by," he said with a smile.—"Here's the wharf," he continued, as the steamer bumped against the river's bank. "Government house is not to be seen for trees; and up above there" he said, pointing to the top of a shingled roof which appeared above the water, "is the police office and lock-up, just under the falls d'ye see?"
"Under the falls!" said Hugh.
"Aye—that's the roof of it you see yonder with a hole in the top. Some of our jolly squatters—rough men, I tell you — being determined on a spree, thought the safest way to begin it would be to swamp the lock-up; and so being a pretty strong and united party, d'ye see, they defied the ten constables, stormed the police office, took it, and putting it on rolling logs of timber, they started it down the hill into the Yarra, and there 'tis now:—it nearly cost one or two of 'em their lives tho', for several of 'em would remain inside, and only saved themselves by tearing an opening in the roof,—Wild dogs!—wild dogs!" said the skipper, with a shake of his grey head;—"why that night they capsized half the wooden houses in the settlement."
"What a country to live in!" said Weevel: and this is the way the people in England are deceived?—Savages are called squatters;—sentry boxes, watch-houses and custom-houses; a mud bank, a wharf; pig-sties, dwelling houses;—trees, churches;—and—"
"Avast there, young man:" said the captain, getting warm at what he considered an unfair estimate of the infant colony:—"why you crawled afore you could walk, and had somebody to nuss you, I'll be bound; whilst we have had to take care of ourselves from the fust—with Sydney on one side always ready to shove the weakest to the wall, and to take any dirty advantage of us; and Adelaide upon t'other, with the English peo-
