Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/32

 all good substitutes for the albatrosses, frigate-birds, and other mid-ocean wanderers.

Early on the morning of the 13th of December, 1863, we espied from our cabin port-hole a lighthouse, standing upon a long green ridge of land, which we knew at once to be Rottnest Island. As this little island is the pilot station for the port of Fremantle we might now consider our voyage as completed, since a very few more hours would bring us to the anchorage. I was not tired of our ship life, but the sight of land, after being so many weeks at sea, brings with it a sensation of pleasure which can scarcely be imagined by those who have never experienced it.

Unhappily our pleasure was not shared by all with whom we had lost sight of the Lizard, since some of our fellow-voyagers had not lived to reach the shore. An emigrant's child had died on board of illness, and a poor young German seaman had fallen overboard. Whilst employed in painting some part of the ship's prow, he fell from a seat slung over the bows, and was drowned before our eyes. We had crossed the southern tropic about a week before, and though the day was fine there was a strong breeze, and a considerable swell upon the water. Five minutes nearly must have been spent in lowering the boat and getting the cork jackets for her crew, so that when the ship's head was brought round, and the boat was able to get away, but very small hope of saving the poor fellow remained. The sailors who manned the boat did their best, remaining so long absent on their search, that all sight of them from the maintop was lost, and the captain began seriously to fear that they too had perished. Their re-appearance was, therefore, a great relief to us all; but