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.