Dr Lang, in his description of the Port-Philip district, alludes to
the success which may there attend female settlers who carry on the
business of sheep-farming on their own account; and mentions the
following facts on the subject:--
'On the morning after our arrival at Geelong, Dr Thomson accompanied
me on a visit to Miss Drysdale, an elderly maiden lady from Scotland,
whose acquaintance and friendship I had had the honour of making on
my first visit to Geelong in the year 1843, when I had the pleasure
of spending a day or two under her hospitable roof. Miss Drysdale is
a lady of a highly-respectable family, and of superior intelligence,
her brother having been the late Sir William Drysdale, treasurer of
the city of Edinburgh. Having a considerable patrimony of her own,
and being of an active disposition, and fond of rural pursuits, she
had rented a large farm in Scotland, of which she superintended the
management in person; but being a martyr, as she told me, to the coughs
and colds, and other ills that flesh is heir to in our hyperborean
Scottish climate, she resolved to emigrate to a milder region, where
she might hope to enjoy better health, while she continued to indulge
in her favourite pursuits, and endeavour to exert a salutary influence
on some at least of her fellow-creatures, wherever Divine Providence
might fix her lot. And, I am happy to add, Miss Drysdale sees no reason
to regret the step she took, in pursuance of this resolution, in
emigrating to Philipsland. She has uniformly enjoyed excellent health;
she is in the midst of such scenes, and scenery, and occupations as
she delighted in at home; the property she invested in stock on her
arrival in the colony must have increased greatly during the interval
that has since elapsed; and she has not only exhibited the goodly
and influential example of a highly-respectable family living in the
fear of God, and in the zealous observance of all the ordinances of
religion, in a country in which, I am sorry to say, such examples are
rare, but she has had it in her power to render the most valuable
services to some who really required what she has proved to them--a
friend indeed. At the period of my first visit to Geelong Miss Drysdale
had two of the younger daughters of the late Mr Batman residing with
her, to whom she was benevolently discharging the duty of a parent; and
her character as a doer of good was generally known, and gratefully
acknowledged, in the vicinity.
'On her arrival in the colony, Miss Drysdale determined to "squat," as
it is styled in the phraseology of the country; that is, to settle on a
tract of unoccupied crown land, of sufficient extent for the pasturage
of considerable flocks and herds, with their increase for several
years--a tract, in all likelihood, from twenty-five to fifty square
miles in extent. For this land the occupant pays a yearly license-fee
to the government of L.10, which insures to him for the time being the
full possession of the entire tract; and it is universally understood
that while this fee is paid, and no offence committed against the laws
and the customs of squatting, the occupant shall not be disturbed,
unless the land is sold in the meantime to a _bona-fide_ purchaser, at
not less than L.1 an acre, or required for government purposes--neither
of which events is, in ordinary circumstances, at all likely to
happen. It has not been allowed, for a good many years past, to give
a squatting license of this kind to any person within a considerable
distance of a township or village; but Miss Drysdale was allowed, as a
special exception from this general rule, to occupy a station within
four miles of the town of Geelong. On that station she accordingly
erected a neat thatched cottage, with glazed rustic lattice-windows,
which she had carried out with her from home, formed a garden, and
fenced in a sufficient extent of superior land for cultivation. The
cottage had been greatly improved, both externally and internally, at
the period of my visit in 1846, and three years had made a wonderful
change for the better upon the garden, which had gravelled walks
dividing the different parterres--the only instance of the kind I had
seen in the country, and strongly reminding me of home.
'The situation of Miss Drysdale's cottage, to which she has judiciously
given the native name of the locality, Barrangoop, which signifies a
turf, is on a gentle grassy slope towards the Barwon River, with the
garden in front. The cottages of her farm-overseer and servants are
close at hand, and remind one of a respectable farming establishment in
_the old country_. On my first visit to Geelong, I found a respectable
young man, who had been three sessions at the university of Glasgow,
as an intending candidate for the Christian ministry, but who had
subsequently abandoned his studies, and gone out as a bounty emigrant
to Port Philip, acting in the humble capacity of tutor to the children
of Miss Drysdale's overseer, a respectable Scotch farmer, with a large
family. Upon the whole, there was something of a domestic character
about Miss Drysdale's establishment generally which is but rarely
seen at the squatting stations of the interior; and I could not help
thinking that the very horses and cattle seemed to consider themselves
more at home than elsewhere.
'After passing Geelong to the left, the Barwon River, which in this
part of its course is a beautiful stream, pursues a south-easterly
course, nearly parallel to that of the western arm of Port Philip, to
the great Southern Ocean. About nine or ten miles below Barrangoop
it spreads out into a series of lakes, as picturesque as any sheets
of water of that kind I have ever beheld. On my first visit to this
part of the country in 1843, I rode down to these lakes along with
Miss Newcome, another maiden lady, whom Miss Drysdale had some time
before taken into partnership with herself--partly, I presume, that she
might have some kindred spirit--which, I am happy to say, Miss Newcome
unquestionably is--to whom she might be able to whisper that "solitude
was sweet." Miss Newcome was quite at home on her high-spirited steed,
and we gallopped along through scenery of the richest description,
beautiful grassy plats alternating with clumps of trees of the most
graceful and ornamental foliage, till we reached the lakes. These
extensive sheets of glassy water, variegated with headlands and
islands, were absolutely alive with black swans, and other waterfowl,
sailing quietly along on their silent surface. There must have been
at least five hundred swans in view at one time on one of the lakes.
They were no "raræ aves" there. Their deep solitudes, however, are
effectually invaded now; for the white man will soon thin their ranks
in all probability, and force them to retreat before the progress of
civilisation.'