EMIGEANT 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 listening to their conver- 
sation. They were apparently of the middle class of Enghsh 
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 Httle 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 
