Australian Town and Country Journal at KellyGang 27/4/1872 (3)

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It looked like a huge earthwork thrown up in the form of a square. The wall towards us was almost perpendicular. The composition was very extraordinary. Pudding stone would perhaps be the most expressive term, for we recognized traces of ironstone, clay, sand, limestone, copper, and other minerals and fossils in it.

The second high 'hill on the mountain' is a few hundred yards away, and called ‘The Pulpit.' It is not quite so high, but more rounded than the 'Table top.' The third is a very short distance from tho last-mentioned. It is appropriately called 'The Bald Peak,' and is the most pointed of the three. All three are in a line, and look very remarkable.

The panorama taken in by the eye from the top is worth any amount of trouble. East and south-east numberless farms, cottages, and cultivated fields, the Murray River winding, the Tumbarumba and Upper Murray Ranges in the distance; south and south-west, Albury, and beyond, in Victoria, the Lady Franklin Mountain, far away; on the opposite side of Mount Battery is an impassable barrier, or wall of rock, for several miles on each side; Gerogery , Mr Watson's station, in the level country below, with its fine house peering between the trees, and further to the left numerous patches of cleared land, being farms taken up in Dight's Forest. These are only a few of the pictures on this splendid panorama. After getting back, with appetites sharpened for a late dinner, we again mounted our horses, and struck across the country in a south westerly direction, I think.

Passing a number of farms we came to Ellerslie, Mr Edward Mitchell's compact little station, six miles from Table-top. Crossing a good paddock of several thousand acres, waving with luxuriant grass, we arrived at a capital farm tho property of Mr E Bolton. The principal object of our visit was to see the Angora goats here. Though Mr Bolton was not at home, we took the liberty of going through his paddocks and looking at the goats. We saw forty altogether, but there are only three pure Angoras amongst them. There were, however, a large number of young goats having Angora blood in them. In a few years these goats will be in flocks of hundreds, perhaps thou sands, throughout tho district. They will prove a new source of wealth, and take the place of the use less animals which now infest the district.

Turning our horses heads homewards on that beautiful afternoon, as the sun was just setting, we thoroughly enjoyed the rapid canter on good nags across country, inhaling the free fresh air. The following morning I bade adieu to the kind people at Table-top, and in place of going straight to Albury, I wandered through all sorts of turnings, lanes, and roadways, occasionally engaging the grape-pickers conversation, or calling at some German vine grower's cottage to see his method of wine making. I was cordially welcomed at all places, and pressed to take wine.

In the afternoon I found myself in a settlement of some thousands of acres. There are several hundred Germans here, who have taken up land under the Free Selection Act; most of them are very poor and very hardworking people. At several of the huts at which I called nobody was at home; on the table were seen tho scanty unwashed breakfast things; looking in the fields I saw the father, mother, brothers and sisters - even to the smallest child slaving away for a living, I am informed, and have every reason to believe that these people do without tea or sugar, using wheat roasted instead of the former, and wild honey to sweeten this coffee The forced economy in their own country explains this desire to save in this. It is said that every shilling they make 'goes to prison,' that is, it is locked up in a place of security, and never invested except in laud. The Germans, I am assured, make good colonists and seldom run into debt, though business people would perhaps prefer seeing British or American colonists who are always circulating money.

Next week I start ‘down the Murray' to Corowa.

end

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