DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF VICTORIA   

Atlas Page 47
By James Smith

WESTERN DISTRICT  3...

From Clunes the railway trends northwest and crosses Stony Creek, upon which stands the hamlet of Caralulup; a short distance to the south-west of this village is Mount Mitchell, and still farther in the same direction the little quartz-reefing settlement of Lexton, which, by a coach line, is in communication with the railway at Talbot Station. After leaving Clunes the first stopping-place is Dunach siding, on the east of which are Mounts Green, Glasgow and Cameron, and still further east the village of Campbelltown, on Glengower Creek. In almost a direct line west from Dunach siding are the settlements of Woodstock, on the Branch Creek: Glenloggie, on the river Avoca; Elmhurst, at the head of the Glenpatrick Creek and at the foot of Mount Direction; and Crowlands, near the junction of Mount Cole Creek with the river Wimmera; and this line strikes through the southern portions of three countries —Talbot, Gladstone and Kara-kara.

About one hundred and twenty miles north-west from Melbourne and thirty-four from Ballarat, is the important agricultural and mining centre of Talbot, in the days of its adolescence better known to searchers after gold by the less dignified appellation of Rock Creek, situated as it is on the watercourse of that name. Talbot has a good agricultural show-yard of about ten acres in extent, a brewery, two flourmills and a soap and candle factory. The town is lighted with gas, and has a thoroughly efficient water supply from two reservoirs; one at Amherst, holding nearly fourteen million gallons, and another at Evansford, storing over one hundred and eighty million gallons. Amongst the usual public institutions are a good hospital and a free library of nearly fifteen hundred volumes, besides a State school with an average attendance of over four hundred children. Talbot has also a Deutscher Verein, with a library of some fourteen, hundred odd volumes, two banks, five churches, a powder magazine, several hotels, and a fair proportion of places of business. The mining done in the district is principally alluvial, though reefs have been exploited and proved very rich in auriferous quartz. There is a great deal of grain grown in the country about Talbot, the principal crop being oats, the yield of which is double that of wheat.

Nine miles farther along the railway line is Maryborough, an important centre of the northwest goldfields, and of a municipal area of nearly six thou sand acres, with a population of over seventeen thousand five hundred, although the inhabitants of the town itself number less than five thousand. The railway station stands on the main lines between Castlemaine, Ballarat, Avoca and Ararat; and Maryborough may be regarded as the pivot of the northwestern railway system, with four separate and distinct routes which have their termini in this town. Proceeding eastward the line passes through Carisbrook, Moolort, Joyce’s Creek, Newstead and Guildford, and strikes Castlemaine in a journey of about thirty-five miles. By a branch route from Castlemaine, which passes through Muckleford, the quartz-reefing town of Maldon can be reached, beyond which, on the river Loddon, is the little village of Baringhup. In an almost direct westerly direction a branch line from Maryborough, taking en route the stations of Bung Bong and Homebush, has its terminus in Avoca, a picturesque little town, situated near the source of the river of the same name. Near this settlement rise the Pyrenees, and at their feet both alluvial and quartz mining is pursued, although gold is not the only source of wealth to the district. A few years ago a quarry of slate was found in the mountains, not far distant from the town, in quantities which seem to be far beyond the power to adequately work it. Besides this, a great deal of grain is raised, the wheat land in the vicinity of Avoca being of a particularly good quality. The population of the town includes a good percentage of miners and a considerable sprinkling of Chinese fossickers, who manage to make a precarious living by washing the tailings of old workings and burrowing in the abandoned shafts of preceding miners; for the Oriental can live sumptuously where the European would starve. South of Avoca, on Rutherford’s Creek, is the little hamlet of Lamplough, and north-east from the latter, on the Bet Bet Creek, is the village of Bung Bong, a few miles south of the station of the same name. On the river, north of the town of Avoca, are situated Natte Yallock an Archdale, above which, and a little below the village of Emu, the line to Donald, crosses it. A road from Avoca conducts in a north-westerly route through the villages of Moonambel, Redbank, Barkly, Navarre, Stuartmill, Carapoee, to the town of St. Arnaud, which is also in railway communication with Maryborough.

