DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF VICTORIA   

Atlas Page 51
By James Smith

THE  EAST  2...

Beyond this point, the railway passes through the skeletons of myriads of ringbarked trees bleaching in the sun, and imparting a weird and spectral aspect to the landscape, which does not entirely regain its leafy character until Broadford is approached and the curiously conical hill known as Mount Piper has been passed. The latter is an extinct volcano, thirteen hundred feet high, and the fertility of the soil vomited from its entrails in some far off, epoch is attested by the brilliant carpet of flowers with which nature clothes its verdant slopes as often as the spring comes round, Broadford itself is a pleasant little place, through which flows perennial stream well stocked with fish. On quitting it, a grim array of dead timber, fantastic in appearance as some of the forests in Doré’s pictures, confronts the traveller on either hand.

Tallarook is soon reached, and is seen to be beautifully situated at the foot of a network of ranges. In the old times, Power, the bushranger, was accustomed to watch from the summit of one of these hills for the arrival of the coach from Beechworth, and make his plans for waylaying it when it brought down a quantity of gold from the mines. A substantial two-storey hotel, with a rival establishment on the other side of the road, two or three stores and a few cottages skirting the almost disused highway, constitute the little village, through which a creek trickles feebly in the summer, though it flows freely enough in the winter season.

The branch line of railway to Yea follows the windings of the valley of the Goulburn. The banks of that river are fringed by a matted undergrowth of scrub, brightened in places by the vivid green of the weeping willows that dip their long tresses in its waters. Comparatively high ranges hem in the valley on the right and on the left, sometimes coming up close to the edge of the stream and at others receding so as to leave a narrow margin of marshy pasture. Towards the close of the afternoon the play of light and shade upon the hills and valleys brings out some beautiful effects of colour, and while the slopes on one side are robed in cool purples and quiet grays and sombre greens, those upon the opposite bank, facing the southwest, are lustrous with a golden haze. In places, large masses of granite crop out of the mountain sides, and beyond Kerrisdale, where the hills fall back so as to leave an ampler space not unlike the arena of an amphitheatre, the white stems of the dead saplings are rendered all the more ghastly by contrast with the extreme freshness of the moist herbage underneath. The high lands are moulded in softer curves, and leave larger interspaces of succulent pastures as Homewood is neared; and the distant ranges to the eastward, which attain their greatest altitude in Mount Cunning ham, one thousand nine hundred and twenty feet above the sea level, put on that purple bloom which remoteness lends them; while the bends of the river impart additional beauty to a succession of charming landscapes.

The town of Yea lies folded in a zone of hills, some of which are rounded at the summit with such smoothness as to suggest the grotesque idea that their heads had been first shaven and then polished. All the surroundings of the place are picturesque, and it is within earshot of a brawling stream of the same name as itself, which afterwards loses its identity in the Goulburn. The town straggles over a considerable area of ground, and consists principally of one broad street, in the centre of which two spaces have been fenced in and planted, so as to form a kind of "mall." Once or twice a week a coach leaves for Alexandra and Marysville, and the route lies through some of the most beautiful scenery in Victoria. The road ascends almost continuously until an eminence is reached upon which has been bestowed the unromantic name of Cotton’s Pinch. From this hill a superb view is obtained, embracing tier upon tier of, noble ranges, for the most part heavily timbered; while a deep and winding valley, as fertile as it is delightful to the eye, sweeps in billowy curves below. A second ridge is crossed before reaching Alexandra, and its summit overlooks the town, which spreads itself over a spacious hollow, surrounded by hills standing farther back than those in the vicinity of Yea. The village, in its present condition, gives one the impression of a country town in process of development. Its streets are pleasantly planted with gum trees, and with the pinus insignis.

The surrounding district is both mining and agricultural. From Alexandra to Buxton, the road winds around and ascends the shoulder of a range, somewhat after the manner of the ascent of the Simplon from the Swiss side, and the traveller is reminded of the latter in many respects, only the leading features of the scenery are here on a reduced scale. But the varying landscape is of remarkable beauty and wide extent. Below is a rich and wooded valley with more shades of colour in the foliage than is customary in the Australian bush —pinks and mauves, tawny orange and old gold, mingling with the various tints of green. Occasionally the gleam of water is visible among the trees and the fat pastures in the bottom lands. In the distance, labyrinthine mountains of different altitudes, aptly designated the Puzzle Ranges, fill in the background, and present lovely gradations of colour —from a "glad light green" to a sumptuous purple —which again fade away into a faint and misty blue on the verge of the horizon. Mount Talbot appears ‘to wear an ermine cape upon its massive shoulders —a belt of dead timber bleached to a silvery whiteness encompassing its summit. Every few minutes the scene changes as the point of view varies in position and elevation, the Cathedral Rock being always a conspicuous object in it, owing to the ruggedness of its form and the sombre tints of the outcrop of bare rock which crowns and constitutes its crest. As it is neared its profile resembles that of Mount Soracte, which

From out the plain
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break,
And on the curl hangs pausing.

