old and worthy friend, was in Sydney, where he called
for us, but we have not yet met. I found time to reach Sir William
Stawell at his pleasant suburban residence at Kew, and was most
agreeably disappointed to find the veteran head of the law very much
more like his former self than report had accredited him. Another old
friend, Sir Francis Murphy, I have as yet failed to meet, and also Mr.
David Moore. Mr. Francis Henty drove us to the St. Kilda-road to pay our
respects to Mrs. Edward Henty, who pleasantly surprised us with as yet
hardly the marks of age, and as though fully intending to see at least
one generation more of the progress of the great colony which her
departed husband had founded. Mrs. D.C. McArthur was still residing at
Heidelberg along with her nieces, Miss Wright and Mrs. Were, the widow
of my late old and intimate friend, Mr. J.B. Were. I saluted the former
as the venerable mother of Melbourne society, and being thus one of her
sons I claimed and exacted the full salutation of sonship. I claimed the
same privilege from my other dear old friend, Mrs. A.M. McCrae, whom I
found hardly changed, in vigour of mind at least, although now
eighty-five years of age. Almost next door was Mrs. Henry Creswick,
daughter of my old friend Dr. Thomson, of Geelong, of whom, as one of
the very earliest, and only a few months behind Batman himself, I have
already spoken. We enjoyed a chat over the very oldest Victorian times.