consideration the destitute condition of newly
arrived immigrants.

Besides these public announcements, we
have private information in addition to
that recently communicated in a "Chip,"
of the absolute necessity of emigrants taking
out houses or tents, if they do not desire to
live in the open air, or the public Homes.
Of house room there is no chance.

The following, a Government notice, shows
that the Government have at length partly
adopted the principle of family colonization.
Residents in the colony are informed that for
four pounds for each boy, and two pounds for
each girl between the ages of one and fourteen,
and eight pounds for each man, and four pounds
for each woman under forty-five, they may
obtain passages to the colony for their
relations, provided they comply with the regulations
of the Emigration Commissioners in
England. But they must be of the following
callings—agricultural labourers, shepherds,
herdsmen, miners, gardeners, or country
bricklayers, carpenters, masons, blacksmiths,
wheelwrights. What is the difference between a
country and a town bricklayer we are puzzled
to know. So now, all people who think they
can go through the process prescribed by the
formalists of Park Street had better stir up
their relations in Australia. Under this
plan those who go in one ship, if short of
means, may take the eight pounds a head
of the relations left at home, and remit
through the Government on arrival. As
passages are dear now, this profitable mode
of laying out the funds of a family is worth
knowing.

We will not wade through the half-dozen
columns of sales by auction of miscellaneous
goods and the like, of land and houses, that
adorn the Port Philip papers. Certainly it
seems as if with money, and a vehicle to move
the goods, there would be no difficulty in
purchasing land or houses in town or country,
and furnishing and provisioning. From tin
ware to grand pianos, from Dutch cheeses to
champagne, at auction sales everything seems
to go under the hammer, on the same day,
by the same man.

In the general market we find cauliflowers
eighteen shillings a dozen, green peas
eighteenpence a quart, turnips and carrots
four shillings a dozen, fowls sixteen shillings,
geese and turkeys twenty shillings a pair,
butter two shillings and sixpence per pound,
eggs two shillings a dozen, hay eighteen
pounds a ton, fat bullocks ten to twelve
pounds a head, sheep fifteen shillings a
head, horses from forty to sixty pounds
for good hacks, draught horses fifty to
eighty pounds, with an expectation of an
advance of fifty pounds per cent. in the next
month.

After these quotations the farmer, the
market gardener, the sailor, the navigator,
the lawyer, the gentleman, the clerk, can
better decide than on any private information
whether they are fit for the gold diggings
and its environs, its shops, farms, pastures, or
public-houses.

HERMIT ISLAND.

The town of La Calle is situated on the
north coast of Africa, near the eastern boundary
of Algeria. I took up my residence
there in the beginning of October, 1843; and
the brave comrades, who received me on my
arrival, soon discovered that I was disappointed
at not finding the country so beautiful
as I had been led to expect. A long, narrow
rock, jutting into the sea, supports the handful
of houses which constitute the town; at a
very short distance behind, the horizon is
walled in by lofty naked mountains; and then
there is a poor little creek, which they call
the Port, and at the end of that the sea,
without a single vessel to be seen upon it,
except the numerous coral-boats which I
hardly expected to find there.

"Oh!" said my friends, "you will find
plenty of amusement by and bye. In six
months, the Bobérach will be back again,
with Lieutenant Baussand, a capital fellow.
We shall have splendid water-parties, and you
will go to La Galite."

La Galite excited my curiosity greatly. I
had heard M. Guyon-Vernier tell marvellous
tales about it at Algiers; at Bône, also, it was
spoken of as something curious. I became,
therefore, a little impatient; I wanted to
catch a glimpse of La Galite. We went out
for the purpose, but in vain; the weather was
rather hazy, and La Galite is not visible from
La Calle except on a particularly fine day.
When this island can be distinctly seen, that
is, when the air is unusually clear, the common
remark is, that rain is coming. This
barometric sign is a perfectly established fact.

At last a fine day did come; and, in the direction
of Sardinia, fifteen leagues out at sea, I
could see a black rugged rock rising in strong
relief above the horizon. It was La Galite.
Summer came at last, and with it the Bobérach, a
charming chibeck which had formerly been
used by the corsairs in their piratical
expeditions, and which was captured in the port
of Algiers, in 1830. She was a decked vessel,
with a crew of thirty men or thereabouts,
with three masts and four sails, including the
jib. She was then commanded by M. de
Pérallo, whose wife, a young and lively
Parisian, accompanied her husband, to whom
she was thoroughly devoted. The Bobérach
used to spend the summer at La Calle, to
watch the coral fishery; in winter she snugged
herself up in the port of Algiers, leaving La
Calle to shift with a naval force of a single
balancelle, the Tafna, commanded by a tall and
stout Provençal, named M. Sicard, a good
sort of man, though a great original.
Captain Sicard, as he was called, might serve as
an excellent representative of a certain kind
of sea-wolf which romance-writers are very