ago.
Thence I sailed direct for New South Wales, passing south of New
Caledonia, and arrived at Newcastle after a passage of forty-two days,
mostly of storms and gales.

One particularly severe gale encountered near New Caledonia foundered
the American clipper-ship _Patrician_ farther south. Again, nearer the
coast of Australia, when, however, I was not aware that the gale was
extraordinary, a French mail-steamer from New Caledonia for Sydney,
blown considerably out of her course, on her arrival reported it an
awful storm, and to inquiring friends said: "Oh, my! we don't know
what has become of the little sloop _Spray_. We saw her in the thick
of the storm." The _Spray_ was all right, lying to like a duck. She
was under a goose's wing mainsail, and had had a dry deck while the
passengers on the steamer, I heard later, were up to their knees in
water in the saloon. When their ship arrived at Sydney they gave the
captain a purse of gold for his skill and seamanship in bringing them
safe into port. The captain of the _Spray_ got nothing of this sort.
In this gale I made the land about Seal Rocks, where the steamship
_Catherton_, with many lives, was lost a short time before. I was many
hours off the rocks, beating back and forth, but weathered them at
last.

I arrived at Newcastle in the teeth of a gale of wind. It was a stormy
season. The government pilot, Captain Cumming, met me at the harbor
bar, and with the assistance of a steamer carried my vessel to a safe
berth. Many visitors came on board, the first being the United States
consul, Mr. Brown. Nothing was too good for the _Spray_ here. All
government dues were remitted, and after I had rested a few days a
port pilot with a tug carried her to sea again, and she made along the
coast toward the harbor of Sydney, where she arrived on the following
day, October 10, 1896.

I came to in a snug cove near Manly for the night, the Sydney harbor
police-boat giving me a pluck into anchorage while they gathered data
from an old scrap-book of mine, which seemed to interest them. Nothing
escapes the vigilance of the New South Wales police; their reputation
is known the world over. They made a shrewd guess that I could give
them some useful information, and they were the first to meet me. Some
one said they came to arrest me, and--well, let it go at that.

[Illustration: The accident at Sydney.]

Summer was approaching, and the harbor of Sydney was blooming with
yachts. Some