ave and talented Benyowsky, nor French
settlements, will bring it about. One thing, indeed, only can produce
it--that is, the spread and the firm establishment of true Christianity
among the people.

Some days after our departure we had a distant view of the island of
Rodriguez. In about a fortnight afterwards we were glad to put on warm
clothing instead of the light dress suitable to the tropics; yet we were
only in the same parallel of latitude as Madeira. It showed us how much
keener is the air of the southern hemisphere than that of the northern.
We soon after fell in with the monsoon, or trade wind, which sent us
flying along at a good rate; till early in August, on a bright morning,
the look-out at the mast-head shouted at the top of his voice, "Land ho!
Land ahead!" It was the north-west cape of New Holland, or Australia,
a region then, as even to the present day, almost a _terra incognita_ to
Europeans. As we neared it, we curiously looked out with our glasses
for some signs of the habitations of men, but nothing could be seen to
lead us to suppose that human beings were to be found there. The shore
was low, sandy, and desolate, without the least intermixture of trees or
verdure. A chain of rocks, over which the sea broke furiously, lined
the coast. We continued in sight of this most inhospitable-looking land
till the next morning. I could not help thinking of the vast extent of
country which intervened between the shore at which we were gazing and
the British settlement at Port Jackson, of which we had lately heard
such flattering accounts. Was it a region flowing with milk and honey?
one of lakes and streams, or of lofty mountains? did it contain one vast
inland sea, or was it a sandy desert of burning sands, impassable for
man?

This was a problem some of my emigrant friends had been discussing, and
which I longed to see solved. After losing sight of the coast of New
Holland, we had to keep a bright look-out, as we were in the supposed
neighbourhood of certain islands which some navigators, it was reported,
had seen, but no land appeared. One clear night we found ourselves
suddenly, it seemed, floating in an ocean of milk, or more properly,
perhaps, a thick solution of chalk in water. The surface was quite
unruffled, nor was there the slightest mixture of that phosphoric
appearance often seen on a dark night when the sea is agitated. The air
was still, though it was not quite a calm, and the sk