2-888-098 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Melbourne, the Capital of Port Phillip, 1850. 'In the foreground...are some specimens of the vegetation of the country; with a native wigwam, bundles of spears, and the aborigines practising with their hunting and war implements. The lofty point...is Mount Macedon; next is Flag-staff Hill, to signalise arrivals in the Bay...Upon the river (Yarra-Yarra, or Ever-flowing) are steamers...which attest the commercial activity of the place. Some twelve years ago, the land on which a city now stands was a wilderness...inhabited by innumerable tribes of savages...What has not been achieved in this once barbarous region by England's indomitable and noble spirit of enterprise! Perhaps, in no portion of the globe has so gigantic an effort at colonization been crowned with so signal and speedy a triumph as in the erection of Melbourne, with a population of at least 15,000 souls'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.