In spite of the attractions and economies of Tempe—­for that, I think, was the name it ambitiously held—­we quitted South Yarra within the same year for a still greater bargain and temptation in the opposite direction, where I had just then the chance of picking up, “at an old song,” the pretty cottage previously occupied by Mr. Locke, on the Merri Creek, four miles north by the Sydney-road.  Besides the presentable cottage, there was a large, well-stocked garden, at enacre cultivation field, and a small natural park (vulgarly, paddock), in all 46 acres, for 50 pounds, plus 300 pounds of inevitable mortgage.  I called it Maryfield, after my parental home in Edinburgh, and revelled in grapes, plums, and peaches, and much other country happiness.  When a host of visitors, on a bright summer day, would rather strain the narrow larder, I used to divert the party into the garden, where they could complete their meal, although at times with inconvenient demand, from the male section at least, upon the brandy.  When, in 1854, I re-sold “the lot” to Mr. David Moore, under the heavy temptation of 6,000 pounds, he took the warrantable liberty of a slight nominal alteration to Moorefield, while at the same time he erased the poor old cottage for something more accordant with great golden Victoria.

In this case I had a rather striking illustration of the old land-transfer and other law costs incubus from which my late friend Sir R.R.  Torrens has so effectually relieved these colonies; and that, too, as I believe, owing to the multiplied transactions, without any real detriment to our many legal friends.  Pounds were pounds in those economy-needing times, and as the Savings Bank had, after a thorough overhaul, accepted the title before giving its loan, I declared myself perfectly satisfied to proceed at once to the conveyance.  But no, that was impossible.  The courtesies, the practice, the established rights, in short, of ancient custom required all to be done over again, in attested copies of title, draughts of title as to defects for counsel’s opinion, and so on, even if all the paper and verbiage were to go straight to the waste-basket; and thus a not over convenient bill of about 70 pounds was rolled up.  But I must at the same time bear in mind that this heavy drag applied to all landed property, restricting business in it and reducing its value.  Had Torrens’s Act been then in action, I could not possibly, with the resulting higher value of land, have secured my bargain at the fifty pounds, probably not even at fifty plus the seventy.

THE EARLY SQUATTING TIMES.

“Our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” 
—­As You Like It.

The title “Victoria” did not come to us until, on 1st July, 1851, we bloomed into an independent colony, having succeeded, after a good deal of struggle and contention, in getting separated from our mother, New South Wales, who complimented us by being very loath, and even angry, that so very promising a child should be detached from her.  We had begun as the Southern or Port Phillip District of that spacious colony, which had already dropped South Australia, and eight years afterwards was to lose yet another arm in Queensland.