ILLUSTRATED   LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, PATERNOSTER SQUARE. MDCCCXCII was born in Copenhagen in the year 1850. My father was a builder there in moderately good circumstances. I was the second son of a large family, and it was my parents' great ambition that we all should receive a good education. My eldest brother was intended for a profession, and I was to be, like my father, a builder, and to take up his business when old enough to do so. My father ruled us with an iron hand. I am sure he had a

aving left Copenhagen in the way just described and arrived in Hamburg, my first care was to get work, which I fortunately obtained the next day. The place I worked in was a large building or series of buildings, four or five stories high, with cabinet-makers' shops from the cellars to the loft. We had to be at work at six o'clock in the morning, and to keep on till eight o'clock at night. Even on Sundays we worked from six o'clock to dinner-time. Some would keep on till it was dark on Sunday ev

What a motley crew we were: Germans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, a Russian Finn, and an Icelander. There were many nationalities, but in the majority of cases extreme poverty was evident in their dress and stamped upon their faces, and it was easy to see that the same spirit of recklessness which filled me had somehow also been instilled into them. Nearly everybody had guns, revolvers, and knives, which were promptly taken from us as we stepped on board. Then the Germans would sing in their langu

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

Having returned to the ship after the incidents related in the last chapter, and having somewhat soothed my agitated feelings, and changed my apparel, Thorkill and I were under the necessity again of returning on shore; which we did, and had no difficulty in finding the depôt or place prepared for the reception of the immigrants. I had yet scarcely noticed anything on land, but we saw now at a glance that the town was very small, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the town was large

I had now paid out to me twelve pounds sterling as the balance of wages due, so it will be perceived that I had not been extravagant. Yet I am afraid that if I had been taking my wages up weekly I should not have had so much, if, indeed, anything. Yet here were the twelve pounds now, and that was the main thing. It made over a hundred Danish dollars, quite a large sum to me. Then I considered where I should go next. There were some gold mines inland within one or two hundred miles, but I did not

From the glimpses I already had of the settlement, I came to the conclusion that it was of no use looking for carpenter's work here, so I went into the most conspicuous house I could see, viz., the hotel, and asked for a job of any kind. There were three or four men in the bar, dried-up looking mummies they seemed to me, but very friendly, for they began at once to mix in the conversation, and after I had told everybody all round where I came from, how old I was, what I could do, how long I had

I had again no particular idea as to where I would go, further than that I wanted to regain my health. But oh, for the sweetness of liberty and money! I needed not to say anything about money to my old travelling companions in the boat; they knew I must have a good cheque, and their attentions were in proportion! Perhaps I wrong them. Perhaps they would have been just as careful to my wants if they had known me to be penniless. At any rate, a sort of bed was made for me in the stern of the boat,

Some time after this my friend and countryman came to me one evening about nine o'clock with a very important air, and told me he had heard of a new find of gold some thirty miles distant, and that there would be sure to be a terrible rush as soon as it became generally known. As for him, he would like to go if I would go with him and be his mate, because, as he put it, he was sure I was lucky. He could not well have made a greater mistake, but anyhow I was flattered and agreed to go. Then I fou

When I left Thorkill's grave I made a course as near as I could for the Cape gold-field. This place I found almost deserted, as most of the diggers had left for the Palmer. The few people who remained there had seemingly nothing else to speak about but the fabulous richness of that field, and they were all deploring each his untoward circumstances which kept him from going thither. And so it came to pass that, while gradually recovering my spirits, I made up my mind to go to the Palmer too. But

I sat in my tent one day in Cooktown, while the rain was pouring down outside, when my attention was attracted by four men who stood in a desolate sort of way in the road. They seemed to me to have such a pitiful, aimless, vacant way about them as they stood there while the rain ran down their backs in bucketsful! But I do not suppose that I for that reason alone should have given them a second thought, because misery and want were such common sights in Cooktown. What, however, riveted my intere

I obtained work at one of the plantations for three pounds sterling per week. For this money I was expected only to work eight hours a day and five hours on Saturdays, that being the ordinary tradesman's hours of work all over Australia. But as my employer was busy and I was tired of remaining poor longer than I could help, I obtained leave to work two hours overtime every day, for which I was paid at the rate of eighteenpence an hour. When I arrived in Mackay I had gone into a Chinaman's boardi

I went on board the Black Swan on taking leave of the captain and my other friends on the schooner, and after an uneventful passage arrived in Brisbane. Times had altered greatly in Queensland, for the worse I thought, since I was there last. The rich people had grown richer, and the poor poorer. It is sad at the present day to walk about the town and look at all the semi-destitute people whom one sees on every side, and then think of the "booms" which used to be a few years ago. My objects in c

With this John Gilpin's ride the present part of my adventures, which are contained in the manuscript I wrote to my father, comes to an end. So does practically what I care to publish. I have seen many ups and downs since then, but from this point in my narrative I could no longer lay claim to be a "missing friend." I am not a novel writer, and I could not continue the history of my life and still preserve my incognito unless I wrote fiction. As my object in publishing these papers is to give a