Maryborough stands nearly eight hundred feet above the sea level in the northwest corner of the county of Talbot, about one hundred and forty miles distant from the metropolis journeying by Ballarat and one hundred and twelve journeying by Castlemaine. Besides the usual postal and telegraph offices, it has a commodious hospital, a town hall, a grammar school and a school of design, a gaol, and a free library possessing about two thousand volumes. There are also seven churches belonging to the various denominations, and a courthouse which occupies the same premises as the post-office and other government buildings, and these are crowned by a clock tower eighty feet in height and a prominent feature in the landscape for miles distant. Maryborough has besides its mining industry, a brewery, jam-preserving works and two coach factories, and there are also two savings banks and four other institutions of a like character. The ratable property is valued at not far short of two hundred thousand pounds, and gives an annual return of over eighteen thousand pounds. Maryborough has several public recreation grounds, numerous hotels, a large State school, two local newspapers, and a reservoir, with a storage capacity of over twenty-one million gallons, which supplies the place with water. Amongst the most famous quartz reefs are the Kong Meng and the Napier, but there are over one hundred and seventy distinct quartz reefs scattered over an area of about one hundred and forty acres of auriferous soil; these afford employment to upwards of two thousand five hundred European miners —some of whom toil seven hundred feet and more beneath the surface —besides maintaining about a thousand Chinese. In the mining district of Maryborough, a wide area, including several other towns, is comprised; but in Maryborough alone the mining operations are the great feature and form the staple industry of the locality.

Surrounding the town are the settlements of Majorca, five miles distant; Havelock, four miles; Carisbrook, four miles; and Timor, five miles; and all these are engaged in the work of gold-mining. The largest pumping plant in the colony is on the Duke and Timor company’s claim; it raises a large and continuous volume of water from a depth of three hundred and sixty feet, the presumption being that it is fed from a subterranean river. There is some mixed farming in the neighbourhood, but not sufficient to supply the wants of the population, and at certain seasons of the year stock for the butchers has to be brought by train from considerable distances. The Bet Bet Creek, which approaches the town within five miles, contains blackfish and eels; fourteen miles away, on the Loddon, turkeys, ducks and other game are plentiful.

From Maryborough the traveller proceeds, by way of Havelock and Bet Bet, to Dunolly, an important town one hundred and twenty-five miles from Melbourne. It is situated between the Loddon and Avoca Rivers, and has around it a large farming and vine-growing district. In its immediate neighbourhood is the mining village of Goldsborough, at which is the famous Queen’s Birthday claim, besides other rich quartz mines. In, addition to gold, the Dunolly reefs contain iron, manganese, copper, antimony, kaoline and slate. The town is well built, and its roads are in excellent order. It has, besides six places of worship, a hospital, two State schools, town and shire halls, a flourmill, a soap and candle factory, and a free library containing upwards of two thousand volumes. There are numerous stores and hotels in the town, all apparently in prosperous, circumstances. Besides Goldsborough, Dunolly has around it other mining settlements of which it is the business capital; namely, Jones’ Creek, Inkerman, Moliagul, Eddington and Burnt Creek, at various distances ranging from three to nine miles. At Moliagul was unearthed the largest nugget ever found in the colony, weighing two thousand two hundred and eighty ounces.

St. Arnaud, situated on the railway line northwest from Dunolly, is a place of some wealth and importance, yielding, besides gold, agricultural produce sufficient for the wants of the district. Seven miles farther along the line is Darkbonee, from which to Swanwater is a journey of five miles, and thence to Cope Cope another five miles. At the last-mentioned place some sport is to be had, and good accommodation. Eight miles farther, and the terminus of this line of rail is reached at Donald, the centre of a rich wheat-producing country, from which Lake Buloke may be easily reached. This is a beautiful and extensive sheet of water, and excellent shooting is to be found round the area which it occupies. Northward stretches the extensive mallee county of Karkarooc, on the eastern boundary of which is the largest lake in the north of the colony —Lake Tyrrell, an expansive sheet of salt water which covers an area of over forty two thousand acres, and which is second only to Lake Corangamite amongst the lakes of the colony.

