previous year some explorer had
brought from thence a ship load of curiosities, including war clubs and
spears of hard polished and carved wood, mats and numerous other
articles in use among the cannibal tribes, and an exhibition of them was
held in the Town Hall. I now learnt that an acquaintance of mine, a Mr.
Gibson, had chartered a small vessel called the "Ocean Queen," 40 tons
burthen, and intended to sail in her, with his young wife, for the Fiji
Islands. Also that four other men had joined him in the enterprise. I
knew Gibson to be a plucky fellow, but when it transpired that neither
he nor the others possessed money beyond what the voyage would cost
them, and that what they intended to do when they arrived at the Fiji
Islands was to be left to chance, the proposed expedition assumed a
different complexion. The Judge denounced it as sheer madness, specially
for a man to take his wife to such a place. It was true that some
missionaries had settlements there, but these are generally safe, as the
savages, as a rule, fear and respect the missionaries of the Great
Spirit, be it that of the white man or the black, and they know that the
missionaries mean no harm to them or their possessions, but it would be
very different in the case of a number of white men arriving unprotected
in a small boat with the intention of settling on their land. However,
nothing would dissuade Gibson and his party. Whether the "Ocean Queen"
arrived at the Fiji Islands was never known. Certainly she and the party
who sailed in her were never again heard of.

CHAPTER XX.

DECIDE TO GO TO INDIA--VISIT MELBOURNE, ETC.

For the following six months I kept steadily to work. I was gradually
adding to my stock of sheep, and had nothing occurred to disturb me I
should doubtless have continued at work and in time have become a
veritable squatter. I was able to command constant employment in any
colonial capacity, and had been more than once offered the overseership
of a run, but the old distaste for the life of a sheep-farmer was as
strong as ever.

It was in the month of May, 1864, when I received a letter from my
brother in Bombay, saying that there were excellent openings in the
engineering line there, to which he had interest enough to help me, and
he pressed me to go to Bombay and try my luck. My brother was then
representative of a large mercantile firm at Bombay.

I think neither he nor the others at home had ever divested the