m condescends to mix much with "forrard." Yet there are
generally many interchanges of courtesy, as between upper, middle, and
lower classes; and different messes will sometimes banquet one another.
The "cuddy" will, perhaps, get up amateur theatricals or charades, to
which spectacle the whole vessel will be invited; while the "steerage"
will return the compliment with a concert, more or less brilliant in
performance.

Thus, a pleasant interchange of civilities goes on aboard most ships,
and serves to help make the time pass away. Differences of rank and
station are supposed to be pretty well levelled down in the colonies.
Most of the time-worn prejudices of the old country, it is true, melt
away before the revivifying breath of colonial life, yet sometimes "Mrs.
Grundy's" awful features will show themselves, hiding the old foolish
face under a new and somewhat strange aspect.

It would be interesting to note how many of the most prominent and
influential citizens of a colony came there originally in the humblest
possible way; and how many of the dregs of colonial society--the
occupiers of the lowest rung on the colonial ladder--reached their new
home with all the pomp and circumstance of quarter-deck sublimity, and
all the humbug and pretension of real or fancied aristocracy. Is the
result we see--for these contrasts are to be found plentifully in all
the colonies at the Antipodes--what it ought to be, or not? That is the
question.

In the colonies, and particularly in the younger and newer among them, a
man must perforce be the sole architect of his own fortunes. Industry
and energy, enterprise and perseverance pave the pathway to success, and
yield a real and lasting benefit to him who holds such endowments. A man
must prove what he _is_, not what he _was_; his antecedents go for but
little, and his "forbears" for nothing at all. In the Antipodean
colonies of Great Britain is realized, perhaps, the nearest approach to
true freedom; and, in a wide social sense, the closest approximation to
the ideal republic.

However, we are still on board ship, and, after an easy and not too
eventful voyage of some three months, are looking eagerly out for the
first sight of the promised land. Bound to Auckland, New Zealand, our
vessel is one of the largest that has yet sailed from Gravesend to that
port; and she carries some three hundred emigrants and passengers on
board. We have grown so accustomed to our good ship, and to ou