Starting from Ballarat by the line to Servicetown, on the South Australian border, the first station at which the train pulls up is Scarsdale Junction. From this last-named station a branch line conducts south through the little mining settlements of Trunk Lead, Haddon and Smythesdale, and terminates in Scarsdale, near which is the flourishing mining village of Lintons, and still farther south the reefing settlement of Happy Valley. Returning to Scarsdale junction and travelling west, the route passes through the village of Burrumbeet, over thirteen hundred feet above sea level and thirteen miles from Ballarat. Here there is an inland lake of large dimensions, deep and well stocked with indigenous and imported fish, which afford the angler excellent sport. , The surrounding country is rich, and yields all kinds of farm produce in abundance, and the saw-mills in the neighbouring forests supply the material for an export trade in hardwood much appreciated for building and mining purposes. Fifteen miles farther on in a westerly direction is Beaufort, a mining and agricultural centre of considerable importance. It is situated on the Yam Hole Creek, one thousand two hundred and fifty-two feet above the level of the sea. This settlement commenced in what was known as the Fiery Creek rush, and had for a time an immense population, almost entirely of the rougher sex. It is now well-built, with good shops, and has all the appearance of stability and permanency. It has four churches, a mechanics’ institute with a library of three thousand volumes, good schools, both public and private, and friendly societies’ lodges. The surrounding country, much of which is hilly and heavily timbered, consists in part of good land adapted both to tillage and grazing, and the interests of the farmers are looked after by a local agricultural society. There is a constant supply of water brought in from Mount Cole, towards which sawmills extend from the town; and gold mining is carried on both around Beaufort and in the adjoining settlement of Waterloo, in alluvial deposits as ell as in quartz reefs. The Mount Cole scenery, is not only beautiful but grand, and the loveliness of the tree-clad slopes is enhanced by an alternation of caverns and waterfalls, bosky dells and romantic gullies.

Passing several little villages of less importance the railway reaches Ararat, at a distance of one hundred and fifty-seven miles from the metropolis. It is situated near the river Hopkins, between Mounts Cole and William. The town is three miles south of the Dividing Range, and one thousand and twenty-eight feet above the level of the sea. This place also sprang, in 1854, out of a digging "rush" of the early days of the goldfields era, and surrounding it are unsightly heaps of pipe-clay and mullock —made by the early excavators —which Nature has not yet been kind enough to clothe with fresh verdure.

Victoria owes little of its picturesqueness to "decay’s effacing fingers," but the few ruins it offers to the eye have a pathos peculiar to themselves. In their mute eloquence, they speak of hopeful enterprises confidently embarked in, courageously pursued and eventually abandoned; of silence superseding the busy hum of labour, the whirring of machinery and the panting of steam engines; and of solitude replacing a populous encampment of men, women and children., Rusty boilers, cold furnaces, smokeless chimney-stacks, motionless pistons and driving-gear, disused grinding mills, shafts filled to the brink with stagnant water, tramways overgrown with weeds, and water-channels choked up or running to waste, are all that remain to show that two or three hundred thousand pounds were sunk in what proved to be a disastrous undertaking, and that the spot was once a centre of industrial activity and a cynosure of enthusiastic expectancy. There is the cottage in which the engineer lived, but it is doorless, windowless and roofless;

No dog is at the threshold, great or small
No pigeon on the roof, no household creature,
No cat demurely dozing on the wall,
Not one domestic feature.

Another kind of ruin is to be seen on the site of a "diggings" of the older times. Here the ground was shallow and the claim small in extent, and as each party had to sink its own shaft there are, from twelve to twenty feet apart, little mounds of pipe-clay and gravel that were brought to grass in the "fifties." In some of these long-abandoned places, where the surface soil chanced to be favourable to vegetation, eucalypti and acacias have sprung up, and have tenderly and affectionately hidden some of the scars inflicted by man upon the bosom of the earth; but where the surface consists of schistose clay and ironstone gravel, in which nothing will grow, only sterility and bareness meet the eye. In an exceptionally favoured gully, or on some patch of alluvial flat on the borders of a creek, there is to be seen, perhaps, the garden of some Chinese; and there are possibly a dozen or more diggers who still cling to the old spot, where they manage to earn a scanty and precarious livelihood by re-working old ground or re-washing ancient "tailings." In the evening they repair to the singe hostelry that has out-lingered the better fortunes of the rush, and over their pensive bibations recall the memories of the past and bewail the good old times with the one remaining publican, whose once spacious billiard saloon and concert room have disappeared; whose cellar is empty; and whose stock of liquors is now stored behind and beneath the bar counter.

