"Land, ho!" cried the look-out. Blessed sound to the weary landsman!--a sound associated with liberty and society, a walk on turf, a dinner of fresh meat and green vegetables, clear water to drink, and something to do. The dark line in the horizon was Terra Australis, the land of my dreams. As we approached more near, I was not greeted, as I had hoped, by sloping shores of yellow sands, or hills covered with green pasture, or clad with the bright-colored forests of southern climes; but far above us towered an iron-bound coast, dark, desolate, barren, precipitous, against which the long, rolling swell of the Pacific broke with a dull, disheartening sound. No wonder that the first discoverers, who coasted along its shores in the midst of wintry tempests, abandoned it, after little investigation, as an uninhabitable land, the dwelling-place of demons, whose voices they fancied they heard in the wailing of the wind among the inaccessible cliffs. But soon a pilot boarded from a stout whale-boat, rowed by a dozen New Zealanders. He reached the rocks, which, divided by a narrow cleft, or canal, and towering above the coast line are the sailors' landmark, known as Sydney Heads--the cleft that Captain Cook overlooked, considering it a mere boat harbor. Steering under easy sail through this narrow channel, the scene changed, "as by stroke of an enchanter's wand," and Port Jackson lay before us, stretching for miles like a broad, silent river, studded with shrub-covered islands; on either hand of the shores, the gardens and pleasure-grounds of villas and villages descended to the water's edge; pleasure-boats of every variety of build and size, wherries and canoes, cutters, schooners, and Indians, glided about, gay with flags and streamers, and laden with joyous parties, zig-zagged around like a nautical masquerade. Every moment we passed some tall merchant-ship at anchor--for in this land-locked lake all the navies of the world might anchor safely. It was Sunday evening, and the church-bells clanged sweetly across the waters, mingling in harmonious discord with the distant sounds of profane music from the pleasure parties. On we sailed, until we reached the narrow peninsula, where, fifty years previously, trees grew and savages dwelt, and where now stands one of the most prosperous cities in the world--there, in deep water, close along shore at Cambell's wharf, we moored. In the buildings, there was nothing to denote a foreign city, unless it were the prevalence of green jalousés, and the extraordinary irregularity in principal streets--a wooden or brick cottage next to a lofty plate-glass fronted shop in true Regent-street style. There were no beggars, and no half-starved wretches among the working-classes. In strolling early in the morning through the streets where the working-classes live, the smell and sound of meat frizzling for breakfast was almost universal.