Thamanampalli Surekha

the reverse of Great Britain. December, the month of frost and snow in this dreary climate, is the warmest month in the year in Australia, and while John Bull is just sitting down to a nine-o'clock supper, the colonist is preparing for breakfast. To return to our journal. We left off at the hundredth day from the Downs, during which period we had sailed by computation, in round numbers, 15,000 miles, thus averaging 150 miles per day, which is pretty near the rate of sailing of ordinary ships. The same distance has been accomplished by clipper barques in eighty days, and now that a steam- packet service has been regularly established, the voyage out may be done in sixty days. To those who are restricted to time this made of conveyance will no doubt be the most preferable; but for comfort during such a long voyage, give us a good roomy cabin in a first-class sailing vessel. In this respect old voyagers like ourselves, but its convenient arrangements and table comforts within; we prefer the sung cabin, good table, and civil captain, with ordinary speed, to the swiftest clippers and steamers in the trade, if they are wanting in these requisites. At the same time we should not take a passage in any old "tub" because it was cheap; for there we should be doubtful of the particulars set forth in the bill of fare being carried out literally. The ship to be preferred is where the owners have the means to send her to sea well stored, and a gentleman to command her. It is reasonable to the ship-owner, for in a long voyage like that to Australia, speed and full provisioning are matters of the first importance, where a deficiency in the latter frequently prolongs the voyage by stopping on the ship's disbursements, without yielding any equivalent. In order, therefore, to lessen expenses as much as possible, the owner of a slow-sailing vessel buys provisions of an inferior quality, which he puts on the table after the third or fourth week at sea, and continues to serve them out until within a few weeks of the termination of the voyage. In a few instances the captains of such vessels have been prosecuted in the colonies for non-fulfilment of agreement, and have been justly fined, But we are certain that the majority of such cases of imposition have not been exposed; not merely from the inexperience of emigrants in such matters, but from the desire that all men feel to hush up grievances on the passage as soon as they reach the port of their destination. By this time our voyage was fast drawing to a close; a brisk westerly breeze sprang up, with fair weather, which the captain told us was indicative of our proximity to Bass's Strait, which we should enter on the marrow, our 104th day from England, when he hoped another day would bring us inside the harbour of Port Phillip, our destination being the far-famed gold colony of Victoria. The intelligent reader will perceive, on taking a cursory glance at the ship's track marked out on the small map of the world, the reason we stated at the commencement of this chapter why the voyage from England to Australia is the safest, considering the distance, which can be made on the globe. Immediately the vessel clears the chops of the Channel and sails into blue water, she has the whole width of the North and South Atlantic Oceans before her "where to choose," in nautical language, she has abundance of "sea room," consequently she avoids the hot blasts from the African shores, and likewise keeps far aloof from the hurricane latitudes of the West India Islands, crossing the equator min-way between the two continents, where the deadly influence of the land under the torrid zone is powerless; running down her latitude in the South Atlantic, she skirts the straight lands of the Brazil coast, where there is no dangerous lee shore, with the steady south-east trade-wind to carry her along; then, immediately that she reaches the temperate regions in the southern hemisphere, she can steer for a latitude amongst the forties, and if a well-appointed ship, not requiring to put in at the Cape, she has a fair wind all the way to Australia across both the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To shorten the voyage out, some spirited mariners, taking advantage of the latest discoveries in their profession, have adopted the practice of great circle sailing. This system is simply illustrated by a ship running down her longitude from the South Atlantic ocean to the Australian coast upon the arc of circle, which describes the rotundity of the earth, instead of plane sailing, according to Mercator's projection, which supposes the globe to be flattened out, as shown in the accompanying chart. By this method of sailing no less than a thousand miles will be saved in the length of the voyage. In the foregoing log, having sailed from England after summer in the northern hemisphere, we were in time to meet the summer in the southern hemisphere, thus experiencing two midsummer days in one year-21st June and December Pacing the deck during the middle-watch that night with our anxious captain, we heard the look-out in the forecastle reports a light on our lee-bow. This was soon determined, on reference to the chart, to be the