Ruins of a different description are occasionally to be met with in the older agricultural settlements, where homesteads have been abandoned, either because the soil had been exhausted by excessive cropping, or because its original selectors —who had taken it up at a pound per acre, payable by instalments —had re-sold it a few years afterwards at five or ten times its original cost to a neighbouring landowner, who had bought he land for grazing purposes, and having no occasion for the farm buildings had suffered them to fall into decay.

One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints the smiling plain.

A great many wheat-growers in the Wimmera district are immigrants from tracts of arable country that were settled upon twenty or thirty years ago. Finally, among characteristic colonial ruins are those in the old pastoral districts, where the home station of a squatter has been surrendered to dilapidation owing to the run having been rendered valueless in consequence of "the eyes" being "picked out of it" by free selectors. Shrubberies which are almost entitled to be spoken of as aged, gardens that were once bright with flowers, and orchards that were a picture in the blossoming spring and fruitful autumn, have been Invaded by the thistle and the bracken, and "the long grass o’ertops the mouldering wall."

Of the human ruins —most pathetic of all —that wander about the colony and drift into its lunatic asylums, or drop into a pauper’s grave, or disappear suddenly or mysteriously, there is no need to speak at any length. The seeds of moral decay and worldly failure were sown elsewhere, and they only ripened a little more rapidly perhaps in a new country than they would have done in the old one, where they were first planted.

Ararat’s shafts, however, are not all abandoned; neither is all labour in the darksome crypts of the earth in search of its hidden wealth suspended. There are still extensive gold mine in this district conducted in the improved methods of the present time. The formation of the country is basaltic, intermixed with granite, limestone and slate. There are here a. government lunatic asylum, public gardens, literary institutions, and all the other appurtenances of a settled community. Ararat lies midway between Melbourne and the South Australian border. There are many pretty drives in the neighbour hood, notably to the vine yards at Armstrongs, and to the water supply works on the western slopes of the Langri Ghiran Ranges.

In this district are some of the most prosperous vineyards in the colony. They are known as the "Great Western," and are about five miles on the Ballarat side of Stawell. These vineyards are not of such large dimensions as other properties of the same kind in other parts of Victoria, but every vintage they produce wine enough for the consumption of one hundred thousand people. The vineyards vary in extent from twenty to a hundred acres, and could be made to yield between six and seven hundred gallons per acre every year, but the vignerons say that to tax their land and vines to that extent impoverishes both, and it is economically wiser with a view to the future, to be content with three or four hundred gallons to the acre per annum. Twenty or thirty different varieties of the vine are here cultivated, but those are most in favour which produce the Hermitage, Burgundy, Esparto, Mataro, Chasselas, Pino Blanc, Tokay and Muscat wines. The practice is to blend the produce of these varieties so as to prepare for the market only a few qualities of wine, chiefly of dry and still kinds. Strong and sweet wines can be prepared by using Muscat more largely, and leaving the bunches to hang longer on the bushes, but it is found that wine containing between eighteen and twenty-four per cent. of alcohol at proof strength best suits the market. The Great Western vignerons, who are not in straits for money, keep their wine for three or four years, when they expect about five shillings a gallon for it. Those who are compelled to realise promptly after the vintage, have to adept much lower prices, sometimes not more than eighteenpence or two shillings a gallon. The vines are set out in straight rows, six to eight feet apart, and at about the same distance from plant to plant, each being supported by a stake, six or seven feet high, and a "lateral," selected for its strength and vigour, is left to run from vine to vine. From this, each succeeding year’s new wood springs to bud and blossom. The young buds show themselves about October, and the vintage commences in April, sometimes extending to the middle of May, according to the nature of the season. The vineyards undergo two careful ploughings each year, one before and one after, the winter rains. The plants are carefully pruned between June and September-July being the month preferred for the operation, if circumstances admit; they are then cut back to their "stools." A Victorian vineyard is a beautiful, object during several months of the year. A French writer has observed that a grape vine in its full vigour of beauty and productiveness is a charming thing to contemplate, but, like a beautiful woman, it must be well nourished and well cared for, it cannot, however, truthfully be said that the vine is pampered in any way here. Indeed, except by a bountiful nature that gives it a fertile soil, and a climate in which to luxuriate and produce its berries, there is very little done for it other than such small attentions as already described.

