the Government to attend to us when we came ashore, got up on a big box and made a long speech in German, exhorting us to do well, and gesticulating with much gusto and great force. He advised us to take the first work we could get, and while we were accommodating ourselves to the new habits of life and customs existing in this country, to try to feel contented. "Where," cried he, "will all of you be in twenty years? Some will be dead; others perhaps alive. Some rich and honoured; others perhaps only servants to those among you who are more pushing or lucky. These little children who are now running about us fighting for an orange, may become members of Parliament in time. To-day you start with an equal chance, but from to-morrow your fortunes will begin to alter, and for certain not one of you will for ever forget this day; and no doubt in after years you will look back on to-day often, and as you recall to your mind how your time has been employed, wish you had it over again, that you might act more wisely or become better." All this was good advice, and very well and kindly spoken. He said much more to the same purpose, but as good advice is everywhere cheap and plentiful, I will not inflict the whole of his carefully prepared speech upon my readers. He spoke for nearly an hour. At last he congratulated us on our clean appearance, wiped his perspiring brow, and the performance was at an end. We were not sorry, to tell the truth--at least I was not, because this was the day on which our best dinner, grey peas stewed with pork, was served out; and as it was past the usual dinner hour when the sermon was over, not only did I stand right in the tempting smell from the kitchen, but I had also noticed how, gradually, as the speech proceeded, the "skaffers," or men whose duty it was to fetch the food from the cook's galley, had one by one crept away, and now they stood in a long row ready with their wooden troughs while the cook began to dish up the peas. After dinner, when we came on deck again, I heard some one cry out, "Are there any carpenters on board? Carpenters--any carpenters who want employment?"