guide-books said that Port Haven was a busy rising town well
inside the Barrier Reef on the east coast of Northern Australia, and
offered abundant opportunities for intending settlers.

On this particular sunny morning Port Haven was certainly not "busy,"
and if "rising," it had not risen enough for much of it to be visible.
There were a few wooden buildings of a very rough description; there was
a warehouse or two; and an erection sporting a flagstaff and a ragged
Union Jack, whose front edge looked as if the rats had been trying which
tasted best, the red, white, or blue; and upon a rough board nailed over
the door was painted in white letters, about as badly as possible,
"Jennings' Hotel;" but the painter had given so much space to
"Jennings'," that "Hotel" was rather squeezed, like the accommodation
inside; and consequently from a distance, that is to say, from the deck
of the ship _Ann Eliza_ of London, Norman Bedford could only make out
"Jennings' Hot," and he drew his brother and cousin's attention to the
fact--the `el' being almost invisible.

"Well, who cares?" cried his brother Raphael.

"So's everybody else," said their cousin, Artemus Lake. "I'm melting,
and feel as if I was standing in a puddle. But I say, Man, what a place
to call a port!"

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Norman. "Of course we're not going to
stop here. Are we going to anchor close up to that pier thing?"

"Pier, Master Norman?" said a hard-faced man in a glazed straw hat,
"that's the wharf."

"Gammon! why, it's only a few piles and planks.--I say, Rifle, look
there. That's a native;" and the boy pointed to a very glossy black,
who had been squatting on his heels at the edge of the primitive wharf,
but who now rose up, planted the sole of his right foot against the calf
of his left leg, and kept himself perpendicular by means of what looked
like a very thin clothes-prop.

"If that's a native," said Raphael, "he has come out of his shell, eh,
Tim?"

"Yes," said Artemus, solemnly. "Australian chief magnificently attired
in a small piece of dirty cotton."

Captain Bedford, retired officer of the Royal Engineers, a bluff,
slightly grey man of fifty, who was answerable as father and godfather
for the rather formidable names of the three bright, sun-burned, manly
lads of fifteen to seventeen--names which the boys had shortened into
"Man", "Tim," and "Rifle"--overheard the conversation and laughed.

"Yes, that's a native, boys," h