The wine-producing industry is chiefly in the hands of hard-working struggling men, who toll as laboriously and during as many hours in the day as the hired men in their employment, and are not always so easy in their minds. But, in spite of the difficulties it has had to contend against, the wine-growing industry of the colony is thoroughly sound and healthy, and is bound to grow to large dimensions in the near future. At present it supplies a good wholesome beverage to the private dinner-table at eighteenpence a bottle, while in the many wine-shops of our cities, which Frenchmen, Germans and Italians more especially frequent, it is retailed at the moderate price of sixpence a tumbler. When mercantile enterprise and scientific skill have combined to make Australian wine resemble Spanish port and French claret, an export trade in the article will arise to which it is now impossible to assign a limit, while, the foreign consumers will not be the worse, but rather the better, for the substitution.

At Stawell the railway line enters another important gold region. As far back as 1856, extensive mining operations were carried on there, and the place was known as the Pleasant Creek quartz reefs. Eighteen years ago the "reefs" became a borough under the designation of Stawell. Until 1880 this was a mining centre of considerable importance, ranking next to Ballarat and Sandhurst in productiveness. When its alluvial mining was prosperous, it supported a population of from fifty to sixty thousand, and its career commenced with a "rush," which was one of the most extensive of the kind that has ever taken place in the colony. Later on its alluvial deposits were exhausted, but its quartz mines continued to maintain about ten thousand inhabitants. Its present population, which has shrunk to six thousand, appears to be in fairly prosperous circumstances. Its principal mine is the Moonlight-cum-Magdala, which promises to equal in productiveness the once famous North Cross and Scotchman’s lines of reef in the same district. The Magdala is raising quartz from a depth of nearly three thousand feet; the Newington from a depth of above two thousand; and the Prince Patrick and Scotchman’s from a depth of nearly two thousand feet. The town is one hundred and seventy-five miles from Melbourne in a north-westerly direction, seventy-four from Ballarat, and eighteen from Ararat. It is thoroughly well-built, chiefly of sandstone from the Grampians, and its streets and footpaths are well made and well kept, but rather crooked in their alignment, the main street looking as if it followed an ancient cow-path, instead of having been originally laid out by the town surveyor. But this is not an unmixed evil, since the sinuousness of the road affords a not unpleasant relief to eyes accustomed to the severely straight lines of most Victorian towns. There are ten churches in the town, some of them very handsome, four substantial banks and a large general hospital, which provides for the necessities of a widely extended district. The town hall is large and commodious, and the place possesses in addition a shire hall in what is called the old township. Stawell possesses flourmills, a brewery on a considerable scale, and shops and hotels bearing all the outward appearances of permanency and comfort. The educational requirements of the town are supplied by two State schools capable of accommodating twelve hundred children, a grammar school, a Roman Catholic school and some private seminaries. The free library and reading-room is an imposing structure, well supplied with the literature of the day. Perhaps the most important public work of Stawell is its water supply, which is on an extensive scale, and is both constant and excellent in quality. The water is conveyed for a distance of eight miles through iron flumes from its source in Hall’s Gap, in the Grampian Range; then it disappears under a hill and is carried three-quarters of a mile through a tunnel excavated at great expense. Emerging from its subterranean channel, the stream enters the main pipe and empties itself into a service reservoir, whose capacity is two and a half million gallons; and from this the town, the mining claims, the manufactories and the railway, engines are supplied. A valuable item in the industrial resources of this town is its building stone, which is an excellent freestone found at the base of Mount’ Difficult in quantities that seem to be practically inexhaustible; a substantial railway connects the quarries with the main line at Stawell. About one hundred men are now employed in cutting and transporting this mineral, and the output is sure to increase as its superiority becomes more widely known. During the past few years the agriculture of the district has been growing in importance, and the population is well supplied with the necessaries of life from local sources. A mixed system of husbandry is adopted, and a considerable variety of farm products are sent to market. The picturesque features of the locality are its mountains. To the west tower the lofty and rugged Grampians, some of whose peaks assume most fantastic shapes when illumined by the setting sun, and whose deep gorges and precipitous cliffs afford a succession of views grand, spectral, romantic and Dantesque. The base may be reached by the quarry railway, which also affords easy access to the beautiful Lake Lonsdale. To the south, Mounts Cole and Mortlake, are striking features in the landscape, while to the east the attention is arrested and the admiration commanded by the bold escarpment of the Pyrenees and the Blue Mountains. Stawell is situated midway been the Great and Little Wimmeras, from which it is nine miles distant in either direction, and these streams afford good fishing, grounds while at certain seasons of the year their banks are much frequented by wild fowl. The mountains are rich in native flowers, some of which are of great beauty, and these alone independently of the other charms of the district, attract many visitors during those months of the year in which they are to be found in the greatest profusion and. the greatest luxuriance of bloom.

