106 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



and as the weather appeared broken and stormy, he abandoned his 

 intention of proceeding overland to the head of Port Phillip Bay, 

 and betook himself once more to the vessel. Next morning they 

 proceeded in rain and fog, and by three in the afternoon were 

 brought up in the mouth of the Yarra by a bar with only one 

 fathom of water in it. An evening ramble on the site of the future 

 Williamstown disturbed countless flocks of pelicans and swans, 

 while scores of ducks, teal and quail stimulated the sportsman's 

 ardour. At nine o'clock next morning Batman started up the Salt 

 Water Kiver in a boat to find a channel, sounding as he went, but 

 at a distance of some five miles he landed and was joined by the 

 remainder of his party, who had walked up on the western bank. 

 They followed the course of the river for an estimated distance 

 of twenty-six miles, and camped at sundown, somewhere above 

 Braybrook. The river being still salt they were much put about 

 for fresh water, but finally obtained sufficient by digging a hole 

 alongside the stream and awaiting its slow percolation. Another 

 day's tramp of an equal distance carried them over the Keilor 

 Plains to Jackson's Creek and the pleasant rolling hills about 

 Sunbury, from which elevated point of observation they saw native 

 fires away to the eastward. They headed in that direction, and 

 when nightfall overtook them they camped in a small valley made 

 verdant by the waters of Moonee Ponds Creek. The night was 

 stormy and wet, but by eight o'clock next morning, the 6th of June, 

 they were off again in quest of the natives. Batman was in 

 ecstacies over the appearance of the country, the land quite black, 

 lightly timbered, with waving grass three or four feet high. After 

 a walk of eight miles they came upon tracks of the natives, the 

 first they had seen in their three days' march, and soon overtook a 

 man with his lubra and three children. Batman calls him a chief 

 in his journal, but he also applies that title pretty freely in recording 

 his dealings with the aborigines, in ignorance of the fact tbat this 

 dignity was strictly limited to one old man in each tribe who never 

 left the camp without a bodyguard of young braves. At any rate, 

 the interesting stranger was treated as became his supposed rank, 

 and presented with a pair of blankets and three knives, with a 

 gaudy handkerchief or two and a supply of beads to captivate his 



