THE FOUNDING OF MELBOURNE 111 



that was larger than the one they had gone up. This was the 

 Yarra, which they had struck somewhere below the site of the 

 present Gasworks, and as they were unable to find a ford and 

 night was approaching, when they got to the junction with the 

 Salt Water Eiver, two of the Sydney natives were deputed to swim 

 across, and go to the vessel for the purpose of bringing up a boat. 

 Three hours' waiting in the dark, with the tide risen to their ankles, 

 was an unpleasant experience ; but the boat came at last, and the 

 long Sunday's work ended comfortably on board the Rebecca, where 

 Batman recorded in his diary, " My travelling I hope on foot will 

 cease for some time, having done everything I could possibly wish ". 

 Self-congratulatory as are these last words, they appear to have 

 been penned on the eve of his accomplishing his most important 

 discovery. His intention had been to start for Launceston next 

 morning, but when the day broke a strong southerly wind pre- 

 vented the Rebecca from getting out of the river. To utilise the 

 time lost by this enforced detention, and if possible to replenish their 

 supply of fresh water, Batman and Eobson took a boat's crew and 

 pulled up the large river which came from the east. They found 

 it good water and very deep for six miles above the junction, and 

 where the old ridge of rocks stopped the inflow of the tide, the spot 

 now spanned by the Queen's Bridge, they filled their casks with 

 water, and Batman marked in his rough diary, "This will be the 

 place for a village ". 



Notwithstanding Mr. Fawkner's persistent statements that Bat- 

 man had never been on the Yarra at all, the only evidence he was 

 able to adduce in support of them was based on the looseness and 

 inaccuracy of Batman's handling of dates and distances. On the 

 other hand, there is indubitable proof of the substantial truth of 

 Batman's journal, apart from the support accorded to his statements 

 by his contemporaries. His map of Port Phillip, somewhat out of 

 scale, but roughly delineating his track, showing the Yarra some 

 few miles above Melbourne, with the flat between that river and 

 Sandridge marked as " Reserved for a township and other pur- 

 poses," and the land about the West Melbourne Swamp " reserved 

 for a public common," was in course of transit to England within 

 a month of the discovery, and was probably in the hands of the 