The town is enriched with two fine reserves: one a large public garden in Stawell West, the other a botanic garden, both of which are admirably laid out. The excellent water supply has facilitated the establishment of public baths, and the market accommodation is ample for the wants of the inhabitants.

From Stawell the railway continues almost in a straight line to the north-west, passing through the villages of Deep Lead, Glenorchy, Walwal and Lubeck to Murtoa, where it makes an abrupt dip to the south-west through Jung Jung and Dooen to Horsham. From Murtoa a branch line connects the last-named with Warracknabeal, a little settlement, over two hundred and forty miles north-west of Melbourne, planted on the edge of a dense mallee scrub extending far into the county of Karkarooc.

At about two hundred and thirty miles from Melbourne is Horsham, which was long "the city of the plains" par excellence, being for some years the terminus of the railway line and the centre of the principal wheat-growing district of the colony —the famous Wimmera country. This is a well laid out and well built town, and is the seat of an important manufacture of the fine agricultural implements which have proved a factor in the development of the wheat-producing capacity of the far-reaching plains that surround it. Besides agriculture, the town is supported by flour Mills, carriage factories and other valuable industries. It is supplied with water pumped up from the Wimmera and distributed in pipes throughout its whole extent. There are, in addition to its State schools, two excellent private educational establishments; and the borough supports five churches. Its government buildings are all under one roof surmounted by a lofty clock tower; while the town hall of the borough is an imposing structure. In its general hospital, supplied with all the modern medical and surgical appliances, sufferers from a widely extended area are sheltered and treated. The town is the headquarters of the Horsham and Wimmera agricultural society, whose shows have for many years attracted large numbers of interested visitors. An excellent mechanics’ institute is well furnished with books and newspapers; and the local racecourse, which affords excellent opportunities for testing the quality of the horse stock bred in the Wimmera district, is a favourite resort of sporting men.

Beyond Horsham stretches the vast tract known as the Wimmera country. Here are extensive plains of good wheat land, which yield, year after year without any artificial stimulus, from twelve to sixteen bushels of grain per acre. The crops vary with the seasons and with the quality of the land, but the average lies between the limits just given. The country is flat, and the rainfall has some difficulty in escaping from it, which is an embarrassment to the farmer. If he can seed his land in the second half of May or the first half of June, he is fortunate; if he can sow in July, he is still fortunate; but excellent crops have been known to reward a seeding that took place so late as the middle of August. The Wimmera district is well provided with flourmills, and a good deal of wheat produced in the district is ground on the spot, but by far the larger portion is sent to Melbourne for export. At the various railway stations, along the line great piles of sacks of wheat may be seen at almost any time of the year awaiting transport. A Wimmera wheatfield at the reaping time is an inspiriting sight. A fine bright day is always chosen for opening the harvest, as a damp atmosphere retards the action of the stripper by making the wheat-stalks tough. The sky is of that brilliant clear blue which shows the dryness of the climate, and the sun beats down fiercely on the acres of waving grain. Shade there is none, for all the trees have been "grubbed" or "ringed," or in other ways destroyed, neither comfort nor beauty being considered when gain is in question. At lunchtime the sunburnt harvesters throw themselves in careless attitudes under the stripper, or the cart which has brought them to the spot, while homely refreshments are served out to them.

The implement chiefly in use as a harvester is an ingenious machine which strips the ears off the standing corn and leaves the straw, often six or seven feet high, to be trampled down or burned as it stands, at the farmer’s discretion. Inside it is a drum, or beating apparatus, which separates the grain from the chaff; and is soon as a few bags have been collected, the contents of this drum are emptied on to a tarpaulin, and the chaff allowed to blow away. An improved machine of this kind contains a winnowing adjustment, and a still more ingenious apparatus has been invented which will weigh the corn, and sack it, and stitch up the mouths of the bags in a workmanlike manner. The stripper is drawn by two or three horses, which trot through the fields at a brisk rate, commencing in lanes previously cut for them by hand.

