The "Protection Question" was early brought on, of course from Geelong, by my worthy old friend J.F. Strachan, its member, and both its income and, for that time, its exit, were amusing. "Why lose so much revenue in order to set up colonial brandy-making?" he was asked; "was the domestic article we were to make such sacrifice for to be superior to the imported?" "On the contrary," he replied; "it was because it would be inferior, and must therefore be thus bonused against the superiority of the rival import." So then we were to lose revenue, and pay a higher price, in order to substitute bad liquor for good. Let us still keep to the better quality at the lower price. So the proposal was laughed out, Strachan himself, with his usual good humour, joining in the laugh. It would be "supererogation" to go into our early legislation, which is familiar to the colony in a hundred publications, besides the fact that I have touched already on some of the prominent subjects or questions in which I myself took a part, such as the movement against transportation, the new and rather startling course in "The Convicts Prevention Act," and the first Gold Commission. I have therefore exhausted my subject, so far as it is properly my own, and must hasten to take my leave. When I first thought of this work for the delightfully complete leisure and repose of a long voyage, I feared that I might find but little to say of matters of a retrospect approaching two generations. But seated at last with pen in hand, and with memory stirred up, I had ere long to exercise mercy towards my expected readers, in sifting the surging crowd of recollections, so as to keep to such as might have general interest. I hope I have reasonably succeeded; and if I have also contributed, in however small a degree, to the information, interest, or amusement of my old friends and fellow-colonists, I shall be abundantly repaid. WILLIAM WESTGARTH. S.S. "Coptic", at sea, latitude 45 degrees south, longitude 142 degrees east, 25th July, 1888. "And this is my conclusion." --Much Ado About Nothing. POSTSCRIPT. MELBOURNE IN 1888. "Here, fifty winters since, by Yarra's stream, A scattered hamlet found its modest place: What mind would venture then in wildest dream Its wondrous growth and eminence to trace? What seer predict a stripling in the race Would, swift as Atalanta, win the prize Of progress, 'neath the world's astonished eyes?" --J. F. DANIELL, "The Jubilee of Melbourne." "And, behold, one half of the greatness was not told me." --2 Chronicles 9:6. My intended postscript on Melbourne as I found it in 1888 has been delayed until I have seen Sydney also, so that I have a few words of comparison on the two great capitals of the southern section of our empire. ARRIVAL AT HOBART.