Wales being at that time bitterly jealous rivals, in the Sydney Post Office underlined
the “Victoria” with blue; and wrote under it, “Not known in New South Wales” These
sketches, and others I sent to The Graphic, I have some seen in many places since, helping to paper bedroom walls and so on for where does not The Graphic go?)
Mount Cudtheringa (Castle Hill) rises over the town, and away at the end of a long stretch of sandy beach is Cape Pallaranda (Many Peaks).
On the 31st I boarded the A.S.N. Co.s City of Melbourne, and we left at midday. I had Captain Thompson's right hand at table; and we were soon good friends. He at once made me free of his deck cabin, which was most artistic and pretty, with flowering plants and pale green creepers trained over its white walls and ceiling.
Amongst our few passengers was Mr.H;the travelling representative of an Assurance Company, with his confrerè, a young doctor all airs and graces, bound for Normanton in the Gulf of Carpentaria. An old sea-captain going as sailing master of a dredger at Cooktown, yarned away to me all day, giving me much information as to the islands and coast where he has traded for long, as did also a Mr. Macroarty, a Police Magistrate and Collector of Customs at Normanton, and quite a quiet man, despite his name. They all know who I am, and feel sure I have designs in the way of land purchase or some investment, and that my extraordinary of quest for pleasure is but a blind. I was not long on board ere I found the City of Melbourne had adopted me, and was bent on making me quite at home, in which they entirely succeeded.
The Great Barrier Reef, which lies along this coast “by the long wash of Australian seas,” is most interesting, though very intricate and dangerous
