I stood at the east end of Bourke Street, not a year ago, looking at the black swarming masses, which thronged the broad thoroughfare below.

All the town lay at my feet, and the sun was going down beyond the distant mountains; I had just crossed from the front of the new Houses of Legislature, and had nearly been run over by a great omnibus.

Partly to recover my breath, and partly, being not used to large cities, to enjoy the really fine scene before me, I stood at the corner of the street in contemplative mood.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked round,--it was Major Buckley.
"This is a wonderful sight, Hamlyn," said he.
"When you think of it," I said, "really think of it, you know, how wonderful it is!" "Brentwood," said the Major, "has calculated by his mathematics that the progress of the species is forty-seven, decimal eight, more rapid than it was thirty-five years ago." "So I should be prepared to believe," I said; "where will it all end?
Will it be a grand universal republic, think you, in which war is unknown, and universal prosperity has banished crime?
I may be too sanguine, but such a state of things is possible.

This is a sight which makes a man look far into the future." "Prosperity," said the Major, "has not done much towards abolishing crime in this town, at all events; and it would not take much to send all this back into its primeval state." "How so, Major ?" said I; "I see here the cradle of a new and mighty empire." "Two rattling good thumps of an earthquake," said the Major, "would pitch Melbourne into the middle of Port Phillip, and bury all the gold far beyond the reach even of the Ballarat deep-sinkers.