By the time we passed out of the Heads it had grown dark, and my reverie was broken by the supper bell, and Burton (a friend who was going to Australia on a pleasure trip) telling me to rouse up, have some food, and make myself pleasant.  How carefully I followed his advice during the next six weeks!

We reached Dunedin the following evening and had to remain there for a few days for the departure of the Melbourne mail boat.  This time Burton and I contrived to spend very pleasantly.  He was a wealthy young squatter, and I had a good sum of money with me, in fact, I was becoming a bit reckless; but I could not have foreseen that an accident would retain me far longer on the voyage to India than I supposed, and I saw little harm in enjoying myself with the money I had earned and saved.  What kind of guardian angel was in charge of me from this time I cannot say, but he must have been an excessively pleasant and jolly one, for under his guidance I enjoyed a most delightful time.

Dunedin had improved marvellously since I had last seen it; it was already a town of considerable pretensions and possessed a theatre and several good hotels.  On the fourth day we left for Melbourne in the s.s.  “Alhambra,” and now I believed that I had done with New Zealand for good and all, but I was mistaken.

After three days at sea we encountered south of Tasmania a terrific gale during which the shaft of the screw was broken, and the Captain had no resource but to return to Dunedin under sail, an operation which occupied seven days, to the great disgust of all on board.

At Dunedin we were again delayed for three days till another boat started which took us to Melbourne.

The voyage was pleasant and we steamed in nearly a calm sea close along the Tasmanian coast and through the Bass Straits, sighting land all the way from thence.  Tasmania presented quite an English appearance after New Zealand, and we could trace the neat towns and well-wooded country dotted with homesteads and farms.

Melbourne possesses a very fine and well protected harbour, but the surroundings sadly lacked the native beauty of New Zealand.  The countries present very different aspects to the new-comer; while New Zealand can boast of some of the wildest and grandest scenery in the world, that of New South Wales is almost the reverse, being homely and of a natural park-like appearance, which, although beautiful in a certain sense, is monotonous after the wild contrasts of plains and mountain, forests and rivers of New Zealand.

Melbourne proper lay some five miles from the port, which then possessed a fine wooden pier, alongside of which and in the adjacent roadstead, lay many fine merchant vessels and steamers awaiting their cargoes of wool, etc.  The port and city were connected by a railway, the first constructed in Australia, and almost parallel with it wound the River Yarrow, so named from its usually muddy or yellow colour.