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OLD MELBOURNE MEMORIES
[Illustration: Logo]
OLD MELBOURNE MEMORIES
by
ROLF BOLDREWOOD
Author of
'My Run Home,' 'The Squatter's Dream,' 'Robbery Under Arms,' etc.
Second Edition, Revised
London
Macmillan and Co., Ltd.
New York: Macmillan & Co.
1896
All rights reserved
TO
MY EARLIEST ADMIRER AND MOST INDULGENT CRITIC
My Dearest Mother
FROM WHOM
I DERIVE THE WRITING FACULTY
AND
TO WHOM IS CHIEFLY DUE WHATEVER MEED OF PRAISE
MY READERS MAY HEREAFTER VOUCHSAFE
PREFACE
These reminiscences of the early days of Melbourne--a city which, as a
family, we helped to found--awakened, when first published in the
columns of the _Australasian_, an amount of general interest most
gratifying to the writer.
It is hoped that, in their present more convenient form, they may secure
and retain the approbation of the public.
I should feel bound to apologise for the mention of names in full were I
not conscious that I have written no line calculated to offend; nor have
I, for one moment, failed in sincere goodwill towards every comrade of
that joyous time.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
A.D. 1840 1
CHAPTER II
THE FAR WEST 10
CHAPTER III
THE DEATH OF VIOLET 23
CHAPTER IV
DUNMORE 33
CHAPTER V
SQUATTLESEA MERE 41
CHAPTER VI
THE EUMERALLA WAR 51
CHAPTER VII
THE CHILDREN OF THE ROCKS 63
CHAPTER VIII
THE NATIVE POLICE 74
CHAPTER IX
KILFERA 87
CHAPTER X
OLD PORT FAIRY 98
CHAPTER XI
PORTLAND BAY 106
CHAPTER XII
GRASMERE 121
CHAPTER XIII
SUPERIOR FATTENING COUNTRY 132
CHAPTER XIV
BURCHETT OF "THE GUMS" 142
CHAPTER XV
WORK AND PLAY 151
CHAPTER XVI
THE ROMANCE OF A FREEHOLD 160
CHAPTER XVII
LE CHEVALIER BAYARD 170
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CHRISTENING OF HEIDELBERG 179
CHAPTER XIX
THE WOODLANDS STEEPLECHASE 187
CHAPTER XX
YERING 200
CHAPTER XXI
TALES OF A "TRAVELLER" 212
CHAPTER XXII
YAMBUK 222
POEMS
BALLAARAT IN 1851 237
THE DEATH OF WELFORD 242
SUNSET IN THE SOUTH 244
BALACLAVA 246
THE BUSHMAN'S LULLABY 249
MORNING 252
WANTED 253
PERDITA 255
"PRIEZ POUR ELLE" 257
CHAPTER I
A.D. 1840
Standing in the gathering winterly twilight, at the intersection of
Elizabeth and Flinders Streets, one instinctively remarks the long
crowded suburban trains, laden with homeward-bound passengers, quitting
the city and care for the night's charmed interval. All the streets of
busy Melbourne are yet thronged, in spite of the apparently rapid
diminution which is proceeding. The indefinable hum, noticeable in large
urban populations at the close of the day, as the lamps are lit, which
mark for most men the boundary between work and recreation, is
increasingly audible. The grand outlines of the larger public buildings
become suggestively indistinct. If your ear be good, you may hear the
steam-whistle and the roar of the country trains at Spencer Street
Station. The senses of the musing spectator are filled to saturation
with the sights and sounds proper to the largest, the most highly
civilised, the most prosperous city in the world, for the years of its
existence. Stranger than fiction does it not seem, that in the month of
April, in the year of grace 1840, we should have migrated _en famille_
from Sydney to assist in the colonisation of Port Phillip, in the
founding of this city of Melbourne? The moderate-sized schooner which
carried us safely hither in a few hours under a week had been chartered
by Paterfamilias, so that we were unrestricted as to many matters not
usually left to the discretion of passengers. It was a floating home.
Colonists of ten years' standing, we had many things to bear with us,
which under other circumstances of transit must have been left behind.
There were carriage horses and cows, the boys' ponies, the children's
canaries, poultry, and pigeons, dogs and cats, babies and nurses,
furniture, flower-pots, workmen, house servants--all the component
portions of a large household shifted bodily from a suburban home, and
ready to be transferred to the first suitable dwelling in the new
settlement. One can easily imagine to what a state of misery and
confusion such a freight would have been reduced had bad weather come
on. But the winds and the waves were kind, and on Saturday afternoon the
harbour-master of Williamstown partook of some slight alcoholic
refreshment on board, and welcomed us to Port Phillip. Well is
remembered even now the richly-green appearance of the under-stocked
grassy flat upon which the particularly small village of Williamstown
stood. A few cottages, more huts--with certain public-houses, of
course--made up the township. More distinctly marked even were the
succulence and juiciness of the first Port Phillip mutton-chops upon
which was regaled our keenly hungry party. We had just quitted the
enfeebled meat markets of Sydney, scarce recovered from that terrible
drought which wasted the years of 1837, 1838, and 1839. We had reached a
land of Goshen evidently--a land of milk and butter, if not of honey--a
land of chops and steaks, of sirloins and "under-cuts"--of all youthful
luxuries well-nigh forgotten--of late unattainable in New South Wales as
strawberry ice in a cane-brake.
