It is a 3 drowned valley, like the lagoons further east, and is almost blocked at the mouth by the drifting sands. It is the only good natural harbour on this part of the coast, and is still the centre of settlement and of the area of densest population. [Illustration: PORT PHILLIP.] Though the harbour of Port Phillip was discovered at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was over thirty years before a permanent settlement was planted on its shores. Something was learnt of the country in 1824, when Hume and Hovell, travelling overland from New South Wales along the route now partly followed by the railway, reached the spot where Geelong now stands. The coast at that time was unoccupied, except for a few whalers who were settled at Portland in the far west. The real occupation of Victoria was brought about by the fusion of two distinct streams of immigrants, one coming by land, the other by sea. In 1836 Sir Thomas Mitchell, one of the greatest of the New South Wales explorers, came over from the Murray basin and discovered the fertile plains at the back of Port Phillip; Australia Felix he named this country of promise. His report on the country led to a rapid movement from New South Wales over the border southward. But the journey from Sydney by land was long and arduous, and the southern part of Victoria, like the coast region of New South Wales, was most easily and naturally settled from the sea. In 1835 a Tasmanian, John Batman, representing a syndicate of Tasmanians, surveyed the site of Melbourne and tried to buy it from the natives; but the New South Wales Government refused to sanction the arrangement. Still other Tasmanians followed, and a body led by Fawkner actually settled on the Yarra in 1835. The two parties naturally quarrelled and the matter was complicated by the fact that New South Wales claimed the whole territory. The British Government supported this claim, and, as a result, in spite of the difficulty of communication, the people of Melbourne had to send their parliamentary representative to Sydney for some years. At length, in 1851, the Port Phillip district became independent and was re-named Victoria. The name of the State and its capital easily remind us of its history; for the official founding of Melbourne was in 1837, when Queen Victoria came to the throne and Lord Melbourne was Prime Minister.