But this resemblance disappears on a nearer view; for, skirting its base, it is seen to be but the extremity of a great upheaval of sandstone two thousand one hundred and twenty feet in height. Presently the road crosses the Acheron, one of the affluents of the Goulburn, at a point where there is a lovely combination of wood and water —a swirling stream pursuing its rapid course through thickets of leafy trees and aromatic underwood and affording an atmosphere of coolness and freshness; while the neighbouring ranges seem to fold the valley in a fond embrace, and, towering over all, the Cathedral Rock, fissured and seamed by the slow erosion of wind and rain during many centuries, may be regarded as the genius loci of the scene. A good deal of settlement has taken place in the valley of the Acheron. Here and there the eye lights upon a little homestead perched on a green knoll sufficiently high to place it above the reach of a flood, with a belt of young orchard trees and a plot of garden ground close by; while a few acres of wheat or oats —the former often yielding forty and the latter eighty bushels to the acre —tesselate the green surface of the valley with an inlay of amber or yellow. The latter part of the journey to Marysville is usually performed in the brief twilight and the succeeding darkness. As the ground rises, the trees gain in altitude, and where they have been ringed, nothing can be more weird and fantastic than the shapes they assume and the images they suggest. The gaunt white skeletons resemble withered witches of gigantic stature stretching forth their long and skinny arms in menace or in supplication, in deprecation or despair, and the interlacing branches convey the idea of bony fingers clasped in anguish or entreaty. Where a fire has passed over the forest and left nothing but charred stumps, the passenger is hurried past something that might easily be mistaken for a convocation of monks, in sable robes and cowls, kneeling beneath the purple canopy of heaven in silent prayer. As the trees become more vast in girth, more columnar in stem, and more ogival in the curves of their branches, which only begin to spring into ribs and groins at a great elevation, the effect produced is that of traversing the central aisle of a succession of magnificent minsters as lofty as that of Cologne, with transepts of side aisles and chapels of sylvan Gothic branching out upon either side, and the illusion is assisted by occasional glimpses of the moonlit sky through such lateral apertures as the fancy transforms into oriel windows, filled with the most intricate tracery and with stained glass.

Marysville lies in a hollow about two thousand feet above the level of the sea. The lofty ranges which form the sloping sides of this basin —in which there is just space enough for a village to nestle —are densely wooded to the very summit, and are clothed with a robe of splendid colour, which fluctuates in tone and tin from hour to hour as the sun marches in the heavens and the sky is lustrous with light or overcast with gloom; and the charm of the scenery, the purity of the atmosphere and the coolness of the nights have made the place a favourite resort for visitors during the summer months. At night the thermometer usually falls to fifty-eight degrees.

But who the freshness of the early morn can tell
With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom!

There is a sparkle of dew on grass and flower, the air is fragrant with the aromatic odours of the forest flora, and the waters of the Steavenson make pleasant music as they pursue their nimble passage from their birthplace in the mountains to their junction with the Acheron, a mile or two this side of the Cathedral Rock. And at night, when the full moon has climbed above the massy wall of forest growth by which this beautiful region is encompassed and pours down upon the landscape the gauzy swimming vapour which hangs over rock and tree like a veil of fine-spun silver mist, and plays fantastic tricks with the white shafts and the dark foliage of the omnipresent gum trees, what curious filigree Moresco work these molten shafts and interwoven shadows trace in shifting chequered pattern of mellow light and mystic darkness on the swaying breeze-stirred landscape. But when the winds are prisoned up in their aëry caverns, the scene resembles a fancied glimpse snatched from faëryland, for the full-orbed "regent of the night" pours

A sea of lustre on the horizon’s verge,
That overflows its mountains. Yellow mist
Fills the unbounded atmosphere, and drinks
Wan moonlight even to fullness; not a star
Shines, not a sound is heard; the very winds,
Danger’s grim playmates on the precipice
Sleep, clasped in his embrace.

