11 ■ I I FURTHER DISCOVERIES IN THE COUNTRY. At the earliest colonial period, the islands of Bass’s Strait became the resort of sealers and fowlers. These rovers, most of them run away convicts, lived an adventurous, hazardous, and semi-savage life, never visiting civilised regions, excepting to dispose of their oil, skins, and mutton-bird feathers, and to procure necessary stores, and the means of gratifying their sensual appetites. In their hunting migrations, their whale-boats often sought the harbours of Port Phillip, or were driven by the southern tempest on its sandy shore. But tempted by no desire for agriculture, and impelled by no curiosity for discovery, these wild men of the isles saw little of the interior. Another cause prevented an examination of the country. Many of them had by artful intrigue or daring violence possessed themselves of wives from the native tribes : and the remembrance of wrongs, and lust for revenge, were not unknown to dwell in the breasts of husbands and fathers in the forest. It was well, therefore, that the white marauders should not approach too near the dark injured Sabines. The interior was thus a sealed hook. In 1817, Mr. Sur veyor-General Oxley made some important discoveries westward of Sydney. Arriving at the Lachlan river, he followed down its sterile and monotonous hanks till the stream disappeared in a vast spreading marsh. He was thoroughly dispirited with his journey. He thus evidences his conviction of the wretched hopelessness of the region, afterwards recognised as Port Phillip, the Happy Australia of Major Mitchell. “ We had demonstrated,” writes Oxley, “ beyond a doubt, that no river could fall into the sea between Cape Otway and Spencer’s Gulf, or at least, none deriving its waters from the eastern coast; and that the country south of the parallel of 34 degrees and west of 147J degrees was uninhabitable and useless for all the purposes of civilized