Among other trifles which our very complete outfit had comprehended was
a small steamboat adapted for the tortuous but necessary navigation of
the Yarra Yarra, of which noble stream, moving calmly through walls of
ti-tree, we commenced to make the acquaintance. This steamerlet--she was
a _very_ tiny automaton, puffing out of all proportion to her speed--but
the _only_ funnel-bearer--think of that, Victorians of this
high-pressure era!--had been sent down by the head of the family the
voyage before, safely bestowed upon the deck of a larger vessel. "The
_Movastar_ was a better boat," I daresay, but the tiny _Firefly_ bore us
and the Lares and Penates of many other "first families"--in the sense
of priority--safely to _terra firma_ on the north side of what was then
called the "Yarra Basin." This was an oval-shaped natural enlargement of
the average width of the river, much as a waterhole in a creek exceeds
the ordinary channel. The energetic Batman and the sturdy Cobbett of the
south, Pascoe Fawkner, had thought it good to set about making a town,
and here we found the bustling Britisher of the period engaged in
building up Melbourne with might and main. Our leader laid it down at
that time, as the result of his experience of many lands, that the new
colony, being outside of 36 deg. south latitude, would not be scourged
with droughts as had been New South Wales from her commencement. In
great measure, and absolutely as regarding the western portions of
Victoria, this prophecy has been borne out.
Sufficient time had elapsed for the army of mechanics, then established
in Port Phillip, to erect many weatherboard and a few brick houses. Into
a cottage of the latter construction we were hastily inducted, pending
the finishing of a two-storied mansion in Flinders Street, not very far
from Prince's Bridge. Bridge was there none in those days, it is hardly
necessary to say; not even the humble one with wooden piers that spanned
the stream later, and connected Melbourne people with the sandy forest
of South Yarra, then much despised for its alleged agricultural
inferiority: still there was a punt. You could get across, but not
always when you wanted. And I recall the incident of Captain Brunswick
Smyth, late of the 50th Regiment, and the first commandant of mounted
police, riding down to the ferry, from which the guardian was
absent--"sick, or drunk, or suthin"--and, with military impatience,
dashing on board with a brace of troopers, who pulled the lumbering
barge across, and fastened her to the farther shore.
Large trees at that time studded the green meadow, which, after the
winter rain, was marshy and reed-covered. There did I shoot, and bear
home with schoolboy pride, a blue crane--the Australian heron--who,
being only wounded, "went near" to pick out one of my eyes, wounding my
cheek-bone with a sudden stab of his closed beak. The lovely bronze-wing
pigeons were plentiful then amid the wild forest tracks of Newtown,
afterwards Collingwood. Many times have I and my boy comrades stood at
no great distance from the present populous suburb and wondered whether
we were going straight for the "settlement," as we then irreverently
styled the wonder-city. The streets of the new-born town had been "ruled
off," as some comic person phrased it, very straight and wide; but there
had not been sufficient money as yet available from the somewhat
closely-guarded distant Treasury of Sydney to clear them from stumps.
However, as in most communities during the speculative stage, any amount
was forthcoming when required for purposes of amusement. Balls, picnics,
races, and dinners were frequent and fashionable. Driving home from one
of the first-named entertainments, through the lampless streets, a
carriage, piloted by a gallant officer, came to signal grief against a
stump. The ladies were thrown out, the carriage thrown over, and the
charioteer fractured. Paterfamilias, absent on business, marked his
disapproval of the expedition by resolutely refraining from repairing
the vehicle. For years after it stood in the back yard with cracked
panels, a monument of domestic miscalculation.
