procure for her, and a few of our sardines proved a tolerable substitute for the unattainable fish of the North. That was indeed a sorry ten days for those who were neither exempt from sea-sickness nor able to battle stoutly against it, and the doctor was seriously afraid that one at least of the emigrant women would succumb under her sufferings. The winds were so perverse that the Isle of Wight disappeared and re-appeared to us so often that we grew weary of bidding it farewell, and began to think that we were never to leave the Channel behind us and fairly enter upon our voyage.
On this jumping, stormy sea, upon which it seemed unfit for the "chicks" of anyone but Mother Carey to be introduced into the world, our ship's company was increased by the birth of two babies. The parents of one of them had set their hearts on calling it after the ship; but as in this case the child would have had to bear a name making it a certain butt for small wits all its life long, my husband persuaded them to give up the notion, and to let him christen it after the doctor and the captain instead.
We had with us also a family of children from Yorkshire, whose mother, whenever it was a windy night, laid all the blame of it upon her husband for ever having sent to bring her out. On these occasions she would moan out, "O my bairns! my honeys! I will never forgive thy father for sending for us!" She used to say that he had gone out some years before as a shoemaker, and had now sent money for his family to follow him. She omitted, however, to add that his own expenses to Australia had been defrayed by Government.
