Through the courtesy of Miss Hope, of Darriwill, Moorabool, we have secured for publication the following most interesting study of life in Geelong in the very early days. It is compiled from letters written by a daughter of the Rev. Andrew Love, of St. Andrew's Church, Geelong, and the notes have been put together by two of Mr. Love's grand-daughters, Mrs. William Hunt and Mrs. J. McArthur, in affectiomate remembrance of their grand-parents, who endured so much as pioneers of Australia.

My father, the Rev. Andrew Love, with his wife and five children, sailed from Greenock in October 1839 in the sailing ship "India," a small vessel of 493 tons (built at Greenock in 1839, owners Orr & Co.), then making her maiden voyage. She carried some thirty adult cabin passengers besides second class and steerage and a number of children. The Captain was a Highlander, a Campbell, with a piper on board, and one of his favorite amusements, when we met a vessel, was to set the pipes on the bowsprit to play "The Campbells are Coming."

We met with heavy weather to the South West of Ireland and were obliged to put back to Cork for repairs. Thence we sailed a month later, proceeding in the leisurely fashion of that time. The Captain reefed sail every night and went comfortably to bed, turning out only at the change of watch to see that all was well, and then retiring again.

We touched at the Cape Verd Islands where the "Erebus" and "Terror" were lying, and had a visit from Captain Ross and his officers.

From Mr. Douglas M. Gane's "Handbook of Tristan da Cunha" we learn that Glass was the founder of the Settlement in 1816 and was the Headman (or Governor) for 37 years. He had 16 children, 8 girls and 8 boys, and some of these were baptised by the Rev. Andrew Love and probably other children also when the "India" called at Tristan da Cunha in 1839-1840. At Tristan da Cunha, 'Governor' Glass came on board, bringing us fresh butter and eggs and begging in return a supply of needles, pins and cotton. My mother willingly turned out her workbag and the other ladies did the same, giving all they could spare. My father baptised some of the 'Governor's' children, and we set sail again.

We met many schools of whales and the sight of a whaler with a freshly harpooned whale in tow created great excitement among the passengers, the whale being longer than our little ship, "India."

Our vessel suffered many mishaps. But, after being twice dismasted and once set on fire by lightning in a terrific storm, we dropped anchor in Port Phillip on the 9th of April, 1840 - reported six months and nine days out from Greenock.

The passengers landed at Sandridge, now called Port Melbourne, then merely a stretch of beach covered with grass, backed by ti-tree scrub with a forest of gum trees behind it. There were no houses, just a few white tents alternating with fishermen's mia-mias. And on this beach, by a curious mischance, my mother landed alone with her five children. My father, having landed earlier, had proceeded to Melbourne to seek accomodation and had sent word back to the ship that my mother was to remain on board until the following day when he would meet us. But this message was not delivered; so there my mother waited anxiously hour after hour. Melbourne was only three miles distant, but the road lay through dense forest and the only means of getting there was by a spring cart, the owner of which refused to harness his horse under £5.

My mother at last sought refuge in one of the huts, but the men seemed such a rough lot that as the day began to close in she dreaded passing the night on shore. The vessel lay a mile out, but not a fisherman would put off for her under payment of £3. Back my mother must get, and by the dim light of a young moon put out to sea again. She was indeed thankful to find herself and her children again on the deck of the good little "India." Then her anxiety about my father was set at rest, as she was told that he would meet her the next day.

And on the following day we had our first sight of Melbourne. There were no streets. Just a house here and there; provisions and other articles were at famine prices, flour £100 the ton, eggs 6/- the dozen and for a single reel of sewing cotton my mother paid 6d.

We remained at Melbourne all the winter whilst my father was away at Geelong superintending the building of the manse, the first brick house erected in that 'town.' There were two wooden houses, but the rest of the inhabitants lived in huts made of wattle and dab (split wood).

