With
firm footing and under a bright moon, I had a pleasant walk through what
is now the beautiful Royal Park, when, judging that I must be nearing
Melbourne, I perceived quite a number of lights ahead. There were as yet
no public lights to scattered little Melbourne in those early days,
although the new corporation, elected the year before, had got to work
by this time. So, what could it all be? I was not long in suspense. It
could only be a native encampment, and I was soon in its midst. The
natives at a distance, especially in the far western direction, were
still at times hostile, but all those who lived near town were already
quite peaceful, so that I had no hesitation in now entering their
encampment. I was most cordially received and shown over the different
wigwams, each of which had its fire burning. I was taken specially to
one occupied by a poor fellow who, under native war laws, had had his
kidney-fat wrenched out and eaten by his foes. He showed me the wound,
which, however, had now healed up. But he himself had never recovered,
being sadly weak and death-like, as one who had but little more to do
with this busy world.
The last great native demonstration near Melbourne, and, indeed, so far
as I can recollect, the last of its kind within the colony, took place
about a mile north-east of the town, in the middle of 1844.
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