Here and there a ruddy, spot of light glimmers through the darkness of the village, or the moonlight throws a silver gleam upon the brook in the hollow, but the rest of the landscape is enveloped in a spectral haze which invests it with a peculiar and fantastic beauty altogether different from that which it wears in the broad daylight.

The way, to the Steavenson Falls lies along a well-defined track which eventually narrows to a mere bridle-path, winding round the flank of a. mountain at a considerable elevation above the creek below. The voice of the latter is never silent as it chafes and foams, eddies and murmurs in its hurrying motion through the channel it has delved for itself in the midst of the rank vegetation which is indebted to it for its exuberant growth and perpetual verdure. Following it up, the foot of the Falls may be reached in about an hour and a half’s walking from Marysville. The cataract takes its rise on the summit of the mountain, where the clouds which float inward from the sea, and the vapours arising from less distant valleys and plains are condensed by impact on the cool heights, and the heavy rainfall feeds innumerable springs of greater or lesser volume. That which supplies the Steavenson Falls is of course most voluminous in the winter season, or after the melting of the snow, which is no unfrequent visitor in these lofty regions. But when a heavy thunder-shower occurs in the middle of the summer, a large body of water, churned into foam by leaping over a succession of rocky ledges, bounds down a deep umbrageous ravine, and frets and fumes and brawls and bubbles in the shady depths of a cool cloister, of which the overarching fronds of graceful tree-ferns form the vault, while the intricate and delicate tracery is furnished by the leaves of intermingled shrubs and creepers. The rocks which constitute the base and buttresses of the lowest ledge where the cataract takes its final leap have something of the colour with much of the glossiness of coal, and they serve to heighten by contrast the snowy whiteness of the water as it throws off thin clouds of spray which dissolve in refreshing dew upon the densely-woven grass and bracken underneath. The ranges on either side of the ravine are extremely precipitous, and combine the characteristics of an Australian forest with those of an Asiatic jungle, in so far as the closeness and complicity of the undergrowth are concerned.

Another, pleasant excursion from Marysville is to Tommy’s Bend and Cumberland Creek. The road thither winds around the shoulders of the Great Dividing Range, and in some places is carried along a mere cornice, from the outer edge of which the ground drops in a sheer descent and overlooks the summits of trees two hundred feet high, which are only a hundred yards distant. On, the other side, there is an almost perpendicular ascent, no less heavily timbered than that upon the lower slope. Fern-tree avenues, following certain depressions in the mountainsides, denote the presence of streams which begin to flow as soon as the, spring sunshine melts the winter snows upon the summits of the ranges. The hills on the opposite side are similarly furrowed and beautified, and in one place may be seen a magnificent stairway of sassafras-trees lifting their pyramidal cones one above another in orderly sequence from the depths of the gorge to the ridge of the mountain. Between five and six miles from Marysville the Dividing Range is crossed, and the creeks on one side go to feed the Goulburn and the Murray, and find their ultimate outfall in Lake Alexandrina, in South Australia; while the streams flowing down the other slope are affluents of the Yarra, and empty, themselves into Hobson’s Bay. The road gains in beauty as it proceeds. At one point, there is a level space of open ground which looks as if it might have been the pleasaunce of some old mansion long since razed to the ground. The greenest of grass, three feet high, covers an apparent lawn as smooth as a bowling-green, and this is enclosed, for two-thirds of its circumference, by a shrubbery, in the formation of which nature "has snatched a grace beyond the reach of art"; so beautiful are the forms and so diversified is the character of the foliage. This is shut in and protected by a stately belt of beech or "myrtle" trees, the branches and leaves of which have interwoven such an intricate web of vegetation that, if the palace of the Sleeping Beauty had been girdled by such a forest, the Prince would never have succeeded in penetrating to the chamber where

Her constant beauty did inform
Stillness in love, and day with light.

Cumberland Creek is reached about ten miles from Marysville. A splitter has erected his hut in the midst of a scene in which some Australian Spenser may find his inspiration for another "Faërie Queen" or a future Shelley may compose another "Witch of Atlas." Where a runnel of cold clear water trickles across the road, a little clearance has been made, around which rise the bare white trunks of a score or two of the giants of the forest killed by the usual process of ringing. Wintry winds have stripped them of the boughs and branches by which they were plumed in their life time, so that they now resemble the lofty pillars of a stately temple, with nothing less than the azure vault of heaven for its glorious and perfect dome; behind and encircling it is an outer wall of live timber of equal altitude.

