Holdsworth was unmanned, and looked downwards, struggling with his emotion. But glancing up and catching sight of the swarm of rough kindly faces around him, he broke away, so to speak, from his agitation, and answered as follows: “If it had pleased God to leave me my memory, I believe I could have done my gratitude more justice, though I couldn’t have felt more grateful. For, sometimes, when I have watched you at work, it has come over me--not as a conviction--no! I wish it had; but as a mere fancy only--that I too have been a sailor; and if that be so, then I can understand why your kindness does not overcome me with surprise, because I ought to know that sailors’ hearts are the largest, the truest, the most manly in the world, that there’s not a sorrow their purses will not fly open to relieve, and that a man, let him be what he will, is never so well recommended to them as when he is poor and broken down and friendless. I don’t know how properly to thank you for your generous gift. (‘We don’t want no thanks,’ said a voice; ‘if there’s enough to rig you out and put some ’baccy in your pocket, that’s all we want.’) Miserable, indeed, I shall be if my memory plays me false in this--if it does not suffer me to carry the recollection of your kindness to my death-bed. May God bless you and guard you all back in safety to your homes.” He ceased, unable to say more. “Sir,” said Captain Duff, “we have done no more than our duty in all this business from beginning to end. In the name of all hands I return your good wishes by praying that God may speedily give you back your memory, and make you happy for the rest of your days, as a proper compensation for what you have gone through.” He shook him by the hand, and then Mr. Anderson stepped forward; then came the boatswain; and then an able seaman; and then another able seaman; until presently Holdsworth was engaged in shaking hands all round, scarcely a man quitting the quarter-deck until a grasp had been exchanged. When all this hand-shaking was over, Captain Duff ordered rum to be served out to the men, who then returned to the forecastle with a sense of festivity upon them, and passed the rest of the second dog-watch in singing songs and dancing. CHAPTER XVIII. SYDNEY. At nine o’clock on the morning of the third day from the time occupied in the last chapter, a hand stationed on the look-out in the fore-top sent a roar from the sky: “Land right ahead!” In half an hour’s time it was to be seen from the deck, a mere blue vision stretching eel-shaped, upon the horizon. Australia! the great and wealthy continent of which there were men then living whose fathers could recall the time when this vast tract of land had no place in the world’s knowledge of the Pacific.