Never can I forget the joy I felt, a joy universal to all on board the ship, the first day we saw Australia. It was Sunday. The whole night before the ship had cruised about outside Bass's Straits, and at break of day we ran in. We did not know at all we were so near. We had not seen land for three months when we had made out the island of Madeira. Since then, as far as I remember, we had not even passed another ship. In the Indian Ocean, storm, sleet, rain and cold had been the order of the day. This day, the first time for months, the sun was shining brightly, and a crisp, altogether different air fanned our cheeks. It was blowing very strongly, but every sail the ship could carry was spread, so that the ship lay over very much, and we seemed to fly past the land at lightning speed. This, then, was Australia, our future home--and beautiful it seemed. Land lay on both sides. That on the Australian side was flat, seemingly, but Tasmania showed up with a majestic chain of mountains. I had never seen a mountain before, nor had any of the other Danes, and we wondered whether anything could grow on them, or whether they were all solid stone. People were so glad, that they ran about and shook one another's hands. Three or four of the passengers had telescopes, and we were all dying to have a long look at the coast. It is amusing to myself to think of the amount of ignorance which really existed among us about the land to which we were going. "Do you make out anything over there?" one would ask of the man with the telescope. "Yes," came the answer, "it seems all big trees." "Trees, did you say? I am glad of that. I will lay a wager where all those trees will grow, something else will grow." "This is not Queensland, though." "Oh, well, only let me see plenty of big trees when we come to Queensland, then I am satisfied." "Do you think we shall be allowed to cut the trees down?" "I do! they must be glad to get rid of them. Why, it is self-evident that you can take as much land here as you want; here is so much of it and nobody to use it." "Do you know, I do not believe there is any desert in that land at all!" "No more do I. I am sure there is not. Why should there?" "I am glad I went, now I have seen the land." "So am I." In another part of the ship, as I walked about, I heard a very dogmatic fellow laying down the law to a lot of married men who were discussing their chances of obtaining employment. "Why," cried he, "anyone with a spark of common sense can see at a glance that there must be _plenty_ of work in Queensland. Look around you here on the ship. All these people must have shelter, and food, and clothes; I say they must. That gives work--does it not?" The others did not seem quite convinced by the argument. They appeared to know that there was a missing link somewhere, but, like the Italian smuggler in Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit," they kept saying, "Altro, altro, altro!"