310 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



party. It is true that a rural township has come into existence at 

 the foot of the mountain, but it is in no way the Commercial 

 Emporium then looked for. The little village of Dromana has no 

 designs upon the world's commerce which is borne past its generally 

 idle pier, and the chief ambition of its dwellers centres in the attrac- 

 tion which its health-giving breezes and picturesque surroundings 

 can offer for a summer holiday resort to the dust-laden citizens of 

 crowded Melbourne. Of such conditions of luxurious idleness the 

 settlers in Port Phillip, half a century ago, had not even time to 

 dream, for the prospects of money-making were alluring, and the 

 labourers were indeed few. 



But the other site, on Corio Bay, had everything to recommend 

 it, and in the early days it found many champions who maintained 

 its claim to preference over Melbourne as the capital of the colony. 

 There were certainly many good reasons to offer for this contention. 

 The position selected for the town was a moderately elevated ridge 

 of land, sloping somewhat abruptly on the north to the shores of 

 the bay, and more gently on the south towards the alluvial flats 

 bordering the river Barwon. As a residential site it was charming ; 

 the view across Corio Bay, flanked by the rounded slopes of the 

 Barrabool Hills, and backed by the serrated ridges of the You Yangs, 

 compared, on a small scale, with the far-famed beauties of Sydney 

 harbour. The slopes lent themselves to architectural adornment, 

 and offered facilities for drainage ; there was a sufficiency of level 

 land for a broadly planned town, and the surrounding country was 

 richly grassed and well watered. But for one defect the harbour 

 gave promise of ample convenience for sea-borne commerce, equal 

 to any imaginable requirements. The defect was one which every 

 river and harbour on the Australian coast, saving only Port Jackson, 

 has had to contend with. A sandy bar stretched across the entrance 

 to the inner harbour, on which, at certain states of the tide, there 

 was only some six feet of water. In after years, when the town 

 grew in importance, a channel was easily dredged through this ob- 

 struction, and large fleets of ocean-going ships have loaded wool 

 at the Geelong wharves. If but one-tenth of the money that has 

 been expended in straightening and deepening the Yarra had been 

 disbursed on its one-time rival port, it would have made a harbour 



