Dr Lang, in his description of the Port-Philip district, alludes to the success which may there attend female settlers who carry on the business of sheep-farming on their own account; and mentions the following facts on the subject:—

'On the morning after our arrival at Geelong, Dr Thomson accompanied me on a visit to Miss Drysdale, an elderly maiden lady from Scotland, whose acquaintance and friendship I had had the honour of making on my first visit to Geelong in the year 1843, when I had the pleasure of spending a day or two under her hospitable roof. Miss Drysdale is a lady of a highly-respectable family, and of superior intelligence, her brother having been the late Sir William Drysdale, treasurer of the city of Edinburgh. Having a considerable patrimony of her own, and being of an active disposition, and fond of rural pursuits, she had rented a large farm in Scotland, of which she superintended the management in person; but being a martyr, as she told me, to the coughs and colds, and other ills that flesh is heir to in our hyperborean Scottish climate, she resolved to emigrate to a milder region, where she might hope to enjoy better health, while she continued to indulge in her favourite pursuits, and endeavour to exert a salutary influence on some at least of her fellow-creatures, wherever Divine Providence might fix her lot. And, I am happy to add, Miss Drysdale sees no reason to regret the step she took, in pursuance of this resolution, in emigrating to Philipsland. She has uniformly enjoyed excellent health; she is in the midst of such scenes, and scenery, and occupations as she delighted in at home; the property she invested in stock on her arrival in the colony must have increased greatly during the interval that has since elapsed; and she has not only exhibited the goodly and influential example of a highly-respectable family living in the fear of God, and in the zealous observance of all the ordinances of religion, in a country in which, I am sorry to say, such examples are rare, but she has had it in her power to render the most valuable services to some who really required what she has proved to them—a friend indeed. At the period of my first visit to Geelong Miss Drysdale had two of the younger daughters of the late Mr Batman residing with her, to whom she was benevolently discharging the duty of a parent; and her character as a doer of good was generally known, and gratefully acknowledged, in the vicinity.

'On her arrival in the colony, Miss Drysdale determined to "squat," as it is styled in the phraseology of the country; that is, to settle on a tract of unoccupied crown land, of sufficient extent for the pasturage of considerable flocks and herds, with their increase for several years—a tract, in all likelihood, from twenty-five to fifty square miles in extent. For this land the occupant pays a yearly license-fee to the government of L.10, which insures to him for the time being the full possession of the entire tract; and it is universally understood that while this fee is paid, and no offence committed against the laws and the customs of squatting, the occupant shall not be disturbed, unless the land is sold in the meantime to a bona-fide purchaser, at not less than L.1 an acre, or required for government purposes—neither of which events is, in ordinary circumstances, at all likely to happen. It has not been allowed, for a good many years past, to give a squatting license of this kind to any person within a considerable distance of a township or village; but Miss Drysdale was allowed, as a special exception from this general rule, to occupy a station within four miles of the town of Geelong. On that station she accordingly erected a neat thatched cottage, with glazed rustic lattice-windows, which she had carried out with her from home, formed a garden, and fenced in a sufficient extent of superior land for cultivation. The cottage had been greatly improved, both externally and internally, at the period of my visit in 1846, and three years had made a wonderful change for the better upon the garden, which had gravelled walks dividing the different parterres—the only instance of the kind I had seen in the country, and strongly reminding me of home.

'The situation of Miss Drysdale's cottage, to which she has judiciously given the native name of the locality, Barrangoop, which signifies a turf, is on a gentle grassy slope towards the Barwon River, with the garden in front. The cottages of her farm-overseer and servants are close at hand, and remind one of a respectable farming establishment in the old country. On my first visit to Geelong, I found a respectable young man, who had been three sessions at the university of Glasgow, as an intending candidate for the Christian ministry, but who had subsequently abandoned his studies, and gone out as a bounty emigrant to Port Philip, acting in the humble capacity of tutor to the children of Miss Drysdale's overseer, a respectable Scotch farmer, with a large family. Upon the whole, there was something of a domestic character about Miss Drysdale's establishment generally which is but rarely seen at the squatting stations of the interior; and I could not help thinking that the very horses and cattle seemed to consider themselves more at home than elsewhere.

'After passing Geelong to the left, the Barwon River, which in this part of its course is a beautiful stream, pursues a south-easterly course, nearly parallel to that of the western arm of Port Philip, to the great Southern Ocean. About nine or ten miles below Barrangoop it spreads out into a series of lakes, as picturesque as any sheets of water of that kind I have ever beheld. On my first visit to this part of the country in 1843, I rode down to these lakes along with Miss Newcome, another maiden lady, whom Miss Drysdale had some time before taken into partnership with herself—partly, I presume, that she might have some kindred spirit—which, I am happy to say, Miss Newcome unquestionably is—to whom she might be able to whisper that "solitude was sweet." Miss Newcome was quite at home on her high-spirited steed, and we gallopped along through scenery of the richest description, beautiful grassy plats alternating with clumps of trees of the most graceful and ornamental foliage, till we reached the lakes. These extensive sheets of glassy water, variegated with headlands and islands, were absolutely alive with black swans, and other waterfowl, sailing quietly along on their silent surface. There must have been at least five hundred swans in view at one time on one of the lakes. They were no "rarÆ aves" there. Their deep solitudes, however, are effectually invaded now; for the white man will soon thin their ranks in all probability, and force them to retreat before the progress of civilisation.'