And for that reason, And for a season, We'll be merry before we go, there was a week's revelry fit for the gods on high Olympus. Not only from across the Adelaide border--for Mount Gambier was on the farther side--did both knights and squires wend their way in pilgrimage to the Port Fairy revels, but from Trawalla and Mount Emu, from Warranbeen, Ercildoune, and Buninyong. Adolphus Goldsmith from Trawalla, William Gottreaux from Lilaree, Philip Russell from Carngham (I can hear him now ordering his gray colt's legs to be bandaged the night he rode in), Charley Lyon, Compton Ferrers, Alick Cuningham, Will Wright. Ah! We were a gallant company, Riding o'er land, sailing o'er sea. * * * * * And some are dead and some are gone, ... ay di mi--Alhama! And some are robbers on the hills, That look along Epirus' valleys. Well, perhaps not exactly. They abide on those hills which overlook the winding Thames, and in the season the Serpentine or historic Seine. Any robbery they may engage in is getting the better of unwary brethren at pool, or picking up the odds on the favourite a trifle before the general public is taken into the confidence of the stable. It is hard to find a poet who expresses your feelings and circumstances with precision. Yet even Byron's friends and fellow-believers in Greek independence have hardly had a more complete dispersion than the comrades of that lost "Arcady the Blest." We ought to have made the most of those days--of the time which came "before the gold." We never saw their like again. Then we tasted true happiness, if such ever visits this lower world. Every one had hope, encouragement, adequate stimulus to work,--hard work which was well paid,--leading to enterprise, which year by year fulfilled the promise of progress. Nobody was too rich. No one was wealthy enough to live in Melbourne. Each man had to be his own overseer; had to live at home. He was, therefore, friendly and genial with his neighbours, on whom he was socially dependent. No one thought of going to Europe, or selling off and "cutting the confounded colony," and so on. No! there we were, _adscripti glebae_ as we thought, from a dozen or so to a score of years. It was necessary for all to make the best of it, and very cheery and contented nearly everybody was.