The harbour--oh, yes, the harbour was, and is, beautiful, and I can remember thrilling with natural excitement as we opened up cove after cove, while the _Ariadne_--stately as ever, but curiously quiescent now, with her trimly furled and lifeless sails--was towed slowly to her anchorage. The different bays--Watson's, Mossman's, Neutral, and the rest--had not so many villas then as now. Manly was there, in little; but surf-bathing, like some other less healthful 'notions' from America, was still to come. From the North Shore landing-stage one strolled up the hill, and, very speedily, into the bush. Yes, the place was naturally beautiful enough; but the _Ariadne_ was home; her every deck plank was familiar to me; I knew each cleat about her fife-rails, every belaying-pin along her sides, every friendly projection from her deck that had a sheltering lee. The shining brass-bound, teak-wood buckets ranged along the break of her poop--the crew's lime-juice was served in one of these, and they all were painted white inside--I see them now. _Ay di mi!_ as the Spanish ladies say; I am not so sure that any place was ever more distinctly home to me. Over the rail, across the dancing waters of the harbour, where the buildings clustered about Circular Quay; as yet, of course, there could be nothing homely for me about all that. And, as to me, it never did become very homely; perhaps that is why my recollections of our first doings there are so vague. How often, in later years, my heart swelled with vague aspiring yearnings toward what lay beyond, while my eyes ranged over that same smiling scene, from the Domain, Lady Macquarie's Chair, and the purlieus of Circular Quay! (There were no trams there then.) Here one saw the ships that carried folk to and from--what? To and from Home, was always my thought; though what home I fancied that distant island in her grey northern sea had for me, heaven knows! Here one rubbed shoulders, perchance, with some ruddy-faced, careless fellow in dark blue clothes, who, but a short couple of months ago, walked London's streets, and would be there again in the incredibly brief space of six weeks or so. Dyspepsia itself knows no more fell and spirit-racking anguish than nostalgia brings; and at times I have fancied the very air--bland, warm, and kindly seeming--that circulates about the famous quay must be pervaded and possessed by germs of this curious and deadly malady. At least, that soft air is breathed each day by many a victim to the disease; old and young, and of both sexes.