tins and crockery, washing things, all loose
articles of every description, with boxes, jars,
and tubs, and kegs and cabin furniture bursting
away from their fastenings, through cabin
doors, and bringing many cabin doors and
panels along with them, together with the
heavy crashing hatchway ladders — in one
tremendous avalanche, cataract, and chaos,
like the total destruction and end of all
things. It was so sudden, so complete, so far
exceeding all we had previously experienced,
put together, that it produced for a second or
two a dead silence. The suspense was
momentary, for out of that silence there arose
one loud, unanimous, spontaneous,
simultaneous huzza! from nearly every cabin in
the 'tween decks, just as though we had
received the first broadside of an enemy on
going into action. This is literally true. I
felt proud of my countrymen. Most of us on
our first voyage too. Certainly we English
were meant to be a nation of sailors.

10th.— The foulest weather of the whole
yoyage was in the Indian Ocean, when we
were first nearly abreast of Cape Lewin, off
the invisible Australian coast. Our boas'n
said he had been out here fourteen times,
aud always had a storm off this coast. The
boas'n a first-rate sailor. Had two holes, and
one long rent in his blue trowsers — the
largest patched with a great canvas heart,
the next with an anchor cut out in leather —
and the long rent was covered with a
Turkish scymetar, also of canvas. But here
we were at last nearing the " Heads," and I
did not care how soon I lost sight of all these
petty objects and interests of the stupid old
Rodneyrig. Took pilot on board. Crowd
surrounded him with eager looks and
questions. Pilot said gruffly at once, " All right
as to the gold — now, I won't answer another
question. Haul up the mainsail!"

11th.— Hobson's Bay. Who would have
expected to see so many ships? Could not
help feeling a momentary alarm, lest all the
gold should have been picked up. But the
ships looked all empty, deserted, as we passed.
In one there seemed to be nobody but the
captain, who was leaning disconsolately over
the side. Others showed no signs of life at
all. On this deck perhaps a boy, or that a
dog, but generally no moving thing at all.
Felt that if the gold had been picked up ever
so extensively, at least it had not been carried
away.

A row on deck between passengers and
Captain Pennysage. Hobson's Bay was not
Melbourne — yet he declared he had no more
to do with us now, and that we must get
ashore in boats, how we could, at our own
expense. We learnt from the pilot that the
charges of boatmen for passengers and bag
gage ashore, were most exorbitant, and no
help for it. How we raged at the captain!
We all execrated Saltash and Pincher!

13th.— Thirty shillings for every forty cubic
feet of luggage by the steam-tug that took us

ashore, measured by their own off-hand men,
besides paying for our own passage. Nobody
with all his luggage, so that we had this to
go through several times. Steam-tug calling
at all manner of vessels by the way, round
about and in and out, made it dark when we
were landed on the wharf. In a few minutes,
to our surprise and dismay, the air became
dark — it was night, and the rain began to
fall heavily. Rain had fallen before in the
day, and all under foot was mud and slush.
Most of their luggage all the passengers had
to carry or drag ashore themselves; the rest,
excepting what was carelessly left behind by
the sailors of the tug, was bundled after us,
pell mell. Cattle would never have been put
ashore in so reckless a manner. There was
not a single lamp on the wharf, nor even the
temporary help of a lanthorn. Boxes, bales,
cases, fragments of machinery, bundles of
diggers' tools, merchandise of all sorts burst
ing from their confines and being trampled
into the mud, men, women, large families,
with the children all crying, now a dog
running between your legs, now you running
up against a horse who had also lost his
master, and all this in a strange place, in the
rain and dark, and nobody knowing anything
you wanted to know, but retorting precisely
your own question in a wild tone — especially
"Which is the way to the town?" — " Where
can we get lodgings for the night?" — " What
on earth is to become of our luggage?"
Arrowsmith, by agreement, had rushed ashore
directly we touched the edge of the wharf, to
go up to Melbourne and try and find lodgings
for us, which we knew must be no easy
matter. I had lost Waits in the scramble
and confusion. I saw no more of either of
them all night. In the miserable company of
some forty or fifty passengers by the Rodneyrig,
and another ship that had just sent a
cargo of forlorn wretches ashore, I passed the
whole night on the wharf, standing with my
back against a large packing case, and
occasionally Iying with my hand and elbows
upon it indulging in no very lively train of
reflection. I was very wet and cold of course,
but not so cold as I had fancied I should be.
About daybreak I discerned a large rusty
boiler of a steam engine (one of the numerous
pieces of machinery which for want of cranes,
or other apparatus, besides labourers, had
been left, as I subsequently found, to rot on
the wharf), and into this boiler I crept, and
coiling myself as nearly into a ball as I could,
gave a sigh, and went to sleep.

24th.— Horrible bad cold, aches in every
joint of my bones, more rain, wandering about
on the wharf searching for our luggage, with
no breakfast, everybody rushing to and fro
in a scramble, and nobody able to answer any
question, or refusing to listen a moment. About
nine o'clock, the sun came out bright and hot.
Saw Arrowsmith hurrying along covered
with mud, and followed by Waits with a
bloody nose and one of the skirts of his