Preface.

At a time when so many contradictory reports are in circulation relative to the colonies and the gold diggings, I feel bound to contribute my little gleanings, in the hope that they will at least give the reader some insight into colonial life.

I do not pretend to give advice, in the midst of such an entanglement as the public mind is in at present on this subject,—it would be presumptuous and worse than useless; but I have laid before it a rough sketch of my “comings and goings” since I left England, so that the emigrating reader may judge for himself what it is most probable he will have to undergo; and to the indifferent reader I hope the little anecdotes, which every traveller meets with, will make it amusing.

I must beg the reader to bear with me through the following pages, and pass, without censure, over composition which may be incorrect; he must consider that it is but a journal, written in leisure moments, sometimes under a burning sun, and at others during a storm, with the waves running mountains high and the wind whistling through the rigging.