Flourishing and prosperous as this Wimmera wheat country is, it is in no way to be compared for beauty and picturesqueness with the agricultural settlements of Great Britain, or with the earlier settlements of Victoria. Farmsteads are here to be seen, around which are many indications of wealth in the form of stock and implements, while the family residence is a poor congeries of sheds, with one mud chimney very much out of the perpendicular it is not uncommon, in this part of the country, to see a reaping-machine worth eighty pounds exposed to wind and weather, or a buggy, worth fifty pounds with only a few shingles to shelter it, and chickens roosting upon its pole. The fences are rectilinear and rectangular, but being of wire, which is invisible from the train, they, look like interminable rows of ninepins which have been set up on the plains. About many of these farmhouses, which seem crumbling to decay, whilst still young as regards years, there are no vegetables growing —nor so much as a gooseberry bush, a marigold, or a daisy. No doubt the aspect of the country will improve and its comforts increase as time goes on, and it is confidently expected that the settlers, whose surroundings at present are almost squalid, will enrich themselves and the whole community by their industry, when the initial difficulties of their position have been overcome. And these difficulties are serious and numerous, for it will sometimes happen that a field of ripe corn awaiting the harvester will be levelled to the ground in a few minutes by a violent hail storm from an apparently cloudless sky. Red rust will occasionally devastate the crops, and the caterpillar, the locust, the voracious paroquet and the ubiquitous rabbit, are enemies whose depredations he has constantly to fear.

Leaving Horsham the railway traveller passes Pimpinio and Wail, which are little more than railway stations and wheat depots. Somewhat farther on is Dimboola, two hundred and fifty miles from Melbourne. This is a more important place, containing three churches, a flourmill, a foundry, several banks, a courthouse, a mechanics’ ‘institute, and a State school. There are deposits of salt in the district, and at Antwerp, thirteen miles distant, is a distillery for the extraction of oil from mallee leaves. The river Wimmera runs northward past Dimboola on its way to Lake Hindmarsh, through which it flows into Lake Albacutya, its waters escaping from the latter under the name of Outlet reek. Beyond Dimboola are half a dozen other railway stations, mostly in the mallee country, after passing which, Serviceton is reached at three hundred and twelve miles from Melbourne.

This last-named village consists of a refreshment room and about twenty-five wooden cottages, occupied by railway employés. No doubt this place will in time grow into great importance as the centre of an immense railway traffic, but at present it cannot be described as being either picturesque or cheerful.

Near the South Australian border the famed mallee country extends itself. It begins south of the railway line from Melbourne to Adelaide, and stretches northward over the counties of Lowan, Borung, Tatchera, Karkarooc, Weeah and Millewa. This mallee country is a vast area of what will no doubt in the future prove excellent land, but it is now covered with so dense a growth of the gum tree known as eucalyptus dumosa, that it has not until quite recently been turned to profitable account. Sheep lose themselves in it, or leave their wool upon its bushes, while their owners, when searching for them, are also very apt to get lost. To encourage settlement in this rather impracticable region, the government threw it open for occupation under lease on very easy terms, and this drew to it a considerable number of enterprising men from both sides of the border. The first work of the agricultural settlers was to clear off the scrub. This they did by driving through it strong teams of bullocks with heavy rollers behind them. In this way the timber was levelled to the ground in the beginning of summer, and then left to dry. At the approach of autumn, it was set on fire and burned, and as soon as the first rains had so moistened the land as to render it workable, ploughing was commenced. The ploughs preferred for this work are ‘stump-jumpers,’ which, by an ingenious mechanical arrangement, can elude both subterranean and superficial obstructions. With a double furrow plough and two good horses, a competent man can turn over about three acres a day to a depth of six inches; with a treble furrow plough drawn by four or five horses, he can invert four acres or more. The result of the subsequent sowing and reaping has been fairly satisfactory, and will no doubt prove increasingly so as the land becomes year by year more friable. A very large area of this mallee country has been leased by the government to two enterprising Americans, the Messrs. Chaffey, who propose to irrigate and sub-let the land, and introduce upon it the most improved methods of grain and fruit growing practised in the states of California and Nevada. Near the river Murray the mallee becomes less dense and alternates with grass land and salt bush plains; the eucalyptus dumosa occurring only in belts and not in forests; this is known as the Rank country.

