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AN EMIGRANT'S HOME LETTERS

and rough weather all the way from the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope. We did not get through Bass's Straits till the 22nd. On the 23rd we saw the mainland. The night of the 22nd was very rough, the ship rolling a great deal, and on that night our little one was born. The sun rose from the land on the 24th to take possession of an almost cloudless sky. The line of coast continued to lengthen till it stretched either way as far as the eye could reach in the bland and beautiful sunlight. The following night we were tacking about in sight of the lighthouse erected on the south head of Port Jackson. On the morning of the 25th, about 8 o'clock, we entered inside the heads, and in two hours afterwards anchored off Dawes' Battery, completing the passage in a little more than a hundred days.

When within the tropics we had the most delightful weather imaginable. The water was so smooth that the ship glided along almost without any perceptible motion. We saw whole fleets of nautilus floating past us every day, and sometimes the expanse of sea would be alive with shoals of porpoises, and ever and anon a little company of flying fish would spring up into the sun and drop again at a short distance