THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT GOVERNMENT 175 



eventually succeeded in securing, the celebrated Smeaton Hill 

 estate, near Chines. 



The success of this journey and the reports which reached 

 Sydney of the Port Phillip country stimulated plenty of followers. 

 The well-defined track which the heavy equipment of Major Mitchell's 

 party had made was easy enough to follow, and fairly suitable 

 country was to be had for the selecting all along the line, while 

 here and there estates of rare grazing capacity were to be found. 

 Mr. C. H. Ebden, already occupying a station on the Murray, moved 

 farther south, and established himself on the Goulburn with 9,000 

 sheep, the first flock brought into the district from New South 

 Wales. The mere names of the long list of overlanders in 1837 and 

 1838 would fill pages, many of them destined to occupy prominent 

 positions in the political and social evolution of the new country. 

 It is a sufficient indication of the anticipated importance of the 

 high road that early in 1838 the Government of New South Wales 

 despatched two Assistant Surveyors overland to Port Phillip, with 

 instructions to plot the best track on what had come to be known 

 as "The Major's Line," and to indicate the most suitable place for 

 fixing punts to cross the Murray, Ovens and Goulburn Rivers, and 

 by the end of that year, 1838, the same Government had entered 

 into a contract with Mr. Joseph Hawdon for the conveyance of a 

 fortnightly mail between Sydney and Melbourne. The postage on 

 letters was one shilling and threepence, and the time occupied in 

 transit three weeks, but so rapid was the growth of the business 

 that within a few months the mail was a weekly one and the time 

 considerably shortened. 



While the northern plains of the colony were thus getting opened 

 up to settlement, the Geelong district was running the metropolitan 

 area pretty close in the matter of population. It is true the town 

 itself had no official existence until near the end of 1838, being 

 proclaimed in Sydney in October of that year, and the first sale of 

 allotments announced for competition in that city on the 14th of 

 February, 1839. The hardship which this arrangement entailed 

 on intending purchasers, as well as its in judiciousness, were fully 

 manifested in the results, for out of fifty-three lots sold only ten 

 fell to local residents. But without any security of tenure, or even 



