men; more than half of it a vacant wilderness; devoid of all historic associations, and even now only occupied by a handful of British settlers, quite out of touch with the old world, save for a mail which brings news about three months old.
True, there is the romance of personal adventure, and the joy of living a vigorous, healthy, simple life; add to this that it offers a share in the making of a new Colony, and, in my case, the purpose of my life's work, and that I have chosen my furrow and hope to drive it straight to its end, without looking back; and yet,—leaning on the bulwarks of the good ship Norfolk, and watching the Devonshire coast gradually sink out of sight, as scores of emigrants were doing, with much the same feelings as my own,—I felt the inwardness of Horace's lines, "Coelum non animum qui trans mare currunt"—"They change their sky but not their mind who run across the sea."
The three months' voyage was uneventful; a full ship, with plenty of work for me as the only Clergyman on board. It is curious to note, in the leisure which a voyage gives for talk and debate, how inevitably, at times, discussion becomes theological, and this amongst those with whom you might least expect it. Here is a sample: In the tropics, on a Sunday evening, the sea like glass, the sails flapping idly against the masts, as the vessel rose and sank with the slow heaving of the ocean, I was in the waist of the ship, near the forecastle, which was hidden by the drooping foresail. Some of the crew, sitting there, smoking, were talking of someone, by common consent, it seemed, regarded by them as a thorough blackguard, who had come to a bad end. "Well," said one, "there's nothing else in it as I can see; I