From Ararat the south-western line of railway, which terminates at Portland, takes a route which traverses a country, of remarkable fertility —the Australia Felix of the explorer, Major Sir Thomas Mitchell. For some miles the line runs almost parallel with the Hopkins River, but, striking more directly west, skirts the Wannon and the Grange Burn, one on either side, and crosses the Fitzroy and the Surry before the terminus is reached. It passes, successively, the villages of Maroona, Wickliffe Road, Glenthomson, Dunkeld and Moutajup, and, at a distance of about two hundred and twenty-four miles from Melbourne, strikes Hamilton, an important inland centre, which, not without some reason, claims the title of the metropolis of the West. Its municipal existence dates from 1859. The town grew up out of a ‘ford,’ which was the most convenient place for teamsters and other travellers in the earlier days to cross the Grange Burn. The place is only twelve miles from the Wannon River, which is farther west, and on which are some beautiful falls. The geological formation of the district is miocene and newer volcanic, the surface consisting of good grazing and farming land. The town, which is picturesquely situated at an elevation of about sixteen hundred feet above the sea level, contains, besides the usual State schools, two colleges and one academy —the Hamilton and Western District College for boys —one of the most architecturally imposing of the local structures —the Alexandra College for young ladies, and the Hamilton Academy, which last is a high-class educational institution for boys. The State school is capable of accommodating five hundred children, and there is also a Roman Catholic school. There are published here two newspapers, one tri-weekly and one weekly. The water supply of the town is very efficient, and the works were completed at a cost of nearly fourteen thousand pounds; the reservoir has a storage capacity of thirty million gallons. The metropolis of the West has nine churches —including the exceptional denominations, Gælic and German Lutheran —and three banking establishments which occupy premises worthy of the substantial character of the business transacted within their walls. Besides the foregoing and a savings bank, two financial and several insurance companies have agencies here. The local pastoral and agricultural society have biannual exhibitions, at which gallant shows are made of stock and produce. Hamilton has a fine oval-shaped racecourse of about one hundred and twenty acres, upon which the race club celebrates high carnival twice a year; this course is also, used for occasional races between the allotted dates of the regular festive meetings. Various other sports and pastimes receive attention, and the Western District coursing club has its headquarters in Hamilton. One of the attractions, of the place is a handsome private club-house —erected by the members at a considerable cash outlay —which has now been established eight years. Amongst the noteworthy public buildings are the treasury, lands, post and telegraph offices, which occupy the ground upon which stood the post office of former days.

Hamilton stands upon the border between the counties of Dundas and Normanby, and has a municipal area of over five thousand acres, and ratable property to the value of eighteen thousand pounds. Besides the buildings already mentioned, the town contains a commodious hospital and benevolent asylum, a town hall and the ordinary departmental offices, a mechanics’ institute, with upward; of two thousand volumes; a convenient masonic hall, several fine hotels, and many substantial stores and general places of business. One of the features of the place every morning and evening is the arrival and departure of coaches, Hamilton being the coaching centre for the whole of the vast western territory which for years no line of railway is likely to traverse.

A coach route from Hamilton to the north-west connects the railway with a number of prosperous settlements in the extensive county of Lowan, of which Cavendish, Balmoral and Harrow are among the most important. The two latter are situated some miles apart upon the river Glenelg, the course of which stream is exceedingly tortuous between these villages. From Harrow, Edenhope can be reached, and farther on the road passes through Apsley, the postal centre of the vast plains of what is known as the Wimmera district. These extend over an area of twenty-five thousand square miles, constituting a broad tract of grazing land occupied mainly by sheep stations and squattages; the soil, which is of a sandy nature and not very productive, is ill-suited to the purposes of tillage, and therefore the district is thinly peopled. From Apsley another route keeps up communication with Narracoorte in the neighbouring colony of South Australia, whence a line of railway connects with Adelaide. The little settlement of Chetwynd, on the river of the same name, is touched by the road from Harrow to Casterton, whence, by the main road from Melbourne to Adelaide, Coleraine can be visited and coach journey resumed to Hamilton. Southward the routes radiate from the metropolis of the West over the counties of Villiers, Hampden and Heytesbury, whose villages are also in communication with the towns on the coast and the railway line from Geelong to Camperdown.

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