FRIDAY, 20, lat. 38 degrees 57 minutes S., long. 140 degrees 5 minutes E.--Sighted Moonlight Head, the next day Cape Otway; and in the afternoon of Sunday, the 22nd, we entered the Heads, and our pilot came on board. He was a smart, active fellow, and immediately anchored us within the bay (a heavy gale brewing); and then, after having done colonial justice to a substantial dinner, he edified us with the last Melbourne news. "Not a spare room or bed to be had--no living at all under a pound a-day--every one with ten fingers making ten to twenty pounds a-week." "Then of course no one goes to the diggings?" "Oh, that pays better still--the gold obliged to be quarried--a pound weight of no value." The excitement that evening can scarcely be imagined, but it somewhat abated next morning on his telling us to diminish his accounts some 200 per cent. MONDAY, 23.--The wind high, and blowing right against us. Compelled to remain at anchor, only too thankful to be in such safe quarters. TUESDAY, 24.--Got under weigh at half-past seven in the morning, and passed the wrecks of two vessels, whose captains had attempted to come in without a pilot, rather than wait for one--the increased number of vessels arriving, causing the pilots to be frequently all engaged. The bay, which is truly splendid, was crowded with shipping. In a few hours our anchor was lowered for the last time--boats were put off towards our ship from Liardet's Beach--we were lowered into the first that came alongside--a twenty minutes' pull to the landing-place--another minute, and we trod the golden shores of Victoria. Chapter III. STAY IN MELBOURNE At last we are in Australia. Our feet feel strange as they tread upon TERRA FIRMA, and our SEA-LEGS (to use a sailor's phrase) are not so ready to leave us after a four months' service, as we should have anticipated; but it matters little, for we are in the colonies, walking with undignified, awkward gait, not on a fashionable promenade, but upon a little wooden pier. The first sounds that greet our ears are the noisy tones of some watermen, who are loitering on the building of wooden logs and boards, which we, as do the good people of Victoria, dignify with the undeserved title of PIER. There they stand in their waterproof caps and skins--tolerably idle and exceedingly independent--with one eye on the look out for a fare, and the other cast longingly towards the open doors of Liardet's public-house, which is built a few yards from the landing-place, and alongside the main road to Melbourne. "Ah, skipper! times isn't as they used to was," shouted one, addressing the captain of one of the vessels then lying in the bay, who was rowing himself to shore, with no other assistant or companion than a sailor-boy. The captain, a well-built, fine-looking specimen of an English seaman, merely laughed at this impromptu salutation. "I say, skipper, I don't quite like that d----d stroke of yours."