45 6 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



ports whence they had sailed ; the information having been telegraphed by semaphore. 

 Not far off a dilapidated fence served to mark the diminutive burying-ground, in which 



Each in his narrow cell for ever laid 

 The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 



For such in reality they were ; and above their nameless graves a stone cross was 

 erected in 1871, in order to mark the last resting-place of the pioneers of what was 

 then vaguely called " The Settlement." The Corporation of Melbourne has caused the 

 old Flagstaff Hill to be reserved as a public park ; has planted it with trees, laid it 

 out in parterres of flowers and spaces of green sward, set up in it casts from antique 

 statues, ornamented it with fountains, and from a sanitary and recreative point of view, 

 transformed an arid waste into a sylvan retreat of no little value, in a neighbourhood the 

 atmosphere of which is already darkened with the smoke of innumerable chimney shafts. 



The north-east angle of the Flagstaff Gardens approaches closely to the south- 

 western corner of the old Cemetery, long since disused as a place of interment, except 

 under special circumstances. At the period previously spoken of, this burying-ground was 

 completely detached from the town ; to-day it is a city of the dead, surrounded by the 

 habitations of the living a silent memorial of the past in the midst of the noisy activities 

 of the present the last resting-place of the first generation of the citizens of Melbourne. 



From this restful enclosure, where the long grass waves over the green hillocks, 

 and the fibrous rootlets of trees and shrubs, planted by pious hands, " net the dream- 

 less heads " of those who sleep below, it is only a few steps to the Telephone 

 Exchange in Wills Street ; this may be likened to the cerebellum of the social and 

 commercial system of the busy city, with its afferent and efferent nerves ramifying in all 

 directions, and incessantly receiving and transmitting messages from and to every portion 







of the vital organism. In an airy and spacious chamber on the first floor ten or a 

 dozen young girls are stationed at the apparatus, which is in communication with a 

 thousand private telephones in Melbourne and its suburbs ; and during business hours 

 there is an almost continuous demand upon the quick ears and nimble fingers of the 

 attendants from subscribers wishing to be " switched on " to the lines of communication 

 for conversational purposes with other subscribers. There is a lull in the work of the 

 Exchange during the hour of luncheon, and a rapid decline after four o'clock ; but it is 

 never wholly suspended, and operators are in attendance all night long, for the leading 

 medical practitioners are in telephonic rapport with some of their patients ; and the 

 necessity may also arise in the course of the night for the watchmen in charge of 

 banks and mercantile establishments to place themselves in prompt communication with 

 the nearest police station or with the fire brigade. 



Turning down Latrobe Street, the visitor, on reaching Swanston Street, finds himself 

 in front of the pile of buildings, covering nearly two acres of ground, devoted to the 

 purposes of a Public Library, Museum and National Gallery. The facade when completed 

 will consist of five divisions, erected in the Corinthian style of architecture, the columns 

 and pilasters standing in stylobate ; the central portico, crowned by a handsome pediment 

 and approached by t\vo flights of steps, forms an imposing feature of the general design. 

 The wings, rising to a height of fifty-two feet from the ground, and composed partly of 

 moulded panelling and partly of balusters, are surmounted by a parapet. Of the original 



