Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria | Page 6

fire burning. I was taken specially to one
occupied by a poor fellow who, under native war laws, had had his
kidney-fat wrenched out and eaten by his foes. He showed me the
wound, which, however, had now healed up. But he himself had never
recovered, being sadly weak and death-like, as one who had but little
more to do with this busy world.
The last great native demonstration near Melbourne, and, indeed, so far
as I can recollect, the last of its kind within the colony, took place about
a mile north-east of the town, in the middle of 1844. This was a grand
corrobboree, arranged for amongst themselves by surrounding tribes,
including the still considerable tribe of the River Goulburn. This was,
as it were, one last aboriginal defiance, hurled in despair from the
expiring native cause against the too-victorious colonial invasion. We
of the town had heard of the proposed exhibition, and many, including
myself, went out to see it. There were present seven hundred aborigines
of all ages and both sexes. The performances were chiefly by the
younger men, in bands of fifties, for the respective tribes, while the

females, in lines by themselves, beat the time, and gave what they no
doubt considered to be music.
EARLY CIVILIZING DIFFICULTIES.
"He loves his own barn better Than he loves our house." --First Part
Henry IV.
Up to that time, and for some time longer, the religious conversion of
these natives was regarded as hopeless, so deeply "bred in blood and
bone" was aboriginal character. Consequently all the earlier missions
were abandoned in utter despair, with only one exception, that of the
Moravians, which, in faith and duty continuing the work, was at length
rewarded with success. Naturally some few, especially amongst the
young, were less severely "native" than the rest, and these were more or
less gained. But the change came with the next generation, "born in the
purple" of surrounding colonial life. The blood and bone had been
partially neutralized, and this is still more the result of yet another
generation that has followed, so that, in spite of the black skin, the
missionary now deals with natures much more amenable to his
teachings.
A remarkable illustration of aboriginal tenacity, which, however, I am
quoting only from memory, occurred in South Australia. Two
aboriginal children, separated from babyhood from aboriginal life, were
trained and educated like colonists. For the earlier years little difference
was noticed, but as they advanced into boyhood some restlessness
became evident. When, on one occasion, a native tribe, presumably
their own, happened to be near Adelaide, these children, who had either
seen them or heard of them, made their escape at the earliest
opportunity, and, having reached the native camp, at once threw off the
habiliments of civilization, and never after showed any disposition to
return to the conditions they had so summarily rejected.
"THE BEACH" (NOW PORT MELBOURNE).
"Thinking of the days that are no more." --Tennyson.
At the time of my arrival, all Melbourne-bound passengers were put out
by their respective ships' boats upon that part of the northern beach of
Port Phillip that was nearest to Melbourne, whence, in straggling lines,
as they best could in hot winds, they trod a bush track of their own
making, which, about a mile and a half long, brought them to a punt or
little boat just above "The Falls," where the owner made a good living

at 3 pence a head for the half-minute's passage. This debarkation place
got to be called, par excellence, "The Beach." It consisted already of
two public-houses, kept respectively by Liardet and Lingham. Both
were respectable people in their way, but the first was also a character.
Of good family connection, he had enjoyed a life of endless adventure,
which, however, had never seemed any more to elevate him by fortune
than to depress him by its reverse. He was a kind of roving Garibaldi,
minus, indeed, the hero's war-paint and the Italian unity, but with all his
frankness and indomitable resource. Having a family of active young
sons, he secured the boating of "the Beach" as well as the other thing.
But his untold riches of experience seemed never to condescend to
develop into riches of mere money--and perhaps without one pang of
regret to his versatile and resourceful mind.
This Beach was a sterile spot, afterwards fittingly called Sandridge, and
presented so little inducement to occupancy that these two
public-houses were the whole of it till well on to the days of gold. Then
The Beach awoke to its destinies. When the Melbourne and Hobson's
Bay railway was projected, in 1852, there were already a good few
houses, mostly wooden, straggling along either side of the original bush
track. Then arose the respectable suburb of