trical performance came
off with great _eclat_. The captain gave his parting supper after the
performance; and the _menu_ was remarkable, considering that we had
been out eighty-one days from Gravesend. There were ducks, fowls,
tongues, hams, with lobster-salads, oyster pattes, jellies,
blanc-manges, and dessert. Surely the art of preserving fresh meat and
comestibles must have nearly reached perfection. To wind up, songs
were sung, toasts proposed, and the captain's testimonial was
presented amidst great enthusiasm.

_18th May._--We sighted the Australian land to-day about thirteen
miles off Cape Otway. The excitement on board was very great; and no
wonder, after so long a voyage. Some were going home there, to rejoin
their families, relatives, and friends. Others were going there for
pleasure or for health. Perhaps the greater number regarded it as the
land of their choice--a sort of promised land--where they were to make
for themselves a home, and hoped to carve out for themselves a road to
competency if not to fortune.

We gradually neared the land, until we were only about five miles
distant from it. The clouds lay low on the sandy shore; the dark-green
scrub here and there reaching down almost to the water's edge. The
coast is finely undulating, hilly in some places, and well wooded.
Again we beat off the land, to round Cape Otway, whose light we see.
Early next morning we signal the lighthouse, and the news of our
approaching arrival will be forthwith telegraphed to Melbourne. The
wind, however, dies away when we are only about thirty miles from Port
Phillip Heads, and there we lie idly becalmed the whole afternoon, the
ship gently rolling in the light-blue water, the sails flapping
against the masts, or occasionally drawing half full, with a fitful
puff of wind. Our only occupation was to watch the shore, and with the
help of the telescope we could make out little wooden huts half hidden
in the trees, amidst patches of cultivated land. As the red sun set
over the dark-green hills, there sprang up the welcome evening breeze,
which again filled our canvas, and the wavelets licked the ship's
sides as she yielded to the wind, and at last sped us on to Port
Phillip.

At midnight we are in sight of the light at the entrance of the bay.
Then we are taken in tow by a tug, up to the Heads, where we wait
until sunrise for our pilot to come on board. The Heads are low necks
of sandy hillocks, one within another, that g