The concluding paragraph of my gossiping chronicle of experiences in New South Wales mentioned our departure from Sydney on our way to Van Diemen's Land; and I now resume the slender thread of my story where I then broke off.

I return to the morning of our embarkation, when, in a straggling procession, including the baby, the new nursemaid, the old pointer, and sundry of our goods and chattels on trucks and hand-barrows (the main body having been previously shipped), we proceeded to the jetty, and bade adieu to the friends who came “to see us out of sight.” I must confess that I felt less regret than I could have believed possible, at leaving a country which had been my home for above a year; and if a wistful thought did stray back to the bright and beautiful gardens, the lovely wild flowers, the delicious fruits, and the deep blue sky of the ever-brown land, such a thick hot cloud of dust, flies, mosquitoes, and other detestabilities, rose in imagination before me, as threw a veil over all such charms; and I parted from them with a stout heart, full of hopefulness for the future, and rejoicing, above all things, to take our baby-boy into a more temperate climate, where the fair promise of his infancy might have some prospect of being realized in a life of health, strength, and intelligence.