In August, 1840, we took our sixty miles drive across the plains in an open spring cart. There was almost no forest, just groups of she-oaks and wattles in bloom. Our new home was surrounded by dense forest, we were a mile from any white neighbour and the blacks camped at our door.

My father's church, St. Andrew's, was the first of any denomination erected in Victoria. Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer, at that time Governor of Tasmania, accompanied by Sir George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales, was one of the first to visit it. Before the church was built the service was held in a wool-shed. The aborigines enjoyed the singing and would crowd around the doors poking their heads in to listen, jabbering and laughing. The whites at that time were very troublesome, those who did not attend the service took pleasure in killing sheep outside the building and making other disturbances.

During one of his first 'up-country' visits before he was well acquainted with the characteristics of the blacks, my father inquired of some young squatters if the natives could sing. "Sing?" was astonished reply. "Why, of course they can sing." Next morning a number of blacks were introduced at prayer time, the Old Hundredth was started, whereupon the natives joined in with such appalling effect that the 'singing' was brought to a hasty conclusion.

The up-country district or parish visited by my father was 200 miles long and he rode from one sheep station to another where he was always received with true Australian hospitality and where he baptised and married as he went along. During one of these long absences his wife, a woman of great courage, was left at the lonely manse with her young children, and amongst several black women standing by the verandah, one stroked her fair arm and said "Good to eat" (merrijig bulgana?) whereupon an unloaded revolver was brought from the house, and on this being pointed at the black woman she and her friends fled screaming.

In these days the Victorian natives seemed to have been cannibals, occasionally, for a black man was roasted and eaten in the manse garden and corroborees were frequently held between the manse and the Barwon River.

On one occasion only was my father rather nervous in the presence of some of the natives, and that was when, accompanied by his small son when walking home from the Barwon, he was called aside to the black camp to settle some dispute and whilst the men were explaining the quarrel they seemed to cast hungry eyes on the child holding his father's hand, but the father held the child's hand and very slowly backed away and walked slowly home, thankful to get away from the camp - haste might have proved fatal. He was a tall powerful man, but he would have been unable to do anything against these blacks, some of whom were great big half-castes, sons of a white man, Buckley, who lived in the camp.

And other tribes would come to Geelong from time to time and often my father would be called out at night to settle their differences, caused sometimes by a drunken white man making disturbances in the Geelong camp; his children were taught to be kind and usually went amongst the blacks without any fear.

When gold was discovered at Ballarat in 1851 the rush to the goldfields left Geelong for a time with only two men, my father and the bell-ringer, but many came back with no money and had to return to their former work which proved more remunerative to some of the men than working at the diggings. Some, however, returned with plenty of cash, and this they squandered making hasty marriages and buying white satin dresses, jewellery and dainty shoes for their brides who walked about the principal streets of Melbourne clad in this fine apparel to disappear again into the bush where many died of the hardships of the bush or of the diggings, the lucky ones surviving to return with a competency with lavish ideas about furnishing and housekeeping, as much as £500 a year being spent by one family alone on doctor's bills, of which they boasted, but this extravagance, added to the enormous sums spent of furniture, dress, and house-keeping, gradually brought them to grief.

When emigrant ships arrived with women the lucky diggers would stand in the midst calling out "Who'll have me?" and on agreeing to marry they would immediately walk to the manse in order to be married as quickly as possible in spite of admonitions from the minister as to the advisability of considering for a time the important step they were about to take; some were so unhappy as to wish very soon that the marriage might be dissolved, others got on happily enough, but all the women had to work hard which was not what they had looked forward to.

One woman married a very respectable man, a butcher, who afterwards owned a sheep station and before many years she and her husband went for a holiday to Scotland, where a former friend said she had heard that Susan was well off and supposed she and her husband must have about £600 a year. "£600!" exclaimed Susan, "we have £6,000 a year!" and she and her husband returned to Australia where their children and their children's children became prosperous and worthy Australian citizens.