River on the evening of the 6th of May, 1843, running out
with a moderate North-East breeze. Everything seemed auspicious. The
water was smooth, and the sails, as they slept in the breeze, echoed back
the sounds of the well-known song, We are homeward bound, that was sung
with an earnestness that could not be mistaken. I fancied I could
discern, in the rough tones of the crew under my command, the existence
of the same emotions that swelled in my own breast at this moment. For
seamen, high and low, though content to pass the greater portion of their
lives upon the world of waters, can never entirely suppress that yearning
for home, which, perhaps, after all, is one of the finest traits in human
nature. And now that it might be legitimately indulged, I was not sorry
to see such strong evidences of its existence.

Ere the last vestige of day had passed, the coast of Australia had faded
from our sight, though not from our memory; for, however much thoughts of
the land to which we were returning crowded on our minds, they could not
as yet entirely obliterate the recollection of that we were quitting. The
Swan River colony--its history, its state, its prospects--naturally
occupied much of our mind. What a change had come over it even since our
visit! From a happy little family, if I may use the expression, it had
grown into a populous colony, in which all the passions, the rivalries,
the loves and the hates of the mother country were in some sort
represented. And yet there remained still much of that old English
hospitality, which rendered our first stay so pleasant, and which almost
made us desire to prolong our last. The alteration that had taken place
was rather to be referred to the increasing number of settlers, which
rendered inevitable the formation of circles more or less exclusive, and
which, with the forms of European society, promised to introduce many of
its defects.

But our thoughts wandered, from time to time, over the whole of this
extraordinary continent, which we saw for the first time in November
1837, at the point from which we took our departure, in May, 1843. The
strange contrasts to the rest of the world which it affords were
enumerated and commented upon--its cherries with their stones growing
outside--its trees, which shed their bark instead of their leaves--its
strange animals--its still stranger population--its mushroom cities--and,
finally, the fact that the approach to human habitations is not a