In these days of luxurious travelling it may be interesting to be reminded of the way in which our fathers and mothers, the early pioneers, made their way to open up Australia for us. I feel competent to speak of this matter because I spent 120 days on board the "Travancore," which arrived at Point Henry, Geelong, in the year 1849.

The "Travancore" was a wooden ship of 600 tons register, and was withdrawn from the East India trade to carry passengers who had been selected by the Rev. John Dunmore Lang, who had been sent home by the New South Wales Government in the year 1848 in order to encourage emigration to Australia. The result of Dr. Lang's mission was that three ships, the "Larpent," the "Travancore," and the "Clifton," all sailed from London in 1849, the accommodation in each vessel being fully taken up. It has been said that Dr. Lang must have exercised good judgment in the selection he made in fitting these ships. Suffice it to say that from their ranks there have come to the front men who have influenced for good the tone of society, the business life, the political and church life and some of whom have occupied leading positions in the Legislative Assembly, the Legislative Council, the University and municipal life. I prefer to mention no names although most of those whose names occur to me have gone on that voyage to the land from whence no traveller returns (two of them during this month); but if these lines meet the eyes of any survivor, he or she will be able to verify what I have written.

I was a boy about 10 years old when, with my parents and four brothers and five sisters, we went on board the ship in St. Catherine's Docks, London. Coming from a quiet village in Worcestershire, and never before having seen a ship or a railway train, I felt myself in a new world, and the sudden transition from the wide country spaces to the narrow limits of shipboard took us some time to reconstruct our ideas.

The "Travancore" being what would nowadays be called a very small ship, there was, necessarily, little deck space, and what little there was was further curtailed by three 40-pounder guns on each side of the deck. Those guns were for the protection of the ship against pirates. But we saw no pirates. When in the Calcutta trade, the l8 or 20 passengers usually carried were housed in the cabins under the poop-deck (usually called the cuddy), and the lower deck and the hold were filled with cargo; but in our case no cargo was carried, and the lower deck was fitted up with a temporary line of cabins on each side of the ship, with a passage down the centre, and all thought of comfort, and almost of decency, was lost sight of in the arrangements. The wonder is that the port authorities would allow a ship to go to sea under such conditions, but up to that date Samuel Plimsoll was not known.

There were, so far as I recollect, about 40 families on board, many of them with no children, and some with three or four children. A number of single men were placed four in each cabin. There was no dining saloon, and the passengers ate their meals in the same cabin in which they slept, unless when the weather was fine they preferred the deck.

The sanitary arrangements were simply abominable. The cabin passengers and the Captain and officers' quarters were aft, under the poop-deck, and being more roomy and comfortable were occupied by families with a larger number of children, although no one but the Captain and the officers had steward's attendance. There was only one steward on board.

The dietary scale applied equally to all the passengers, who had also to provide and bring with them their own beds and bedding. A fairly liberal space was allowed in the lower hold for luggage not wanted on the voyage, and also for the passengers' furniture, all of which had to be brought with them in those days. We lay at Gravesend three or four days after leaving the docks, just long enough for some of the discontented to begin grumbling about the miseries of their environment; but their complaints were suddenly cut short by the heaving up of the anchor and unfurling the topsails, and we found ourselves in a place where complaints would not be heard. It would take the pen of a Dante to describe that ship a few days later, when we were tumbling about in the Bay of Biscay with a strong head wind.

The man who devised the method of rationing the ship was a genius. The dietary scale included beef (very salt and very hard), pork, biscuits (including weevils), sugar, tea, and, occasionally, a small quantity of flour, raisins, soup, and boulli, and once a month about a pint of preserved potatoes, which they seem to have had in stock after their last voyage to Calcutta. I do not know what the biscuits were made of, but they would have worn well if laid down to pave a garden path. There were no fowls on board, and all the way from Gravesend to Geelong not a loaf of bread was baked on board the "Travancore." Such things as butter cheese, pickles and preserves, pepper, mustard, coffee, soap, and matches passengers brought with them, and Dr Lang advised every family to provide themselves with what he called a store chest, filled with extras of that kind that were not supplied by the ship.

The rations were served out once a week, and meat twice a week by the Chief Officer. At this function the family was not a name but a number. In the Mate's book was entered the quantity of each article to be supplied, and when the number was called out some representative of the family was expected to step forward and take what was coming to them. In the case of meat the following was the plan adopted:- the casks in which the meat was packed were about the size of an ordinary beer hogs-head, and the head being removed the officer, armed with a large three pronged fork, brought out a joint of meat. Each piece was bound round with string or wire to which was attached a metal disk about the size of a postage stamp on which was impressed a number, and the weight in pounds and ounces. If this joint was too large or too small for family number one, the mate would cast his eye over his list until he found the family it would suit and handed it to them impressing on everybody the necessity of remembering the number of their joint so as to claim it again from the cook at dinner-time. This was repeated until all were supplied, frequently the first being last and the last first.

The next step was to carry the joints of meat to the galley, which was presided over by a big negro, who threw them all together into the boiler and left them to stew till dinner time. At half past 12 forty or fifty people assembled at the galley each with a tin dish for their dinner meat, when the cook also armed with a big three pronged fork thrust into the boiling mass, and bringing out a joint called out the number on the disc, which was quickly claimed and so on until the boiler was empty.

For the making of tea and for every other purpose for which hot water was needed each cabin was provided with what was called a hookpot. This was something like a tin jug with a lid and holding about two quarts. The side opposite the handle was flat, and furnished with two iron hooks about 2 inches apart and if the cook had no hot water you filled this hook pot with cold water and hung it on the bars of the galley stove until it boiled. It often happened that in your hurry the hookpot and hot water were on the lower deck before you, hence arose the saying, "Scoldings below."

It is astonishing how people can accustom themselves to their surroundings, but with all our discomforts we were a fairly happy family, and certainly buoyed up with the promise of a beautiful land ahead of us. I need not talk of our days of storm and calm. We had the same average of each as is experienced by all travellers on a long voyage but we were fortunate in having a staunch well-found ship. Our Captain and his officers did all in their power to make the time pass pleasantly. The sailors with one or two exceptions were a sober, steady crew.

We had no alarms of shipwreck, fire or leak, but we were not sorry at the end of the sixteenth week at sea to see Cape Otway ahead of us. Passing through the Heads at 8 a.m. the next day a pilot came on board from the Queenscliff lighthouse, and anchored us at Point Henry at 7 p.m.

Five days later the old lighter "David" brought our family, furniture, and all belongings and dumped us on the Yarra Street Wharf at about sundown, to begin our career in a new world.