te named Richard Ralph, who was then the
principal architect and builder in the city. He found him erecting
homes for the immigrants out of reeds and mud. He was paid 10 pounds
or 12 pounds for each building. He was also hunting kangaroo and
selling meat. He was married to a lady immigrant, and on the whole
appeared to be very comfortable and prosperous. Davy gave the lady a
five-shilling piece to go and fetch a bottle of gin, and was
surprised when she came back bringing two bottles of gin and 3s.
change. In the settlement the necessaries of life were dear, but the
luxuries were cheap. If a man could not afford to buy kangaroo beef
and potatoes, he could live sumptuously on gin. Davy walked back to
the port the same evening, and next day took in ballast, which was
mud dug out among the mangroves.

He arrived at Launceston in four days, and then went as coasting
pilot of the barque 'Belinda', bound to Port Fairy to take in oil for
London. The barque took in 100 head of cattle, the first that were
landed at Port Fairy. He then went to Port Philip, and was employed
in lightering cargo up the Yarra, and in ferrying between
Williamstown and the beach now called Port Melbourne. He took out
the first boatman's licence issued, and has the brass badge, No. 1,
still. Vessels at that time had to be warped up the Yarra from below
Humbug Reach, as no wind could get at the topsails, on account of the
high tea-tree on the banks.

OUT WEST IN 1849.

I did not travel as a capitalist, far from it. I went up the
Mississippi as a deck passenger, sleeping at night sometimes on
planks, at other times on bags of oats piled on the deck about six
feet high. The mate of a Mississippi boat is always a bully and
every now and then he came along with a deck-hand carrying a lamp,
and requested us to come down. He said it was "agen the rules of the
boat to sleep on oats"; but we kept on breaking the rules as much as
possible.

Above the mouth of the Ohio the river bank on the Missouri side is
high, rocky, and picturesque. I longed to be the owner of a farm up
there, and of a modest cottage overlooking the Father of Waters. I
said, "If there's peace and plenty to be had in this world, the heart
that is humble might hope for it here," and then the very first
village visible was called "Vide Poche." It is now a suburb of St.
Louis.

I took a passage on another boat up the Illinois river. There was a
very lordly man on the