ized with the gold
fever. He laid up the 'Alert', went with his four men to Bendigo,
and was a lucky digger. Then he went to New Zealand, bought a farm,
and ploughed the waves no more.

In January, 1851, some buoys were sent to Port Albert and laid down
in the channel. The account for the work was duly sent to the chief
harbour master at Williamstown, but he took no notice of it, nor made
any reply to several letters requesting payment. There was something
wrong at headquarters, and Davy resolved to see for himself what it
was. Moreover, he had not seen Melbourne for ten years, and he
yearned for a change. So, without asking leave of anyone, he left
Port Albert and its shipping "to the sweet little cherub that sits up
aloft, and takes care of the life of Poor Jack," and went in his boat
to Yanakie Landing. Mrs. Bennison lent him a pony, and told him to
steer for two bald hills on the Hoddle Ranges; he could not see the
hills for the fog, and kept too much to port, but at last he found a
track. He camped out that night, and next morning had breakfast at
Hobson's Station. He stayed one night at Kilcunda, and another at
Lyle's station, near the bay. He then followed a track which
Septimus Martin had cut through the tea-tree, and his pony became
lame by treading on the sharp stumps, so that he had to push it or
drag it along until he arrived at Dandenong, where he left it at an
inn kept by a man named Hooks. He hired a horse from Hooks at five
shillings a day. The only house between Dandenong and Melbourne was
once called the South Yarra Pound, kept by Mrs. Atkinson. It was
near Caulfield, on the Melbourne side of "No-good-damper swamp."
Some blackfellows had been poisoned there by a settler who wanted to
get rid of them. He gave them a damper with arsenic in it, and when
dying they said, "No good, damper."

Davy landed in Melbourne on June 17th, 1851, put his horse in Kirk's
bazaar, and stayed at the Queen's Head in Queen Street, where Sir
William Clarke's office is now. The landlady was Mrs. Coulson, a
widow. Next morning he was at the wharf before daylight, and went
down the Yarra in the first steamer for Williamstown. He found that
Captain Bunbury, the chief harbour-master, had gone away in the
buoy-boat, a small schooner called the 'Apollo', so he hired a
whale-boat, and overtook the schooner off the Red Bluff. When he
went on board he spoke to Ruffles, master of the schooner, and said:

"Is the ha