From Cumberland Creek to Melbourne, the route lies through Marysville to Fernshaw, and, after crossing the Black Spur, it minds amidst a magnificent shrubbery composed of hazel scrub with its lance-like stems and clinging foliage, the uniform height of which gives it the appearance, when seen in a mass at a little distance, of a hop-garden. Native laurel, musk, sassafras, the yellow blossoms of St. John’s wort, the creamy flowers of the catwood-tree, the sheen of the sunshine on the myrtles turning their leaves to burnished silver, the graceful fronds of the ever-recurring tree-ferns, the mountain springs which are heard but not seen, the glimpses obtained from time to. time of Mounts Sugarloaf and Strickland and of the now familiar Cathedral Rock combine to produce such an impression upon the mind that, as one descends from these sylvan heights, he leaves behind him, with a sentiment of regret, the superb trees which attain such imposing altitudes and proportions on the summit of these intricate ranges.

Healesville, the first town reached after quitting the little hamlet of Fernshaw, is built on a slope that falls down to the edge of the Graceburn, a mountain stream which here effects a junction with the Watts, and is environed by, orchards, hop-gardens, and pastures. The place is pleasantly situated, is gradually rising in importance, and promises one day to become the centre of a populous district; while an aboriginal station has been established for upwards of twenty years at Coranderak, about two miles off.

Thirteen miles from Healesville is the village of Lilydale, one of the oldest settlements in the district. It is picturesquely planted at the head of a valley which widens out into the Yarra Flats, and enjoys the advantage of a pure stream of never-failing water —the Olinda; and, lying as it does on the edge of the "Victorian Switzerland," and in the immediate neighbourhood of streams and ranges, it is much frequented by visitors in the summer months. Lilydale is only a few miles from the famous wine-growing districts of St. Hubert’s and Yering, the extensive vineyards of which produce some of the finest Burgundy, Hermitage, Reisling, and Chasselas in Victoria.

From Lilydale a pleasant excursion may be also made to Wandin, up in what is known as the Redlands, celebrated for its large production of raspberries. The soil is a deep terra cotta red, and the surrounding scenery is as romantic as the mountain air is pure and bracing. Far and near there is nothing to be seen but a succession of ranges wooded to the very top, with here and there the white home of a settler gleaming out from its dark environment of trees, or set in the midst of an emerald patch of cultivation —for there is not an acre of land in the district that has not been taken up —and the little community at Wandin is as prosperous in the present as it is hopeful of the future.

The return journey to Melbourne from Lilydale can be made by rail and anyone who alights at the next station, Croydon, and ascends Burt’s Hill, a mile to the northward, will be rewarded by the sight of one of the most magnificent panoramas in Victoria. Eastward the eye ranges over a beautiful valley as green as emerald to where Mounts Monda, St. Leonard, and Juliet lift their majestic heads above a multitude of ranges covering the greater part of the county of Evelyn to the northward are the Plenty and the Sherwin Ranges to the westward, the view extends as far as the Keilor Plains, Melbourne itself being hidden from view by, the high ground to the eastward of it; while close at hand, to the southward, the Dandenong Ranges bulk large, and recede as they approach the sea-shore, towards which and the ocean beyond the eye is carried in that direction.

At Ringwood, on the homeward route, extensive brick and tile works have been called into existence by the expansion of the metropolis; and from Surrey Hills onward to Melbourne cottages and houses are to be seen springing up in all directions, and the eastern suburbs of the city rapidly overspreading what were purely rural domains a few years ago.

