It seems curious that, though Portland was settled at much the same time as Port Phillip, no one ever seemed to have thought of installing the new capital there, in spite of its truly magnificent bay. In 1836 Major Mitchell, who was the Surveyor-General of New South Wales, with a party of convicts, having followed the course of the Lachlan and Lower Murrumbidgee, crossed the Murray, climbed to the summit of Mount Hope, and saw stretched out before him a sweep of wide and promising pasture. Moving onwards to the south by south-west, he crossed this green and pleasant land, passed another range of mountains, which he named the Grampians, and thus reached the south coast of Discovery Bay, meeting at Portland with the famous Henty family, who two years earlier had established themselves there, with servants, sheep, horses, and cattle, that they had brought over with them from Tasmania. These they used to good purpose in trade with the whalers and scalers, who, indeed, were the first white inhabitants of Victoria, having run up rough temporary stores and other buildings at intervals along the coast, the principal traders, before the coming of the pastoral Hentys, being William Dutton—Dutton being now a well-known name in South Australia, though whether the family is the same I do not know—John Griffiths, and two brothers named Mills. Portland suffers from no natural defects, and is simply prevented from taking its place as one of the best and busiest seaports by the fact that Melbourne is the capital of Victoria, in which it is situated. Equally ridiculous sentiments or regulations, I do not know which, ordaining that all goods from South Australia—Mount Gambia, the centre of one of the richest portions of that state, being only 73 miles from Portland—shall be transferred over 300 miles to Port Adelaide for shipment. Here is something, one would imagine, where Federation might be of real use, and the Montague and Capulet sort of feeling, which makes such a state of affairs possible, be mitigated, if not completely squashed.