ies, but what purpose this division
serves I have not been able to ascertain. I have made two visits
into the country, one to the neighbourhood of Ballarat to the
north-west of Melbourne, the other into Gipp's Land, which is to the
east. I went to Gipp's Land to pay a visit to a gentleman well known
to the racing world, who has a large estate in the neighbourhood of
Sale. Victorians are nothing if not fond of sport. We have a good
many races at home, but I think they are exceeded in number by those
in Victoria. My host had been engaged in horse-racing more than
forty years, and in these circles he is much respected; because he
always, as they say, runs his horses to win, and the high character
he has thus deservedly acquired has done much to raise the morality
of the turf in Australia. He told me that he was the second squatter
in Gipp's Land. When he first went there in 1841, it took him
eighteen days to return to Melbourne through the bush. For six days
they had provisions, but for the rest of the time they subsisted on
native bears--_i.e._, sloths. Now he owns about 20,000 acres of the
best part of Gipp's Land. Gipp's Land is a large district about
twice the size of Wales, which begins at a place called Bunyip,
about fifty miles to the east of Melbourne. The train to Sale, the
capital--there are two a day--takes about six hours, and the
distance is 127 miles. As there are no engineering difficulties, the
line did not cost more than L6000 a mile. In many places the
gradients are very steep to avoid cuttings. By leaving Melbourne at
6-50 a.m. Sale is reached about 1, and a very tedious and dusty
journey it is. Near Bunyip we pass the borders of an enormous swamp
of 90,000 acres, called Koo-Wee-Rup, which is about to be drained,
and will then form rich agricultural land. The ride soon becomes
monotonous, by reason of the interminable gum trees. They look very
peculiar, being all dead, and stripped of their leaves and bark, and
in the moonlight show perfectly white. Most of them have been
"ringed" near the bottom to kill them, but others have been killed
by caterpillars. They stand so for a long time. At length they
either fall or are burnt in a bush fire. The flames get inside the
tree, run through it, and come out at the top, as if from a tall
chimney. There are none of great height along the line, but some
trees near Lilydale, about 30 miles north-east of Melbourne, are
supposed to be the highest in the world, and are