It must be terribly humiliating to the survivors of that "first rush" to
consider what untold wealth lay around them in the town and suburban
allotments, which the most guarded investment would have secured. The
famous subdivision in Collins Street, upon which the present Bank of
Australasia now stands, was purchased by the Wesleyan denomination for
£70! Acres and half-acres in Flinders, Collins, and Elizabeth Streets
were purchased at the first Government sales held in Sydney at similar
and lower rates. I have heard the late Mr. Jacques, at that time acting
as Crown auctioneer, selling at the Sydney markets ever so much of
Williamstown, at prices which would cause the heart of the land-dealer
of the present day to palpitate strangely. I can hear now the old
gentleman's full, sonorous voice rolling out the words, "Allotment
so-and-so, parish of Will-will-rook," the native names being largely and
very properly used. "Villamanatah" and "Maribyrnong" occurred, I think,
pretty often in the same series of sales. The invariable increase in
prices after the first sales led naturally to a species of South Sea
stock bubbledom. He who bought to-day--and men of all classes shared in
the powerful excitement--was so certain of an advance of 25, 50, or cent
per cent, that every one who could command the wherewithal hastened to
the land lottery, where every ticket was a prize. Speculative eagles in
flocks were gathered around the carcase. Borrowing existed then, though
undeveloped as one of the fine arts compared to its latest triumphs;
bills, even in that struggling infancy of banking, were thick in the
air. Successful or prospective sales necessitated champagne lunches,
whereby the empty bottles--erstwhile filled with that cheerful
vintage--accumulated in stacks around the homes and haunts of the
leading operators. The reigning Governor-General, on a flying visit to
the non-mineral precursor of Ballarat and Bendigo, noted the
unparalleled profusion, and, it is said, refused on that account some
request of the self-elected Patres Conscripti of our Rome in long
clothes. Farms, in blocks of forty and eighty acres, had been marked off
above the Yarra Falls. They had been purchased at prices tending to be
high, as prices ruled then. But they could not have been really high,
for one of them, since pretty well known as Toorak, for years rented for
several thousands per annum, and possessing a value of about £1000 each
for its eighty acres, was purchased by an early colonist for less than
£1000, all told. It was subsequently sold by him, under the crushing
pressure of the panic of 1842 and 1843, for £120.
What a different place was the Flemington racecourse, say, when Victor
and Sir Charles ran for the Town Plate--when Romeo's white legs and
matchless shoulder were to be seen thereon--when Jack Hunter's filly,
Hellcat, won the Sir Charles Purse, furnished by a generous stud patron
for the owners of descendants of that forgotten courser. Fancy the
change to the Cup day with Martini-Henry coming in! Where racing springs
up, there also do differences of opinion frequently occur. With respect
to the said victory of Hellcat, then the property of Jack Hunter, it was
objected by a well-known "horse couper" of the day, known as "Hopping
Jack," that she was no true descendant of Sir Charles. He was
contradicted _very_ flatly, and sufficient proof having been afforded to
the stewards, her owner received the stakes. Still the mighty mind of
John Ewart held distrust as he ambled home, dangling his "game" leg on
his eel-backed bay horse, the same which carried him overland from
Sydney to Melbourne in ten days--six hundred miles. "A sworn
horse-courser," like Blount, was Hopping Jack, and, unlike Marmion's
fast squire, had ridden many a steeplechase. In the quickly shifting
adventure-scope of the day it chanced that the two Jacks went to sea,
desiring to revisit Scotia, doubtless for their pecuniary benefit. A
great storm arose, and the homeward-bound vessel was wrecked. The
passengers barely escaped with their lives, and were forced to return to
Port Phillip. At one period of the disaster there was little or no hope
for the lives of all. As they clung gloomily to the uplifted deck--fast
on a reef--Hopping Jack approached Mr. Hunter with a grave and resolved
air. All waited to hear his words. In that solemn hour he proved the
exquisite accuracy of the thought, "The ruling passion strong in death,"
by thus adjuring his turf acquaintance, "Look here, Mr. Hunter, we shall
all be in ---- in twenty minutes, it can't matter much _now_. Was
Hellcat _really_ a Sir Charles?" History is silent as to the reply.
How strange a Melbourne would the picture--still distinctly photographed
on memory's wondrous "negative"--present to the inhabitant of 1884. A
solitary wood cart is struggling down from the direction of Brighton
along the unmade sandy track, patiently to await the convenience of the
puntman. Frank Liardet is driving his unicorn omnibus team from the
lonely beach, where now the sailors revel in many a glittering bar, and
the tall sugar-refinery chimney "lifts its head" and smokes--or, at any
rate, did recently. The squatter's wool-freighted bullock-teams lumber
along the deep ruts of Flinders Lane. John Pascoe Fawkner bustles up
and down the western end, at that time the fashionable part, of Collins
Street. The eastern portion of that street--now decorated with palatial
clubs and treasuries, and dominated by doctors--was then principally
known as "the way to the Plenty," a rivulet on the banks of which still
abode certain cheerful young agricultural aristocrats, who had not had
time quite to ruin themselves. Now a whole tribe of blacks--wondering
and frightened, young and old, warriors and greybeards, women and
children--is being driven along Collins Street by troopers, on their way
to the temporary gaol, there to be incarcerated for real or fancied
violence. The philanthropist may console himself with the knowledge that
they burrowed under their dungeon slabs and, I think, escaped. If not,
they were released next day.
Mr. Latrobe, successor of Captain Lonsdale, on a state day--not styled
Governor, but his Honour the Superintendent--is riding towards Batman's
Hill on a crop-eared hog-maned cob, yclept Knockercroghery, attired in
uniform, escorted by Captain Smyth and his terrible mounted police, the
only military force of the day. The great plains, the wide forest-parks,
shut closely in the little town on every side. Countless swans and ducks
are disporting themselves in unscared freedom upon the great West
Melbourne marsh. The travel-stained squatter rides wearily up to the
livery stable, as yet unable to shorten by coach or rail a mile of his
journey.