heave ho!" and in a few hours,
favoured by a fine light breeze, we were well out to sea, and the
brown cliffs of Old England gradually faded away in the distance.

CHAPTER II.

FLYING SOUTH.

FELLOW-PASSENGERS--LIFE ON BOARD SHIP--PROGRESS OF THE SHIP--HER
HANDLING--A FINE RUN DOWN TO THE LINE--SHIP'S AMUSEMENTS--CLIMBING THE
MIZEN--THE CAPE DE VERD ISLANDS--SAN ANTONIO.

_3rd March._--Like all passengers, I suppose, who come together on
board ship for a long voyage, we had scarcely passed the Eddystone
Lighthouse before we began to take stock of each other. Who is this?
What is he? Why is he going out? Such were the questions we inwardly
put to ourselves and sought to answer.

I found several, like myself, were making the voyage for their health.
A long voyage by sailing ship seems to have become a favourite
prescription for lung complaints; and it is doubtless an honest one,
as the doctor who gives it at the same time parts with his patient and
his fees. But the advice is sound; as the long rest of the voyage, the
comparatively equable temperature of the sea air, and probably the
improved quality of the atmosphere inhaled, are all favourable to the
healthy condition of the lungs as well as of the general system.

Of those going out in search of health, some were young and others
middle-aged. Amongst the latter was a patient, gentle sufferer,
racked by a hacking cough when he came on board. Another, a young
passenger, had been afflicted by abscess in his throat and incipient
lung-disease. A third had been worried by business and afflicted in
his brain, and needed a long rest. A fourth had been crossed in love,
and sought for change of scene and occupation.

But there were others full of life and health among the passengers,
going out in search of fortune or of pleasure. Two stalwart,
outspoken, manly fellows, who came on board at Plymouth, were on their
way to New Zealand to farm a large tract of land. They seemed to me to
be models of what colonial farmers should be. Another was on his way
to take up a run in Victoria, some 250 miles north of Melbourne. He
had three fine Scotch colley dogs with him, which were the subject of
general admiration.

We had also a young volunteer on board, who had figured at Brighton
reviews, and was now on his way to join his father in New Zealand,
where he proposed to join the colonial army. We had also a Yankee
gentleman, about to enter on his governorship of the Gua