to several subjects, I shall run through the points on which it touches, seriatim, and there need be no apology for quoting largely from it, for the old waifs disinterred are both racy and readable.
Several theories have for years been indulged in as to the course that constituted the original bed of the Yarra, and where it discharged into the sea. It has been confidently asserted that primarily the Yarra cut a waterway from a point at the southern side opposite the Gas Works, and penetrating the intervening flat, found its outlet through the Sandridge Lagoon; whilst others have maintained that its present course has been its course always. A third speculation, and, to my mind, the most probable is, that, at a remote period, the Yarra separated its waters below old Melbourne, and a channel sincefilledup found an outflow at Sandridge when the large swampy, scrubby, snaky area from the beach round by Fisherman's Bend and back by the Southern bank of the river was what is geographically known as a delta. Mr. Russell thus writes:—"You are probably aware that a tradition existed among the natives that at one period a great earthquake came which caused a change in the course of the Yarra. My informant was a Mr. John Cobb, a very old colonist, at present in England. The natives of Geelong told him that the present harbour was once dry land, and described the undulating motion caused by the earthquake. The river, they said, emptied itself near Cape Schanck, and in the cave there resides an evil being, entitled "Plenty Sulky," who caused all the disturbance. Be this true or false, it always appeared to me that the ledge of boulders at the Melbourne "Falls" is but the edge of an extinct volcano."
I have before mentioned the circumstance of a native black being rarely if ever known to be drowned in the Yarra, in consequence of the perfection acquired in what was to the aboriginal race not merely an accomplishment but a necessity, viz, the art of swimming. The children (male and female) were inured to the creeks and rivers almost as soon as they could toddle. They were pitched in like balls, watched for a short time, and the youngsters soon learned "to paddle their own canoe." They could perform wondrous feats in swimming and diving, and the mode of water-travelling was unlike the European system, as the swimmer instead of lying flat on the water, went on his side with hand struck out from the shoulder as a steering apparatus, and the other hand and feet acting as powerful propellers. Alluding to my previous reference to many mishaps occurring on the Yarra, Mr. Russell writes:—
"The drownings which have occurred in the Yarra are, as you know, numerous. The first I remember was that of a blackfellow. Mr. C. H. Le Souef and I were sculling our little boat across, when we saw what we took to be a black dog in the water, but on pulling it up we found a blackfellow attached to the shock of hair. It was in Dr. Cussen's time, and it was found that intoxication had been the cause. Subsequently a Mr. Gall, of Messrs. Campbell and Woolley's establishment, came to his death by the same undercurrent of which you speak in the Herald. He was said to have been a good swimmer. The only son of John Batman, playing on the brink of the 'Falls,' was also accidentally drowned. He was very young. It is melancholy to think of his dead body being carried down by the tide and sweeping round the very hill that bore his father's name."
In re the "Falls" Mr. Russell thus writes :—" Many of the first arrivals crossed in our little boat, which was tied to a stump just above the 'Falls,' and the danger of the short passage when the river was up was considerable. Not unfrequently the boat was carried down the 'Falls,' and Winters (our man-servant) was occasionally out of sorts. The 'Falls' was first encountered by Captain Lonsdale. I declined having anything to do in the matter. His construction was of wood and stone mixed, and was swept away one fine morning. When Sir George Gipps arrived on a visit to Melbourne (he was a bit of an engineer) he tried to mend matters, and, after taking a long look at the débris, decided on the stone construction (curving downwards) which now in its turn is to be removed.[*] A letter was published from the then Town Surveyor—whose name I forget—objecting to such obstructions because they would cause the fillin gup of the basin, owing to the non-scouring of the river in the time of flood. In 1844 a peculiar sight was afforded below the 'Falls,' when the 'floating baths' of Dr. Palmer left their moorings and appeared swimming in the stream."
↑ The "Falls" has been (1888) removed in the construction of the New Falls Bridge.—Ed.
