on the wounded spirit of the stranger.  He gently reminded him that first impressions are not always to be relied on; and assured him that if he would condescend to take up his abode with us for two or three years, he would never want to live anywhere else.  The climate was delicious, the best in the world; it induced a feeling of repose, and bliss, and sweet contentment.  We had no ice or snow, or piercing blasts in winter; and the heat of summer was tempered by the cool breezes of the Pacific Ocean, which gently lapped our lovely shores.  The land, when cleared, was as rich and fertile as the farmer’s heart could wish, yielding abundant pasturage both in summer and winter.  The mountains sent down to us unfailing supplies of the purest water; we wanted no schemes of irrigation, for

“Green are our fields and fair our flowers, Our fountains never drumlie.”

We had no plagues of locust, no animal or insect pests to destroy our crops or herbage.  Rabbits had been introduced and turned loose at various times, but, instead of multiplying until they had become as numerous as the sand on the seashore, as had been the case in other parts of Australia, in Gippsland they invariably died; and it had been abundantly proved that rabbits had no more chance of living there than snakes in Ireland.  And with regard to the salubrity of the climate, the first settlers lived so long that they were absolutely tired of life.  Let him look at the cemetery, if he could find it.  After thirty years of settlement it was almost uninhabited —­neglected and overgrown with tussocks and scrub for want of use.

It will be gathered from this statement of the Principal Inhabitant that Gippsland had really been discovered and settled about thirty years before; but mountains and sea divided it from the outside world, and, on account of the intense drowsiness and inactivity which the delicious air and even temperature of the climate produced, the land and its inhabitants had been forgotten and unnoticed until it had been rediscovered, and its praises sung by the enterprising Minister of the Crown before mentioned.

Following the example of the cautious cat when introduced into a strange house, I investigated every corner of the district as far as the nature of the country would permit; and I found that it contained three principal corners or villages about three miles apart, at each of which the police magistrate and clerk had to attend on certain days, business or no business, generally the latter.  It was, of course, beneath the dignity of a court to walk officially so far through the scrub; so the police magistrate was allowed sixty pounds per annum in addition to his salary, and the clerk whom I relieved fifty pounds, to defray the expense of keeping their horses.

“Away went Gilpin, and away
Went Gilpin’s hat and wig.”

I bought a waggonette, and then began to look for a horse to draw it.  As soon as my want became known it was pleasing to find so many of my neighbours willing to supply it.  Cox, the gaoler, said he knew of a horse that would just suit me.  It belonged to Binns, an ex-constable, who was spending a month in gaol on account of a little trouble that had come upon him.  Cox invited me into his office, and brought Binns out of his cell.