From Tallarook an excursion may be made through the romantic scenery of northeastern Victoria. Travelling by railway to Euroa, the route lies across country comparatively uninteresting until Seymour is reached. This is a town of some importance situated on the Goulburn, and surrounded by an extensive tract of arable and pasture land liable to be occasionally flooded and fertilised by the overflowing waters of that capricious river during a rainy winter or in the early spring. Additional liveliness and prosperity have been imparted to the place by the magnitude of the traffic transacted at the railway station, and by the number of hands employed in consequence; while as the centre of a populous and thriving district, Seymour enjoys many natural advantages which its active and energetic inhabitants have turned to profitable account. Of the wayside townships beyond Mangalore, Avenel, Monea, and Longwood —the second is the only one possessing characteristics which differentiate it from the rudimentary settlements usually met with in the Australian bush. Lying in a basin encircled by hills, and in the immediate vicinity of extensive vineyards, as well as of numerous farms, Avenel enjoys a picturesque situation combined with the lucrative local trade which accrues from a not inconsiderable export of wheat and wine, orchard produce, and firewood; and the new town which has grown up around the railway station exhibits all the evidences of stability and expansion’, while the older Avenel, which skirts the original highway to the Ovens and the Chiltern goldfields, is not unlike an English country town that has witnessed the departure of its former posting-trade, and its desertion by the coaches and waggons which once passed through it at all hours of the day and night. Should the journey to Euroa be made, as it often is, by moonlight, it will be found to possess a charm peculiarly its own, for the scenery gains in pictorial beauty by, the glamour of mystery which is thrown over it. The foliage of the trees falls into masses, and thus loses its ruggedness; those which have been ringed bear a fantastic resemblance to marble obelisks and Gothic crosses, grotesque petrifactions, quaint caprices of the sculptor’s art, or rows of sheeted spectres such as rise from their graves in the cloister scene of the opera of "La Favorita." Pools of water gleam like snow-drifts in the weird moonlight; patches of white cloud lying on the edge of the horizon, and seen through a vista of trees, look like stately palaces standing upon eminences which over look magnificent demesnes; and where the free-selector has left the butts of half a dozen giants of the forest burning, their fitful blaze sheds a ruddy glare upon the sylvan scene, and heightens its eldritch aspect; the distant ranges wear a garment of sombre purple, and the feeling of solitude which seems to brood over the silent landscape is only relieved by the light that now and then sparkles in the window of a lonely cottage and associates itself with human interests, with the sanctities of home, and with the patient duties and the warm affections which centre in the domestic hearth.

Euroa is a place which exemplifies the ordinary laws of growth affecting colonial settlements. It was originally a halting station on the high road from Melbourne to Wodonga and thence to Sydney, because a permanent creek offered to the carrier special inducements for camping on its banks. A wayside public-house, a blacksmith’s forge and wheelwright’s shed, a general store, and two or three cottages formed the nucleus of a village, which grew from year to year, until a church and a schoolhouse rose, and neighbouring sheep-runs were transformed into farms; and as the passing traffic swelled in volume and local industries began to multiply, a Melbourne bank planted one of its branches in the rising town. Then the railway came, and brought with it enlarged facilities for the transport of local produce to the capital, and of merchandise to meet the wants of the district.

