The Great Barrier Reef. 319 



ranges alongside to tranship the mails and passengers. I 

 dip my pen to make the last entry in my Log. The 

 voyage is over, and the voyagers are glad. New scenes 

 are before them. As they enter the Brisbane River they 

 become aware that they have turned over, for weal or woe, 

 " a new page in the Log of their life. Somehow, the kind 

 welcomes they have received have made them feel already 

 at home, even before they have placed foot on land. They 

 had read of Moreton Bay scenery as consisting of mangrove 

 flats, swamps, and "numberless mud banks j had, in truth, 

 been led to form a dismal anticipation of it, of the river, 

 and of the town. In all they are agreeable surprised. 



Two emigrant ships, recently arrived from England, lie 

 at anchor in the bay; one, we are told, under quarantine, 

 the men, women, and children, perhaps, gazing wistfully at 

 the land which, as yet, they are forbidden to enter. What 

 do they think of the prospect ? It must be a doubly serious 

 matter to poor folks who have come out so far to begin life 

 again with all their kith and kin. Thanks to a kind Provi- 

 dence which is too wise to err, too good to be unkind, the 

 flower of hope may droop, but it never absolutely scorches up 

 while there is the sap of life to sustain it. The very vastness 

 of the unbroken forests which cover the land is calculated to 

 inspire them with awe ; and, doubtless, while the immigrants 

 wait in anxiety for release by the Health Officer, fears and 

 hopes alternate. As the Kate steams up the Brisbane River 

 I try to look around from their standpoint, putting myself, 

 as it were, in their place. 



The Brisbane is a broad stream that bends and twists 

 through a variety of scenery, and is skirted with a verdant 

 fringe of mangrove almost to low-water mark. It introduces 

 the stranger to the smooth ash-coloured trunks and scantily- 

 leaved branches of the tall gum trees that shed their bark 



