“I never saw her again. Then old ‘Nurse Bell’ took care of me. We sailed on the water a long, long time before we came here.” Her papa, she said, “was very kind, and she loved him; but she could love him better, if he would talk more about mamma.” When she asked him to tell her all{38} about her, he would shake his head, look very gloomy, and say, “Your mamma is in heaven.” Her father was her only instructor, and she was far advanced in her studies. He also taught her music: she played and sang sweetly. For once I felt inclined to pardon the inquisitive; for they certainly had food for idle speculation. Dear little Myrtie! often have I sighed when thinking of your lonely situation, uncheered by the presence of that guardian angel of childhood—a mother—on whom you could bestow that wealth of affection concentrated in an almost too confiding and sensitive heart. The winter preceding our arrival at the islands had been one of unusual inclemency. Communication with the main-land was entirely cut off before the winter’s supply of hay and grain had been procured. In consequence, the cattle suffered incredibly. The snow, for two months, lay upon the ground to the depth of two feet. All the sustenance the cattle could obtain was insufficient to keep off starvation. They were often found dead, thirty and forty in heaps together. When the English first established this colony, they intended to export hides, tallow, seal-skins, and seal-oil. As yet, they have shipped no tallow. Sealing is carried on to a considerable extent.{39} England’s convicts, when banished to the sunny isle of Australia, are not as deserving of the sympathy of the philanthropist as are those old pensioners, to the number of thirty, who, with their families, have been induced, by the promises held out to them, and which they have found, to their sorrow, can never be fulfilled, to leave merry England, for a home on these barren islands. CHAPTER V. The feathered tribes are very numerous on these islands of Southern hemisphere. Of penguins, there are four kinds—the king penguin, the macaroni, the jackass, and the rookery. The first of these is much larger than a goose; the other three are smaller, differing in appearance in several particulars. They all walk upright, with their legs projecting from their bodies in the same direction with their tails. When fifty or more of them are seen in file, they appear, at a distance, like a company of soldiers. They carry their heads high, with their wings drooping like two arms. The{40} breast-feathers are delicately white, with a line of black running across the crops. Seen at a distance, they have the appearance of little men, with a white bosom, black neckerchief, and short breeches. Their gait on land, however, is very awkward—rather more so than that of a sailor just returned from a long voyage.