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.