HUME AND HOVELL'S OVERLAND JOURNEY 61 



were apparently unsuccessful. Hume's circumstances were not 

 very flourishing, and he was compelled to sell his grant at a very 

 early stage to recoup some of his outlay and to enable him to 

 work his farm. Hovell, who was a man of larger means, in his 

 memorial to the Government asking for further consideration, 

 alleged that his share of the expense of the expedition amounted 

 to about 500, and that he was only able to obtain " a dollar 

 an acre " for his grant, equal to about 260. It is much to be re- 

 gretted that at a time when the public estate was being lavishly 

 alienated in much less deserving quarters the Government should 

 have acted with such meanness and parsimony towards these 

 pioneers of Australian exploration. 



In the reports which were immediately furnished to the Govern- 

 ment, the southern portion of the newly discovered territory is 

 described in enthusiastic terms. Hume calls it one of the finest 

 tracts of country yet discovered in Australia; extensive downs, 

 lightly timbered woods easy of access, and abundantly watered 

 by numerous streams. He says these downs extend fully eighty 

 miles E.N.E. to W.S.W., and are quite forty miles in breadth, 

 while around the district they ultimately reached, he calculated 

 there was from eighty to a hundred square miles of country fit 

 for any purpose of agriculture or grazing. In view of Hume's 

 emphatic statement at a subsequent date, it is somewhat inexplic- 

 able, and much to be regretted, that in all these reports the goal 

 is spoken of as Western Port by both the explorers. Indeed, 

 the only construction to be put upon Hume's tacit acquiescence, 

 consistent with his veracity, is that the name was used in a general 

 sense, as expressing a district; much in the way that for very 

 many years Botany Bay was understood in England to mean 

 New South Wales, or as later Port Phillip came to be a common 

 designation for the whole of the present colony of Victoria. In 

 any case the misapprehension had a deterrent effect on the settle- 

 ment of Port Phillip and probably retarded it for several years. 



The explorers had gone out to seek a road to Western Port, and 

 were at any rate supposed to have found it ; hence all the interest 

 created by the account of the glorious Iramoo downs, the rich pas- 

 tures and the never-failing streams centred round that often-tried 



