PFAHLERT’S HOTEL, SYDNEY, _Sunday, June 20, 1875_. I told you in my last that the first detachment of our party started for Fiji in the Barracouta. Now so many have followed that we feel quite forsaken. This day last week Sir Arthur and Lady Gordon went to a farewell lunch on board H.M.S. Pearl with Commodore and Mrs Goodenough, and on Monday the Barracouta sailed. We sat in the beautiful botanic gardens to watch her pass down the harbour, carrying away so many of our friends—Sir Arthur, Mr Mitchell, and Mr Le Hunte of our own set, and the good kind Commodore and his officers. I do so envy them going off to the Isles, and of course it is a sore trial to Lady Gordon to be left here: it will be fully three months before we are allowed to follow. On Wednesday another detachment followed—namely, Mr and Mrs de Ricci, Mrs Macgregor and her little girl, Mrs Abbey and her two little boys. They went by the Meteor, a very small sailing ship, and I fear they are likely to have a very uncomfortable passage, lasting fully a fortnight. The people here are not encouraging as to our prospects. Many of them have lost a great deal of money which they had invested in Fijian plantations; and those who have had friends or relations there, in some cases ladies and children, give us most lamentable accounts of the hardships they had to undergo from want of the commonest necessaries of life, and dangerous voyages in open canoes. From all we hear, I think there can be no doubt a planter’s life in the Isles must be a most unenviable lot; but of course, as far as we individually are concerned, the way will be made smooth. I am preparing for emergencies by attending the infirmary several days a week, to pick up a few ideas about simple nursing. It is under the care of Miss Osborne, a cousin of Florence Nightingale. Evidently her whole heart is in her work, and everything is done thoroughly; and kindness and order reign supreme. I have been very much interested in some of the patients, especially in one poor sailor who hails from “the parish of Dyke.”[4] Nothing strikes me more here than the exceeding loyalty of the inhabitants. Every one speaks of England as “home,” though neither they nor their parents or grandparents ever saw the old country; and certainly our Queen has no more devoted subjects. To-day being her Majesty’s Accession, the churches were crowded; and at the cathedral this afternoon we had the “Coronation Anthem,” and then “God save the Queen.”