huge books that seem to be teak-built and
copper-fastened like the ships; indeed, there
are more passengers booked than any of the
establishment know how to dispose of: the
only chance of all being accommodated
consisting in the possibility of some amongst
them getting too ill to go, and, perhaps, a few
falling overboard at Gravesend. It is
dreadfully hard work, in the hot weather, at
Hopkins and Bung's. The stoutest and
youngest of their clerks are knocked up
long before six o clock, and the cashier is
obliged to be taken home, every evening, in
a cab.

It was a hot thundery day in the early
part of June, when I bent my steps from the
little office just named, towards the London
Docks, along Fenchurch Street, down the
Minories, and across Tower Hill, as fast as
the dense throng would allow me. It
appeared as if the best part of London, and
a considerable portion of the Provinces,
were going down on that particular day to
engage berths for Australia. Every alternate
shop seemed to have been suddenly converted
into an outfitting warehouse. One man, more
daring than his neighbours, actually offered
the emigrating world complete outfits at forty-
five shillings each, but whether it was for
infants in arms or adults I did not learn.
Until that day I had but a very glimmering
idea of the requirements of a gold-digger:
on my way to the Docks, I learnt by the
placards in the windows, that amongst the
sundries needed at the "Diggings," were
telescopes, alpaca umbrellas, reading-lamps,
toasting-forks, easy-chairs, mirrors, and key-
bugles, and many other miscellaneous articles.

The crowd became densely uncomfortable
as I approached the Dock gates. The man in
the Dock livery had given up the gate in
despair: there was no such thing as keeping
order. I found him, forlorn, in a remote corner,
besieged by a crowd of intending emigrants,
who were pressing him with a host of
inquiries about the "Diggings." Whether
they imagined him to have charge of all the
shipping in the Docks, or whether they
believed that the gold-lace round his hat had
been recently dug up at Mount Alexander, did
not transpire, but it was quite evident that
they felt confident in his knowing all about
it; and when I left the spot, there was rather
a strong party in favour of elevating the gate-
keeper on the end of a rum-puncheon, that
all might catch his oracular words.

Through the defenceless gates, past some
thousands of wine pipes that lay scattered
about as though they didn't belong to
anybody in particular, turning sharp round to
the right along the water's edge, by the
weighing sheds, where groaning, frowning
iron cranes, and bales of wool, and casks of
tallow, threatened the unwary passer-by;—
and there, just before me, was the jetty.

What a sight there was upon that jetty!
I could have fancied the whole export trade
of the country had gone stark staring mad
with the gold-fever, and had plunged out of
bed and rushed down to the Docks. Boxes
and cases, cart-wheels, hand-barrows, casks
and barrels, ploughs, crates, and bales, were
all lying about in wild disorder, looking as
though they would require a couple of
years and a small army of labourers to
stow them away. As to getting them all
into the eight vessels—that I considered a
matter of sheer impossibility, and not likely
to be attempted.

On the right side of the jetty, midway
down, lay the vessel I was in search of, the
Jeremy Diddler, advertised "for the Gold
Regions, with immediate dispatch," and
professing to be provided with an experienced
surgeon, patent ventilators, family baths, and
altogether the most superior accommodation
of any ship or ships sailing from the port of
London. A very few days previously, the
Diddler had been choked up with wool and
tallow; at the moment of my visit, the sole
vestiges of Australian produce in the Jeremy
Diddler were the cockroaches, who were
running all sorts of sweepstakes round the
vessel, evidently quite at home.

About and around the ship, riggers, caulkers,
smiths, carpenters, painters, were all working
away, like so many steam engines, with a
fifty-mechanic power, that was quite
invigorating to behold. Old men with grey hairs
and faltering steps; young girls, pale from
the factory or the garret; countrymen in
smock-frocks; lean-faced artisans; mothers
with infants in arms; stout servant girls;
these and many others filed up the narrow
bending plank that formed a bridge between
the old world and the new; and as I watched
the motley troop pass on, I wondered much
how some of those would fare in the wild
gold-fields of the distant south.

There was no remaining on deck; not a
soul appeared to care a straw about the
masts, or the rigging, or the poop: the ship
might have been without one or the other for
aught they cared. All poured down to the
"'tween decks," by the little ricketty wicked
ladder that always pretended to slip about,
yet never did: causing no end of little screams
from under all sorts of bonnets.

The cool shade of the long range of 'tween
decks seemed quite refreshing after the hot
glare above. But, dear me, how crowded it
was with candidates for emigration and sea-
sickness! It was as much as the carpenters
could do, to move their saws and chisels
amidst all that myriad of limbs, without
committing spontaneous amputation. I expected,
more than once, to see several young children
nailed down to the decks by their heels.

The entire length of the vessel had been
cleared out, and was being marked off and
divided into spaces for single, double, and
treble cabins, as the wants of passengers
might require. There were long lines, and
curves, and zig-zags, chalked out on the decks