[Gutenberg 43425] • Jean, Our Little Australian Cousin

Fergus and Jean were very tired of the long voyage. They stood at the taffrail looking over the dancing waves, longing for the sight of land.

"It seems as if we would never get there, Father," said Fergus. "How long it is since we left home!"

"And how far away Scotland seems," sighed his mother, as she took little Jean on her lap and stroked her fair hair.

"But Australia is to be our home now," said Mr. Hume cheerfully. "See, there is the very first glimpse of it," and he pointed across the[2] water to a dim line, as the look-out called "Land!"

"We are passing Port Phillip's Head," he said presently. "See the lighthouse! Soon we shall land and you will see a beautiful city."

"Beautiful!" Fergus said in surprise. "Why, I thought Melbourne was a wild sort of a place. You have told us about the time you were here long ago, before you married my mother, and you had floods in the streets and had to climb up on top of some one's porch for fear of being drowned."

"That was fifteen years ago, my son," said Mr. Hume with a smile. "Melbourne is very different now from what it was then, and then it was not at all like it was when its first settlers saw it.

"It was in 1836 that Robert Russell came here to survey the shore near Port Phillip and find out whether boats could go up the River Yana. He felt this to be just the place for a[3] city, planned Melbourne and laid out the streets. It seems strange to think that then the blacks owned all this land and the Wawoorong, Boonoorong, and Wautourong tribes roamed these shores, and that when Russell laid out his city there were native huts standing. The place was called Bear Grass, and in 1837 there were thirteen buildings, eight of which were turf huts. Now Melbourne is seven miles square and the principal street is a mile long. You will soon see how handsome the buildings are, for we are now making ready to land after our long journey."