MR. MURRAY ' S SUMMER AT PORT PHILLIP.

THE Honourable ROBERT DUNDAS MURRAY, an invalid in search of robuster health, and possibly of an opening for enterprise, found himself at Port Phillip in September 1841. In that rising colony he passed the following summer, answering to our winter : but the only distinct notice we have of his doings is an account of a journey into the bush and a sojourn at the hut of a settler. The rest of his own experience, and possibly of some little colony information taking the favourable side of things, is thrown into the shape of general description, with here and there a particular sketch. His book opens with an account of the capital of the colony, Melbourne, and of its society and vicinity. The character of the country, with information respecting the purchase of land, and some useful hints for settlers, form the subject of another chapter. Squatting, or in other words depasturing an extensive district on an annual licence—which will eventually turn out, we expect, not very dissimilar to the public domain of the Romans—leads to a good account of the sheep-stations ; and helps to suggest the clearest idea we have met with of the character of Australia, as it is, and as it is ever likely to be, unless public works resembling the tanks of Ceylon should procure for it an unlimited supply of water. The rest of the volume consists of the author's sketches in the bush, including remarks on the colonists and aborigines ; with a compi- lation on the geography, history, government, and statistics of the colony. But, though many of these particulars are drawn from printed documents readily accessible, the spirit of the author's own knowledge pervades the account, and he only takes such facts as fell in with his general view. He is not using-up materials. After JAMES and Hoop, Mr. MURRAY is the best recent traveller that has given an account of a colony. He wants the substance, va- riety, and power of HOOD; nor has he the hard, worldly, disparaging shrewdness of JAMES, with his Connspr-like coarseness and vigour; and it seems a matter of necessity that he should be deficient in the experience of older men. But we think he has carried out with him a better education and a more comprehensive mind than any of his predecessors, even if it is dashed with speculation. His Summer at Port Phillip, however, though pleasant, readable, and useful, both in the hints it gives to the proposing colonist and the ideas it suggests to the home reader, is scarcely equal to his oppor- tunities or abilities. Sometimes the writer so much predominates that his descriptions take the air of a litterateur's sketch rather than a traveller's account ; sometimes he is so vague and general that he conveys no fresher idea than a compiler, and seems no more to be trusted than a sale-advertisement. Words, whatever those who use them may think to the contrary, can only be made to con- vey images by means of images already familiar to those whom we address. When Mr. MURRAY talks of the " hotels " and "villas" of Melbourne and its neighbourhood, the terms, most probably, will convey a false idea to the ill-informed, who will picture to themselves such hotels and villas as they are familiar with : those who know the short time that has elapsed since the colony was founded, the great scarcity of capital and labour, with the crisis that followed the land-speculations, and which indeed is scarcely past, will feel sure that these buildings cannot be of a very finished kind, though they may not know what idea to attach to them. His facts are sometimes at odds with his judgment; as if the de- light of finding himself ashore after the confinement of a sea-voyage had coloured his conclusions. Now and then, too, there is ob- viously such a tone of jocular exaggeration that we know not how much to believe : for example, in this ludicrous denunciation of I he

STREETS OF MELBOURNE.

In the mean time, we have left behind us the unpaved streets of Melbourne, famed for the gutters that meander from side to side in deep-worn channels ; which, it would appear, are purposely neglected, in order to instruct the popu- lation in leaping during the day, and to furnish bruises and broken limbs by night for the advancement of medical science. It is now the dry season ; so that we have no occasion to ford Elizabeth Street, which, during the rainy months, changes into a dangerous rapid, the crossing of which then becomes an operation requiring no little nerve and caution. Rome talk there was of esta- blishing the Humane Society's apparatus on its banks, soon after a child was nearly drowned in venturing across ; but the rumour died away on the ap- proach of summer and the dry weather.

These are blemishes or deficiencies that we should not merely

wish away, but their places occupied by matter of a more practical kind ; which Mr. MURRAY must not only have had opportunities

to collect during his sojourn at Melbourne, but was quite capable of exhibiting. There is no lack of observation or of judgment in the following passages.

USE OF OXEN IN AUSTRALIA.

Some time will be necessary to become reconciled to the use of bullocks in the multifarious capacities to which the practice of the colony devotes them, and whose assistance as animals of draught will be new to the experience of English and Scotch tillers of the soil. From the tardiness of their movements, combined with the small amount of work performed, they impart a double portion of tedium to the labours of the husbandman, and certainly appear to great disadvantage in contrast with the superior activity of horses : hut this slowness, although sufficiently annoying, is more than compensated by the superior steadiness of their draught; and but for the weight of their numbers acting in concert, it is doubtful whether any other power could enable she colonist to overcome the resistance offered to the plough in breaking up the virgin soil ; at all events, it would be impossible by any other means to convey a load along the rugged tracks that serve as the only lines of communication, abounding, as these do, with the unremoved impediments of the wilderness— deep gullies, treacherous swamps, precipitous aacents, and bridgeleas rivers. It is in meeting these obstacles that their utility becomes most obvious. How- ever deep the dray may be embedded in mud, or perilous the acclivity up the face of which it is toiling, the driver has no fear for the result. Inch by inch it is dragged forward, the chain so stiff as to resemble a bar of polished steel, while the team never for a moment relaxes from a uniform strain, that fails not, though by slow degrees, to force a way against all opposition. In such situa- tions, the strength of horses would be speedily exhausted by their own strug- gles, which, so far from being useful, would tend rather to endanger themselves and the vehicle.

