Vlll PREFACE. 



experienced, require a warmer acknowledgment, as 

 being a far greater obligation. Nor ought I to omit 

 all mention of the ships' companies of the Fly and 

 Bramble. Of their good conduct as regards the 

 service I am of course not entitled to speak, but 

 their behaviour towards myself was always such as 

 to demand my thanks. 



I look back, indeed, with much satisfaction to the 

 time spent on board the Fly, for I saw sufficient to 

 confirm the generally admitted belief that manliness, 

 open-heartedness, kindness, and sincerity, are not 

 merely the proverbial attributes, but the real charac- 

 teristics of the service to which I had the honour of 

 being thus temporarily attached. Finally, as the 

 voyage of the Fly and Bramble follows that of her 

 Majesty's ship Beagle, executed under the command 

 of Captain Stokes, in the years 1837 — 1843, so I 

 trust it may be found to add to the information 

 hitherto obtained upon countries of great interest, as 

 connected with our own by the social ties of com- 

 merce: but still greater, when, as in the case of 

 Australia, they are lands over which the feet of 

 our countrymen now hurry for the purpose of " Dis- 

 covery," but wherein their descendants may here- 

 after dwell the inhabitants of a great nation, the 

 England of the New World, inheriting with the reli- 

 gion, the language, the laws, and the free institutions 

 of the parent race. 



