4 , 2 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



disappointing one. Looking to the right he saw long ridges of sand hummocks stretching 

 away to the eastward, with here and there a patch of withered herbage, and here and 

 there some brown and ragged scraps of scrub bending inland, and seeming to shrink 

 and cower before the southerly gales. On the other side were rugged cliffs crowned 

 by a light-house, some pilots' cottages, and a few gnarled and contorted trees, throwing 

 no shadow whatever upon the yellowish sward which thinly carpeted the great masses of 

 rock which stand like grim sentinels at the entrance of the Bay. As the vessel swept 

 through "The Rip" with a favouring breeze; the stranger, looking northward, perceived that 

 the whole landscape was enveloped in a hot haze, through which the distant mountains 

 were only faintly visible, while those fringing the eastern shores of Port Phillip Arthur's 

 Seat, Mount Martha and Mount Eliza were partially obscured, in all probability, by- 

 clouds of smoke issuing from bush-fires. 



The general features of the scene as thus described remain unchanged. An inland 

 sea, which is forty miles in diameter, is too spacious to be picturesque ; it is one of 

 those cases in which distance does not lend enchantment to the view, for it is only 

 nearer to the shore-line that its more attractive characteristics disclose themselves, and 

 these have to be sought out with a certain amount of enthusiastic diligence. Queenscliff, 

 however, has undergone a remarkable transformation. Its breezy heights are now sur- 

 mounted by the mansard roofs and tall turrets of three or four roomy and commodious 

 hotels, and a large town has taken the place of the scattered village which formerly 

 straggled over the surface of Shortland's Bluff as it was called in the early days. The 

 fortifications, which have been constructed on this side of the Heads, as well as on the 

 opposite point, and upon certain islands and shoals adjacent, have rendered the place 

 additionally interesting by investing it with a strategic importance in relation to the 

 defences of the Victorian capital. They consist of batteries at Queenscliff, Point Nepean, 

 Swan Island, Point Franklin and the shoals in mid-channel, and these form the first line 

 of defence. They have been furnished with ordnance in conformity with a plan suggested 

 by Sir William Jervois, and much of the work was carried out under the personal 

 direction of the late Sir P. H. Scratchley. 



To follow the western shore of Port Phillip from its entrance would take us past 

 the battery on Swan Island, past St. Leonards on the Bay, at present a little fishing 

 village, and round by Indented Head to Portarlington, which, lying at the entrance to 

 Corio Bay, looks northward, and, sheltered by some rising ground in the rear, is already 

 a favourite little township. Two miles distant are some mineral springs, combining, it is 

 authoritatively stated, the curative properties of some of the most popular brnnncn on 

 the continent of Europe. Past Point Richards the shore-line trends to the southward, 

 turning northward again at Point Henry, where is the entrance to the Inner Geelong 

 Harbour, which will hereafter be described. The western side of Port Phillip presents 

 merely a long low line of sandy beach, with a broken ridge of scrub ; the land in the 

 rear is level, but the background is relieved by the picturesquely irregular outline of 

 Station Peak and the isolated range to which it belongs. 



The eastern shore of Port Phillip has in the course of settlement become much 

 more populated than the western. Point Nepean, which forms the eastern head, is a 

 sandy mamelon terminating a narrow tongue of land composed of hilly dunes, bare on 