WATER-HOLES OF PORT PHILLIP.

However deserted by its current, it is rare to find the channel of one of these streams without some portion of its contents remaining in those deep pools of water that occur at greater or lees intervals in its course, and in colonial phrase ' are termed " water-holes." That these water-holes form one of the most ex- traordinary features of this new world, must, I think, be the impression of every stranger. Often in taking my course along the grassy bed of what in winter is a running stream of no great depth, I have come upon a natural basin of water, deep and clear, and in a situation where no winding or abrupt de- clivity might show it to be the effect of an eddy in the current. This is a water-hole; and many of them attain the size of ponds, the contents of which seldom become stagnant, while the depth ranges from ten to twenty feet, and diminishes but little during the summer. Not a few are so regularly shaped as to appear the work of art ; their margin forming a complete circle, at the brim of which you find the water as deep as in the centre. To what they owe their origin it is difficult to conjecture : it is probable their formation may be traced to the unseen springs by which they are fed, whose feeble efforts, during the course of ages, may have scooped out cavities such as these from the soil around them. But however mysteriously excavated and supplied, we cannot fail to arrive at the conclusion, that they constitute a wonderful provision for retain- ing an element, the want of which would render large tracts of great fruitful- ness, and now abounding in flocks and herds, as devoid of life as a desert.

TREES OF PORT PHILLIP.

In point of beauty, it most be confessed that the green-wood tree of the Australian forests, though often rising to a noble height, and as picturesque in its outlines and attitudes as any that bears a leaf, nevertheless stands far below any individual of our English woods. Not that its limbs are less giant-like or less boldly thrown into the air, but there is wanting the rich burden of foliage which a colder climate heaps with such profusion on the bending branches; and we miss the shade that spreads around each stem, and diffuses the grateful coolness we were wont to enjoy. In comparison with the plumage of the oak or elm, theirs is a scanty sprinkling of drooping, attenuated leaves ; a crop so thin-sown as to seem as if dwarfed in its early growth by some blight, and to have remained ever since in a state of premature decay. Moreover, to increase their disadvantages, the hues with which they greet the eye exclude every tint of a bright description; a dull green being the prevailing shade of shrub as well as tree. This it is that tinges every landscape with a degree of monotony and sadness that could not fail to convey a gloomy impression, did we not see the prospect invariably lighted up by a brilliant sunshine, and diversified by natural features of the highest beauty.

The following extract exhibits another phase of the author and the place.

EXCLUSITISM AT MELBOURNE.

Besides these, there are quarterly assemblies, supported by the gay portion o the community; for Melbourne has its world of fashion as well as better places ; while concerts and fancy-balls, and other diversions, from time to time snake their appearance. It is not long since the assemblies were instituted ; and as yet the bitter feuds of which they were the source have scarcely died away. It would appear that the leaders of fashion, to whom they owe their establishment, deemed the presence of certain classes, as well as certain in- dividuals, altogether inconsistent with the dignity of a ball-room ; and, in consequence, the exclusion of such persons became a part of their plan. How this was effected, it is difficult to say; nor is it very obvious how a line of distinction could be drawn among a community of traders, where all are, in fact, buyers and sellers, whatever be their pretensions, and therefore, to a great extent, on the same level : but certain it is, that some mark of difference was discovered or invented, the effect of which went to place a number of very respectable inhabitants without the pale of fashionable life. It is needless to add, that the ire of the excluded was very great indeed, and gave rise to a war of recrimination, of which the newspapers were the field ; and although the spirit in which it was conducted has abated much of its virulence, yet to this day the "dignity ball," as the first of these assemblies was termed, can never be referred to without stirring up a commotion worthy of a better cause.

There are some practical directions for emigrants in the volume ; the most important of which apply to all new colonies, and may be summed up thus—Port Phillip is a land of promise for a man with capital, or a man with labour.

"Both of these have as wide a field open for their respective qualifications as could be wished; both will find their riches, whether lying in their coffers or in their thews and sinews, yielding a fourfold increase from being trans- planted to this distant soil; both have within their grasp the attainment of opulence, by the exercise of no more than common industry and prudence. To these the colony will prove an El Dorado ; but by all others it ought to be understood, that the difficulties they expect to avoid by coming here are not a whit less formidable and perplexing than in the Mother-country. Neither is this a place for those who rear their visions of eminence upon their abilities. They will speedily discover that the possession of the latter is less remunerating than in the country they have quitted; not because the settlers are incapable of appreciating talent, but because the settlement has not yet reached that point where sufficient numbers exist to foster intellectual pursuits."

The smallest amount of capital should be 1,0001.; and that would be much better doubled.