Jump to content

Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/562

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.
538
THE BOY TRAVELLERS IN AUSTRALASIA.

for the railway to Beverley, they walked to the end of the long pier which juts into the harbor, and were soon once more on the deck of the steamer.

Just as the sun was dipping into the west the great vessel left her anchorage, passed through the channel at the side of rugged Breaksea, and then skirted the coast to the westward for several hours. In the morning Cape Leeuwin, the last headland of the island-continent, was dimly visible in the distance; before the sun marked the meridian the cape and all behind it had disappeared, and the great steamer, her only companions the sea-birds, ploughed the waters of the Indian Ocean, with her prow turned towards the shores of spicy-breezed Ceylon.

As Cape Leeuwin sank from sight beneath the waves our friends murmured a farewell to the land whose skies are stippled at night by the stars of the Southern Cross, and whose arid plains are cooled by breezes from antarctic seas. And their farewell was accompanied with the heartiest good wishes for the people whose enterprise and energy are so admirably exemplified in the populous and busy cities and the prosperous colonies which have been described in these pages by those veteran though still young travellers, Frank and Fred.

ROCKS AT THE CAPE.