was a
kind of Freemasonry of shared experience among them, and I had never
been initiated. They were established members of a recognised order,
to which I did not belong. They were members of families of a certain
defined status. I was an isolated small boy, with a father, and no
particular status.

BOYHOOD--AUSTRALIA

I

It has often occurred to me to wonder why my recollections of our
arrival and first days in Sydney should be so blurred and
unsatisfactorily vague. One would have thought such episodes should
stand out very clearly in retrospect. As a fact, they are far less
clear to me than many an incident of my earlier childhood.

What I do clearly recall is lying awake in my makeshift bunk for some
time before daylight on the morning we reached Sydney, and, finally,
just before the sun rose, going on deck and sitting on the teak-wood
grating beside the wheel. There, on our port side, was the coast of
Australia, the land toward which we had been working through gale and
calm, storm and sunshine, for more than ninety days. Botany Bay, said
the chart. I thought of the grim record I had read of early settlement
here. And then came the pilot's cutter, sweeping like a sea-bird under
our lee. The early sunshine was bright and gladsome enough; but my
recollection is that I felt somehow chilled, and half frightened. That
sandy shore conveyed no kindly sense of welcome to me.

The harbour--oh, yes, the harbour was, and is, beautiful, and I can
remember thrilling with natural excitement as we opened up cove after
cove, while the _Ariadne_--stately as ever, but curiously quiescent
now, with her trimly furled and lifeless sails--was towed slowly to
her anchorage. The different bays--Watson's, Mossman's, Neutral, and
the rest--had not so many villas then as now. Manly was there, in
little; but surf-bathing, like some other less healthful 'notions'
from America, was still to come. From the North Shore landing-stage
one strolled up the hill, and, very speedily, into the bush.

Yes, the place was naturally beautiful enough; but the _Ariadne_ was
home; her every deck plank was familiar to me; I knew each cleat about
her fife-rails, every belaying-pin along her sides, every friendly
projection from her deck that had a sheltering lee. The shining
brass-bound, teak-wood buckets ranged along the break of her poop--the
crew's lime-juice was served in one of these, and they all were
painted white inside--I see them now.