In 1836 the blacks came down from the Goulburn and committed murder, somewhere near to the Werribee. In ’37 Messrs. Gellibrand and Hesse, exploring beyond Geelong, were lost, and killed by the aborigines, and life was very unsettled and wild. But now mobs of cattle had commenced to be driven over from Botany Bay to the new settlement, and white men, with the restlessness and energy of our race, were arriving with frequency, for reports concerning the place were distinctly good, and in 1838, so numerous were the inhabitants of Port Phillip, that they decided that the time was ripe in which to inaugurate a race meeting. We are a strange nation; a peculiar people. March 6th was the great day, just eighty-three years ago. There were five hundred spectators present, and four races took place for their edification. Two were won by a mare named Mountain Maid, and two by a gelding, Postboy. Four starters constituted the largest field of the day. The course was right handed, one mile round the she-oak clad Batman’s Hill, a rising ground between the present Spencer Street Railway Station and the gasworks. The starting post was at the site of the North Melbourne Railway Station. As you enter the city from Sydney, you can, if you care to, recall the scene. The scrub was thick between the hill and the surrounding country. It was cut by winding, deeply-indented waggon tracks, for the ground was soft and boggy. Two carts, sheltered from the sun by old sails, performed the functions of publicans’ booths.