"Great world! Victoria brings thee meat and corn and wine,
With richly veined woods, and glittering gold from mine,
Fairy web of silken thread, soft thick snowy fleece;
Wide room for smiling homes of industry and peace."
--Mrs. H.N. Baker.

The founder of to-day's great colony of Victoria was Mr. Edward Henty,
who landed at Portland Bay from Launceston, with live stock and stores,
for the purpose of settlement, on the 19th November, 1834. But in regard
to that notable event I prefer to speak of "The Henty Family," because,
in their colonizing efforts they seem to have acted so much with mutual
family purpose and in mutual help, and because there was a preparatory
work in which the family were all more or less engaged, all leading up
to this settlement at Portland, a site which had been selected after
more than two years of previous adventurous excursions and observations
along the coasts of Western Victoria and of South Australia.

The successful settlement of the noble Port Phillip Harbour the
following year by Batman and Fawkner caused such general attention and
such a tide of colonization, that remote Portland was comparatively
overlooked. For many years, therefore, much less was heard of the Hentys
than of those who had merely followed their steps. In fact, there can be
but little doubt that these latter were first aroused to the colonizing
of the vast areas, the all but terra incognita, across the Straits by
the vigorous example set by the Henty family almost from the moment of
their arrival in Launceston in 1831, and by the reports which they
brought back from time to time of the lands of promise they were opening
to public notice in South-Eastern Australia. But now that rail and
telegraph have virtually abolished distance, and familiarized the
central colonists with the value and beauty of the earliest occupied