there was a cat and a parson aboard, and one
of them had to be thrown overboard, they'd
ten times rather throw the parson. They've
got some notion about Jonah in connexion
with parsons." As he speaks, I see that the
cabin opposite to our doctor's is ticketed with
the name of a Reverend Somebody; and the
ship's carpenter comes out of it grumbling,
having had a difficulty in fixing a reading-desk
to the approbation of its tenant.

The doctor and his wife having come on board,
make for the quarter-deck at once, as to a place
of refuge. I look down from thence upon our
less privileged shipmates of the steerage and
intermediate, and see them involved in a
distracting whirl of confusion, which continues
hopelessly all the afternoon. There are people of
every age, down to babies but a few weeks
old; men shouting; children crying; women
silenced by utter inability to make themselves
heard. Luggage is strewed about the deck
in unsorted heaps. Every spot is full; every
square foot is littered; every person is in a
ferment. The majority of the women seem to give
up all effort at settling, as if it were contrary to
any reasonable expectation; so they seat
themselves doggedly upon their most valued trunks,
and make up their minds to voyage on them
to Australia. The mates, and the carpenter,
and the steward, are harassed out of their senses:
yet their labour is easy and placid compared to
that of the oppressed ship's husband, who has no
rest, bodily or mental, for a single instant. The
exertions of the black cook are fearful to behold,
for he is preparing dinner for these multitudes.
The dinner is served out in messes for four; and
already the tin dishes and cans are coming into
active use. When the ship is in order, the
doctor tells me, it will be his duty to taste of
every meal prepared for all but the first-cabin
passengers, in order that he may judge whether it
be wholesome and properly cooked. To-day the
meal is taken upon the tops of boxes; on the
quarter-deck steps; on the door-sill of the
intermediate; on the floor of the deck, where there
happens to be any space. It is cut with pocket-
knives, or eaten in bites, or torn to pieces with
fingers. As I watch a party, consisting of an
old woman and three men engaged in the primitive
process last mentioned, the woman apologises,
and I venture upon asking her why she is
emigrating.

"Why, I've two sons out there," she says,
pointing down the river, "and they've sent me
money to go out to them, but I know it'll kill
me. I'm over sixty."

"Do you know anything about Australia?"

"Indeed, I don't know nothing; I went to
the Mechanics' at home, to hear a gentleman
as was preaching about it, and he said they were
all upside down. I'm sure I never can walk
upside down, myself, and my lads ought to have
known it."

Before I can make any attempt to comfort
and enlighten this disconsolate emigrant, the tug
comes alongside again, bringing the owner of the
ship, the government commissioners, and the
captain, with the residue of the passengers. The
captain (consumptive, and not in the least like
what I had made him out to be in my mind),
and the owner, and the commissioners,
immediately sit down to dinner, as the first and most
pressing part of their business.

I make a second raid upon the main-deck.
Here is a young farmer, a sturdy bluff bronzed
young fellow, who knows what work is: beside
him lies a sheep-dog of the true Scotch breed,
asleep: not curled up lazily like a spaniel, but
dozing watchfully, with his head resting on his
outstretched paws. The young man smiles when
I lay my hand caressingly on the dog's sagacious
head; and the dog wags his tail with a friendly
salute. His name (the dog's, I don't ask the
man's) is Moss; five pounds his master has paid
for his passage, and is to find him in provisions;
he only paid fifteen pounds for himself, rations
and all; but rather than leave Moss behind, he
says, he would pay fifty pounds for him. I tell
him, what has been told to me, that there were
objections raised against the doctor taking out
a terrier, because of the danger of madness in
passing the tropics. So the farmer quietly
takes Moss down into the steerage, and lays
the docile creature in his own berth, well
covered up from observation with blankets and
rugs.

Close by—but all are close by within these
narrow limits—is a girl, in voluminous skirts,
a mantle, a turban hat, and a spangled net,
chaffering with a vendor of small wares; the
object of the bargain being a boot-brush,
which the pedlar offers for fourpence and
recommends fluently. The turban hat is shaken,
and its wearer produces two-pence from a
bag hung for safety round her neck; then
the wrath of the insulted dealer waxes
eloquent, and he exclaims with a look and
accent of cutting sarcasm, "Twopence! Where
did you buy your hat?" Meeting this fashionable
emigrant shortly after in a comparatively quiet
corner, she informs me that she is going out
alone; she has no friends expecting her in
Australia, and—no—she does not think of going into
service.

I suppose order is being restored; but the
confusion is like the darkness of the night:
denser just before the dawn. A helpless
woman is shedding tears upon her topmost trunk,
which stands breast-high before her. She is
from the country, like myself, and tells me,
weeping, that she is losing her faculties, for
she is certain sure that when she came on deck
Liverpool was to our right-hand, and now it is
to our left. I look, and to my amazement find
that her statement is correct; and from that
moment I myself am plunged in bewilderment.
The doctor explains something about the vessel
turning with the tide, but I do not comprehend
him in the least; all I know, is, that
it makes me extremely uncomfortable to cast
my eyes towards the shore, for Birkenhead and
Liverpool seems to have changed sites, and I
have my doubts as to our landing in the right
place.