to regret the step that he has taken, and that the results of his
undertaking have hitherto fully justified his expectations.

LANGAR RECTORY
June 29, 1863



CHAPTER I



Embarkation at Gravesend--Arrest of Passenger--Tilbury Fort--Deal--Bay
of Biscay Gale--Becalmed off Teneriffe--Fire in the Galley--Trade Winds-
-Belt of Calms--Death on Board--Shark--Current--S. E. Trade Winds--
Temperature--Birds--Southern Cross--Cyclone.

It is a windy, rainy day--cold withal; a little boat is putting off from
the pier at Gravesend, and making for a ship that is lying moored in the
middle of the river; therein are some half-dozen passengers and a lot of
heterogeneous-looking luggage; among the passengers, and the owner of
some of the most heterogeneous of the heterogeneous luggage, is myself.
The ship is an emigrant ship, and I am one of the emigrants.

On having clambered over the ship's side and found myself on deck, I was
somewhat taken aback with the apparently inextricable confusion of
everything on board; the slush upon the decks, the crying, the kissing,
the mustering of the passengers, the stowing away of baggage still left
upon the decks, the rain and the gloomy sky created a kind of half-
amusing, half-distressing bewilderment, which I could plainly see to be