422 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



DIVERS AT WORK IN HOBSON S BAY. 



hillocks of slates, coils of barbed fencing-wire, huge packages of machinery, slabs of 

 marble, heaps of gas-piping, crates and casks of glass and earthenware, kegs of nails, 



cases of drugs, hogs- 

 heads of ale in bulk, 

 logs of cedar, cylinders 

 of paint, tubs of white 

 lead and bales of gen- 

 eral merchandise. Then 

 comes a steam collier 

 from Newcastle with a 

 dozen lumpers, almost 

 as black as negroes, 

 handling the baskets 

 ^^ which are being landed 



I VA^E^Ki 



from below with a celer- 

 ity, and emptying them 

 with a promptitude, sug- 

 gestive of payment by 

 results. Next to it is a 

 steamer unloading oats 



and potatoes from Tasmania, and hard by another discharging mats of sugar from Queens- 

 land. Cranes and derricks keep up a merry clatter, and an idle spectator of so much 

 activity and laborious effort appears to be as much out of place as a professional jester 

 at a funeral. The wharf-line runs round a basin containing fourteen or fifteen coasting 

 vessels and small inter- 

 colonial craft closely 

 packed together in this 

 recess, and emptying 

 trusses of the finer de- 

 scriptions of sea-weed 

 employed for packing 

 purposes, logs of red- 

 gum that might be mis- 

 taken for mahogany, 

 and quantities of fire- 

 wood, to which is still 

 clinging the aromatic 

 fragrance of the Tas- 

 manian forests from 



DREDGING THE YARRA. 



which they have been 



brought. Adjoining 



the basin, and in a 



line with Spencer Street, is the landing-stage of the steam-ferry, and beyond it the 



wharf and spacious goods-shed of the Australian United Steam Navigation Company, with 



