VICTORIA. 39 



but stouter. The chiefs were fine men. After explanation of what my object 

 was, I purchased five large tracts of land from them — about 600,000 acres, 

 more or less — and delivered over to them blankets, knives, looking-glasses, 

 tomahawks, beads, scissors, flour, &c., as payment for the land ; and also 

 agreed to give them a tribute or rent yearly. The parchment the eight chiefs 

 signed this afternoon, delivering to me some of the soil, each of them, as 

 giving me full possession of the tracts of land.' How the blacks could sign 

 a parchment is somewhat of a mystery. Batman seems to have recognised 

 that a performance of this kind would be laughed at, and so he goes on to 

 describe another signing away which took place. He travelled about with 

 the natives, marking boundary trees. 



Batman was a hardy bushman, and acquired great fame in Tasmania 

 by his courage in capturing a notorious convict desperado ; but if he imagined 

 that these deeds and purchases would ever be recognised, he was as simple 

 as the blacks themselves. As a matter of fact, no one ever took any notice 

 of them. Within a few weeks after the transaction, the second or Fawkner 

 party of settlers were on the river Yarra, had landed in the gully now called 

 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, and the future capital had been founded. When 

 the deeds were shown to the new arrivals, they laughed and declined to 

 move on, but proceeded to clear away the site of the city. Batman died 

 from the effects of a severe cold in 1839, and 'Batman's Hill,' where he 

 built his hut, has been cleared away to make room for the great Spencer 

 Street railway station. John Batman would probably have become a rich 

 man had he lived, but his estate was frittered away, and his grandchildren 

 are now working in the mass for their living. Quite recently, a subscription 

 having been organised for the purpose, a suitable monument was placed 

 over the grave of the pioneer in the old Melbourne cemetery. The blacks 

 would certainly have very much liked the terms which Batman made with 

 them to have been respected, for Batman spoke of a yearly rent, and no 

 one afterwards ever dreamed of such a provision. 



The rival pioneer was much more fortunate. John Pascoe Fawkner 

 lived to a ripe old age, became a member of the Legislative Council, and 

 ' Fawkner's Park,' a handsome city reserve, perpetuates his name ; while 

 his portrait is in the Victorian National Gallery. The last time the 

 author met the shrewd old man was in 1870, when he had stopped his 

 carriage on the Eastern Hill to gaze wistfully at the scene, and was ready 

 to talk with animation about the changes that had passed over it. Those 

 changes had been great indeed. On the whole, the lieutenant of the convoy 

 ship Calcutta was not exactly happy in his prophecy, when he wrote as he 

 sailed away : ' The kangaroo now reigns undisturbed lord of the Port Phillip 

 soil, and he is likely to retain his dominion for ages.' Sir Thomas Mitchell 

 was more felicitous when, being commissioned by the Sydney Government to 

 explore and report on the country to the south of the Murray, he wrote back 



