the painful mistake they had made, although it had caused us such grief. I need scarcely tell you we are all truly thankful that God in his mercy, saved you from the dangers of the deep.” It will be seen from the foregoing that Robert Ponting was placed in the unique position of being able to read of incidents which took place after his supposed death. [Illustration: boats near shore] [Illustration: SORRENTO. From a Photo by the late J. DODD, lost with the S.S. ALERT.] [Illustration: Decoration] CHAPTER II. SORRENTO AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. “That pale, that white fac’d shore, Whose foot spurns back the ocean’s roaring tides.” _Shakespeare._ In order to give those of our readers who have not visited Sorrento a clearer idea of the coast whereon the _S.S. Alert_ was wrecked, it has been deemed necessary to give, by way of preliminary, a brief outline of the locality. On the S.E. side of Port Phillip bay, about 40 miles south of Melbourne, lies the pretty little township of Sorrento. It has a population of some 300 persons, but during the summer months this number is largely increased as the neighborhood, principally owing to the enterprise of the Hon. George Coppin, M.L.C., is a favorite resort for pleasure seekers and picnic parties, who arrive, per train or steamboat, from Melbourne and suburbs. In addition to its notoriety as a bathing and health giving place, Sorrento possesses a historic interest which is at once instructive, amusing and contradictory. Here it was that Colonel Collins, in October, 1803, landed, from the ships _Calcutta_ and _Ocean_, 350 British convicts, with the intention of forming a permanent penal settlement in accordance with instructions received from the Imperial Government. After staying a few months, he, however, abandoned the locality as it was, to use his own words, “an inhospitable spot not fit for a white man to live in.”