As the place expanded in population, its inhabitants felt the need of self-government, and they and their country neighbours were organised into a shire, of which Euroa is, as it were, the county town and the centre of its organic life. Its broad rectangular streets have still a rural look; for the fine old forest trees, which stood there when it was a woodland solitude, lift their stately forms from tie green turf of enclosures which have not yet felt the defacing touch of the builder’s hand; and there are winding meadow paths traversing the space which lies between the earlier settlement skirting the almost disused highway, and the Euroa of to-day overlooking the railway, station. The main street, running parallel with the iron road, contains a very handsome bank, and the largest and most comfortable and a commodious hotel to be met with outside the chief centres of population in Victoria. It and the adjoining public hall are erected in the same style of architecture as the bank; and if the thoroughfare in which they stand should be filled up with similar structures, Euroa will present a singularly attractive frontispiece to railway travellers. The bank itself, the National, has replaced a small one-storey edifice close by, which was the scene of the last and most daring of the robberies under arms committed by the notorious Kelly gang, whose lawless exploits had established a reign of terror in the district, and whose capture and punishment may be regarded as having stamped out the practice of bushranging in Victoria. Previous to this outrage, the gang, consisting of Edward and Daniel Kelly, Isaiah otherwise " Wild," Wright, the brothers Quinn, and the brothers Lloyd, had established themselves in the ranges lying between Greta and the King River, from which they, issued forth to prey upon the settlers in the surrounding country, receiving assistance and being aided in their concealment by a number of kinsmen, who added cattle-lifting to their ordinary pursuits. A liberal reward had been offered for their apprehension, and four mounted troopers, namely, Sergeant Kennedy, Thomas Lonigan, Michael Scanlan, and Thomas Macintyre, set out in pursuit of the marauders, and encamped on the Stringybark Creek, about twenty miles from Mansfield. Here one of them incautiously betrayed his presence by firing at some parrots, In the evening of the 26th of October, 1878, as Macintyre and Lonigan were engaged in making tea, Kennedy and Scanlan being absent at the time, four armed men, two of whom were recognised as the brothers Kelly, suddenly made their appearance and commanded the police to throw up their hands. Macintyre, having no weapons with him, did so, but Lonigan drew his revolver, and was immediately shot dead by Edward Kelly. Presently the murderer and his associates, hearing Scanlan and Kennedy approaching, concealed themselves behind some logs, and at the same time covering Macintyre with a rifle they gave him the option of silence or instant death. Kennedy was commanded to put up his hands, and, neglecting to do so, was fired at. He then dismounted, and endeavoured to make for a tree, but before he could unsling his rifle he was shot dead. Scanlan shortly afterwards met with the same fate. Meanwhile, Macintyre mounted his horse and dashed down the creek. Several shots were fired at him without effect; but one must have struck the horse, for the latter gave in, and had to be abandoned. As soon as it was dark, the fugitive took off his boots in order to make no noise, and on the afternoon of the second day succeeded in reaching a place of refuge, from which he was conveyed to Mansfield. The bodies of the three murdered policemen were afterwards discovered, and honourably interred. The assassins had betaken themselves to the recesses in the ranges, where Superintendent Nicholson, who had distinguished himself by his gallant capture of Power, the bushranger, drew a cordon round the bandits, by, which they were cut off from supplies, and were compelled a few weeks afterwards, namely, on the 10th of December, to break into the open. This they did by making a descent upon Euroa, having about two hours previously, captured the homestead of a squatting station and locked up its inmates. The marauders then cut the telegraph wires, and leaving a guard behind them, proceeded to the town, a distance of four miles. Here Edward Kelly and an accomplice named Stephen Hart entered the National Bank, and the former, after presenting a revolver at the head of the accountant, went into the manager’s room, threatened to shoot him if he stirred, made prisoners of himself, his wife, his mother, his seven children, his two servants, the accountant and the clerk, ransacked the bank, which contained about two thousand pounds in notes and specie, and conveyed the plunder and the whole of their prisoners in a buggy, a spring cart, and a hawker's light waggon to the squatting station just referred to, where no less than twenty-two persons, who had been placed under restraint, were being guarded by a fourth member of the criminal confederacy named Byrne. Finally, about half-past seven in the evening, the whole of the prisoners were placed in a hut, and warned not to stir from it until eleven o’clock, at their peril. The four bushrangers, all of whom were well-mounted, then rode off with their booty, disappearing from view for some weeks as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up. In the meantime, they and their numerous confederates and helpers had been outlawed by a special Act of Parliament, under the provisions of which one and. twenty accomplices were arrested; while rewards of eight thousand pounds were offered for the apprehension of the Kellys, and black trackers were brought from Queensland to discover and follow their trail. On the 8th of February, 1879, some of the gang had plundered the bank at Jerilderie, in New South Wales; and in June, 1880, in his hut at Sebastopol, near Beechworth, a free selector named Skerritt was shot dead by Joe Byrne, one of the four outlaws. On the 28th of that month a detachment of police was sent from Melbourne by special train to Glenrowan, a railway station forty miles north of Euroa, and reinforcements from Benalla, Beechworth, and Wangaratta brought the force up to thirty. Kelly’s party had torn up the rails about a mile and a half beyond Glenrowan, and, anticipating an attack, had taken up a defensive position about a hundred yards from the station in a public-house kept by a Mrs. Jones, upon which the police opened fire, when to their surprise they were attacked from the rear by a man in a suit of roughly-constructed plate armour; this proved to be Edward Kelly, the leader of the bushrangers. Shots were exchanged, and the outlaw, wounded in his legs and arms, which were unprotected, was seized and disarmed by Sergeant Steele. The siege was maintained all night, and Byrne was shot about five in the morning. At ten, while Daniel Kelly and Hart were defending the back, thirty men, all of whom had been made prisoners by the gang, issued from the place by the front door, and threw themselves prone upon the ground. Shortly after three in the afternoon the police set fire to the house, and the two desperadoes just named perished in the flames. An old man named Cherry, who had been dangerously wounded by the bushrangers, was rescued from an outhouse in an insensible condition, and died shortly afterwards. Edward Kelly was subsequently tried, convicted, and hanged; and it came out in the course of the evidence that during his career he had stolen upwards of two hundred horses, and that an expenditure of not less than fifty thousand pounds had been incurred in bringing this malefactor to justice.

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