e morning after Christmas Day saw me on board the steamer
'Raugatira,' advertised to start for Sydney at eleven. Casting off
from our moorings at the Sandridge pier, the ship got gradually under
weigh; and, waving my last adieu to friends on shore, I was again at
sea.

We steamed close alongside the 'Great Britain'--which has for some
time been the crack ship between Australia and England. She had just
arrived from Liverpool with a great freight of goods and passengers,
and was lying at her moorings--a splendid ship. As we steamed out into
Hobson's Bay, Melbourne rose up across the flats, and loomed large in
the distance. All the summits seemed covered with houses--the towers
of the fine Roman Catholic Cathedral, standing on the top of a hill to
the right, being the last building to be seen distinctly from the bay.

In about two hours we were at Queenscliffe, inside the Heads--at
present the fashionable watering place of Melbourne. Several excursion
steamers had preceded us, taking down great numbers of passengers, to
enjoy Boxing Day by the sea-side. The place looked very pretty indeed
from our ship's deck. Some of the passengers, who had taken places for
Sydney, were landed here, fearing lest the sea should be found too
rough outside the Heads.

There had been very little wind when we left Sandridge, and the waters
of Port Phillip were comparatively smooth. But as we proceeded, the
wind began to rise, and our weather-wise friends feared lest they
should have to encounter a gale outside. We were now in sight of the
white line of breakers running across the Heads. There was still a
short distance of smooth water before us; but that was soon passed;
and then our ship dashed her prow into the waves and had to fight her
way as for very life against the heavy sea that rolled in through
Bass's Straits from the South Pacific.

The only distinguished passengers on board are Mr. and Mrs. Charles
Mathews, who have been "starring" it in Victoria to some purpose. A
few nights ago, Mr. Mathews took his leave in a characteristic speech,
partly humorous and partly serious; but the enthusiastic audience
laughed and cheered him all the way through; and it was rather comic
to read the newspaper report of next morning, and to find that the
actor's passages of the softest pathos had been received with "roars
of laughter."

Mr. Mathews seems to be one of the most perennially juvenile of men.
When he came on board at Sandridge, he loo