tty far to
westward, we luckily caught the trade-wind, and rounded the Cape in a good
gale on the 15th of January. And here it came on to blow right earnestly;
but we kept the gale for about eight days on our larboard quarter, and we
scudded on our course at a fearful rate. Our mizen mast was carried
away--both our mainsails split--and we smashed a few spars, and lost some
running gear; nothing more serious happened, save the loss of as fine a
young fellow as ever trode shoe-leather--a seaman. He was caught sharply
by one of the ropes that gave way, and it carried him overboard like a
feather. We saw him drop--the sea was running mountains high--we could
render him no assistance; and he perished under our very eyes. The wind,
fortunately for us, continued on either quarter of our ship; and it is a
remarkable fact, and deserving of notice, that, during the whole of our
voyage, we had occasion only _to put the ship about_ TWICE. We cast anchor
in Hobson's Bay, Port Philip on the morning of the 21st of February,
having made our voyage in the short space of ninety-nine days, and the
land within a quarter of an hour of the captain's reckoning. The events of
the passage may be given _paucis verbis_. We had nine _accouchements_ in
the steerage amongst the emigrants, some of them premature from violent
sea-sickness, and seven deaths--all children.

Our deaths, as I have said, were confined to the children. The adults kept
free from fever; an astonishing fact, when the confinement and closeness of
a steerage birth is taken into account. The voyage was agreeable. We were
good friends in the cabin. The captain, a prudent, temperate man, took his
three glasses of grog per diem, and no more; the first at noon, the second
at dinner, the third and last at _"turn-in_." Your obedient servant, ever
mindful of your strict injunctions, and of your eloquent discourse on
sobriety and self-denial, and believing that he could not do better than
regulate his watch according to the captain's chronometer, followed
precisely the same rule. We maintained a glorious state of health after
the first week; and if all future voyagers would do the same, let them
neither eat nor drink aboard ship to the full extent of their appetites.
This is simple advice, but I reckon it the first great secret which my
nomadic experience enables me to put down for the benefit of my
fellow-creatures; especially on board of a ship, _leave off with an
appetite._ We passed o