'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.