own lodgings were situated, up to the fashionable
squares. He may have been the man who
distributes the Secret Service Fund for the
government, or he may have been the man
who accommodates noblemen and gentlemen
on their own personal security, for himself;
but, at all events, he was not a man of delicate
scruples, or refined notions of honour. I
am sure of this, because, when I left him,
upon his taking into his service an additional
young hand, who seemed to me the
quintessence of roguery, he never gave me a six-
pence of my salary: a debt which I had
foolishly allowed to accumulate.

"You should always have these agreements
put in writing, my dear sir," he said, when he
wished me good-bye.

I was very bitter-hearted and desperate
after this. I thought of living merrily with
what little money I had still left, and then of
making an end of it. My intercourse with
this old rascal had not improved my morals.
I was getting, if not Robert Macaire-ish, at
least, Devil-may-care-ish. I would go to the
theatres and Cider Cellars, and see life
generally, for nights together, and then I would
make a spasmodic effort at economy, and
would give sixpence for the right of sleeping
in a cab, or would give fourpence for a day's
subsistence, in the shape of a sandwich and a
glass of ale.

At last, I made up my mind to do what I
should have done long before: I was attracted
by a gaudy placard upon a dead wall, headed
"Wealth, wealth, wealth! " It went on to
describe the certain prosperity that resulted
to all, who went by the Cobweb Line of
Packets to Australia, and I resolved to emigrate.
Much of my wardrobe, which was very
disproportionate to my slender finances, I disposed
of for a few pounds. I had no P.P.C.
cards to leave for anybody; and, in three days
time from having seen the placard, I was on
board the Shaky, bound for the port of Sydney;
having seen quite enough, I thought, and to
spare, of this side of the world.

The Shaky was an emigrant ship, sailing at
a very cheap rate, and in an entirely inefficient
state for anything beyond an excursion to the
Isle of Wight. There was a great lack of necessaries
of all kinds; so much so, that we were
reduced to biscuits for the last month. Of
comforts there were absolutely none. I
had taken with my last money (except a
pound or two), a stern cabin berth; and,
therefore, my experiences were not worse than
other peoples'. The man, who pretended to
be the surgeon, might just as well have been
the cook; arid, on the other hand, the cook—
of whose culinary skill, however, there was
no great test on board— might as well have
been the surgeon. Whenever there was any
wind, no matter how favourable, we were
forced to shorten sail, for there were only two
or three bits of canvass which could bear to
be blown against; the ropes were in an equally
rotten condition, and the discipline was so ill-
maintained, that we ran one vessel down in
broad daylight, and were ourselves in most
imminent danger from a fire that broke out
in the forecastle. We were nearly seven
wretched months, before we came in sight of
the promised land.

All whom I had associated with upon the
passage seemed have some plan or other
fixed upon for their future guidance, and by
no means appeared anxious to be joined in
it by so magnificent a youth as I; for there
was no change as yet in my appearance (for
what should I have gained by it?) from
the days when I companioned with the
Saint Winifred swells; and they rightly
judged that a gentleman, and especially a
fast gentleman, would not be of much service
at a squatting run or at the gold diggings.
I was as much without a profession, or a
notion of getting a livelihood, therefore,
when we got view of Sydney, as in the London
streets. The sight of land at all,
however, was a cheering thing; and as we passed
between the lofty Heads, and beheld the
forest of masts within the harbour, and the
city stretching away on either side, its beautiful
wings with tower and steeple rising
from the mass, and the pleasure houses and
gardens crowning the hills above, it seemed
a welcome home enough to a storm-tossed
wretch like me.

We were moored alongside a wharf in
Darling Harbour, and disgorged all our
crew. They went out by twos and up to
tens, or if one disembarked alone it was to
meet a welcoming hand upon the shore, and
to hear a voice that bade him be of good
cheer. I was the only one quite solitary
and without a friend; and yet the appearance
of all around me seemed as though it were
at least my native country; the same faces,
the same language (a circumstance which cer-
tainly makes a colony, however distant, less
strange and alien than a foreign land), and
even the well-remembered cry of " Cab, sir,
cab ? " assailed me as if at the Marble Arch
or Holborn Hill. The beautiful clearness and
pleasant warmth of the air was, however, far
other than that of London; and in the Botanic
Gardens, where I wandered on the very evening
of my arrival, all tropical plants were flourishing
without protection from the weather.

I lay that night at a small inn near the
docks, and started to seek my fortune— a
pursuit I was by this time a little tired
of— the next morning. Porters were wanted,
glaziers were at a premium, good Scotch
gardeners in request, and skilled labourers
in the coach-making department, I think;
but I saw no advertisement, heard no
inquiry, for a young gentleman with half
a university education. I purchased some
suitable raiment, and took the best choice
that offered itself. I engaged myself as a
porter at the Darling Dock. I had to work
like a horse, but I was very strong, and my
earnings were not less than six shillings