I 



EMIGKANT ILLUSIONS 121 



the practice in places where no one in England would think of 

 using the weed.' 



The newly arrived emigrants had visionary ideas of their 

 future, as Hooker had occasion to learn when returning one 

 day from a botanising walk. 



* 



About half past five it began to pour with rain, and 

 with a load of plants we were glad to take refuge in the 

 New York tavern, the parlour of which was filled with lady 

 emigrants (from the ship Queen Victoria), While drinking 

 our beer we were much amused hstening to their conver- 

 sation. They were apparently of the middle class of English 

 farmers, Yorkshire from their speech. In their dehght at 

 being emancipated from the ship, they dreamed of nothing 

 but comforts to await them up the country, and seemed 

 to think that their hardships were over ; one talked of 

 having a nice house, with a verandah, on a hill near the 

 water, with a garden, &c. ; and really her husband must 

 provide her such a one. Little did she think that she will 

 perhaps have to spend two years in a mud hovel,' with a 

 marsh before the door and the bush for a verandah. Another 

 congratulated herself on the prospect of making herself 

 useful by knitting mosquito nets for her father ; if in 

 three months' time she is making onion nets, or seines for 

 a neighbouring lagoon, it will be perhaps the highest part 

 of her daily toil. Generally speaking, the young men were 

 smoking cigars and drinking hot or cold grog ; one talked 

 of going to a billiard table and another of the theatre, after 

 having spent the day going about to milHners' shops with 

 their consorts. What this colony holds out for a settler 

 I do not know, but to me these seemed a most mistaken set 

 of people in their ideas of future comfort or happiness. . . . 



It soon ceased raining and we started off through the 

 town and government domain for the ships, splashing through 

 the mud at every step, while the little urchins compared 

 us carrying our grass trees to Moses among the bulrushes. 



The Mr. McLeay here mentioned had lately been Colonial 

 Secretary and was soon afterwards knighted (see p. 9) ; and 

 his son William (already referred to, p. 84) was a naturalist 

 of some mark. To them Hooker had an introduction from his 



