ve anywhere without being governed,
and Colonel Arthur had no money to spend in governing a settlement at
Western Port. So Australia Felix was unsettled for eight years
longer.

Griffiths & Co., of Launceston, were trading with Sydney in 1833.
Their cargo outward was principally wheat, the price of which varied
very much; sometimes it was 2s. 6d. a bushel in Launceston, and 18s.
in Sydney. The return cargo from Port Jackson was principally coal,
freestone, and cedar.

Griffiths & Co. were engaged in whaling in Portland Bay. They sent
there two schooners, the 'Henry' and the 'Elizabeth', in June, 1834.
They erected huts on shore for the whalers. The 'Henry' was wrecked;
but the whales were plentiful, and yielded more oil than the casks
would hold, so the men dug clay pits on shore, and poured the oil
into them. The oil from forty-five whales was put into the pits, but
the clay absorbed every spoonful of it, and nothing but bones was
gained from so much slaughter. Before the 'Elizabeth' left Portland
Bay, the Hentys, the first permanent settlers in Victoria, arrived in
the schooner 'Thistle', on November 4th, 1834.

When the whalers of the 'Elizabeth' had been paid off, and had spent
their money, they were engaged to strip wattle bark at Western Port,
and were taken across in the schooner, with provisions, tools, six
bullocks and a dray. During that season they stripped three hundred
tons of bark and chopped it ready for bagging. John Toms went over
to weigh and ship the bark, and brought it back, together with the
men, in the barque 'Andrew Mack'.

WRECK OF THE CONVICT SHIP "NEVA," ON KING'S ISLAND.

She sailed from Cork on January 8th, 1835, B. H. Peck, master; Dr.
Stevenson, R.N., surgeon. She had on board 150 female prisoners and
thirty-three of their children, nine free women and their twenty-two
children, and a crew of twenty-six. Several ships had been wrecked
on King's Island, and when a vessel approached it the mate of the
watch warned his men to keep a bright look out. He said, "King's
Island is inhabited by anthropophagi, the bloodiest man eaters ever
known; and, if you don't want to go to pot, you had better keep your
eyes skinned." So the look-out man did not go to sleep.

Nevertheless, the 'Neva' went ashore on the Harbinger reef, on May
13th unshipped her rudder and parted into four pieces. Only nine men
and thirteen women reached the island; they were nearly naked and had
nothing to