return,
they granted him all the land stretching from the Merri Creek to
Geelong. Batman had the documents drawn up, and on the Northcote Hill,
overlooking the grass-covered flats of Collingwood and the sombre
forests of Carlton and Fitzroy, the natives affixed their marks to the
deeds, by which Batman fancied he was legally put in possession of
600,000 acres. Trees were cut with notches, in order to fix the
boundaries, and in the afternoon Batman took leave of his black friends.
He had not gone far before he was stopped by a large swamp, and so slept
for the night under the great gum trees which then spread their shade
over the ground now covered by the populous streets of West Melbourne.
In the morning he found his way round the swamp, and in trying to reach
the Saltwater came upon a noble stream, which was afterwards called the
Yarra. In the evening he reached his vessel in the bay. Next day he
ascended the Yarra in a boat; and when he came to the Yarra Falls, he
wrote in his diary, "This will be the place for a village," unconscious
that he was gazing upon the site of a great and busy city. Returning to
Indented Head, near the heads of Port Phillip, he left three white men
and his Sydney natives to cultivate the soil and retain possession of
the land he supposed himself to have purchased. Then he set sail for
Tasmania, where he and his associates began to prepare for transporting
their households, their sheep and their cattle, to the new country.

#6. The Henty Brothers.#--But even earlier than this period a quiet
settlement had been made in the western parts of Victoria. There, as
early as 1828, sealers had dwelt at Portland Bay, had built their little
cottages and formed their little gardens. But they were unauthorised,
and could only be regarded by the British Government as intruders,
having no legal right to the land they occupied. In 1834, however, there
came settlers of another class--Edward, Stephen, and Frank Henty. Their
father--a man of some wealth--had in 1828 emigrated with all his family
to Western Australia, carrying with him large quantities of fine stock.
But the settlement at Swan River proving a failure, he had removed to
Tasmania, where his six sons all settled. Very soon they found the
pastoral lands of Tasmania too limited, and as Edward Henty had in one
of his coasting voyages seen the sealers at Portland Bay and noticed how
numerous the whales were in that bay, and how fine the grassy lands