a very comfortable home for his wife and children, and it seemed probable that they might all prosper, could she make up her mind to do her best in a scene so totally new to her.
This family seemed the only one among the "married people" class of immigrants that had much prospect of a good start in their new country. Several of our other shipmates were still lingering unemployed in the "Home," apparently very downhearted. The place did not look much like its name of "home" to the new-comers just at first, for, to an English eye, the accommodation, which is quite sufficient for comfort in the climate of Australia, looks bare and cold and meagre, so that it gave our poor friends somewhat of the same impression which we can fancy to be made upon a previously happy child, when it is introduced into one of those schools called "happy homes" in the advertisements.
We were shown into a long room, divided off into separate spaces by wooden partitions, each space being of good size, and doing duty as a private apartment, but much resembling the loose boxes in a nobleman's hunting stable. These represented unfurnished lodgings for the immigrants, some of whom, perhaps, would, if the spaces had contained more accommodation, have bestirred themselves but slowly in seeking independent homes of their own. The place was perfectly clean and well ventilated, and plenty of water was at hand in the yard of the building, a great comfort with the thermometer at 90° as it then was. There was also no lack of water in the form of tears as we went in, for a poor old Irishwoman, whom we found sitting on the floor, with her feet straight out before her
