Australian Tales - Setis

perplexed, and muttered that he “would rather be drowned than be jawed
to death.” After taking in a number of empty beer barrels, a Bath chair,
sundry bundles of cabbage-tree, and other “odds and ends,” (which — in
the estimation of the owners — ” weighed nothing,” the ropes were cast
off, and we slowly proceeded to sea. I saw that my luggage was safely
stowed, with other passengers' effects, on the after skylight, then went
upon the bridge and sat beside the captain, who had the reputation of
being one of the most careful and experienced seamen on the coast.
“You have a large cargo to-day, captain,” I remarked.
“Ugh, cargo! we are smothered with it. They'll sink us altogether one
of these fine days,” replied the captain, with a shrug; then he shouted to
the crew forward, to “haul the chain-box over to starboard.”
From my elevated position, I could scan the ship fore and aft, except
under the bridge, where I had previously taken stock of four horses,
sundry coops of poultry, a stack of wet hides, and some casks of tallow.
The quarter deck was crowded with bales of wool and luggage, with a
right-of-way left for thin passengers. One quarter boat was pretty well
filled with dead wild ducks and wallabies, and live cockatoos in cages;
the other contained vegetables, sofacushions, swabs, and other useful
articles. In the forepart of the ship was a travelling carriage, sundry
machinery belonging to the pertinacious miller before-mentioned, bales
of hay, bags of grain, several fat calves, the pigs, and the horse aforesaid,
and an assortment of odds and ends not worth particularising, including
the five bags of oysters, which Squidd, the fisherman, had smuggled into
the starboard sponson. The steerage passengers were sitting or standing
wherever they could find room. Four men were lounging in the travelling
carriage, smoking their pipes, and seeming as unapprehensive of danger
as if the travelling carriage were on the Paramatta Road. The steamer
lurched heavily from time to time, and the crew were obliged to shift the
chain-box about, to help to steady her, at which extra work they did not
fail to grumble, in sailors' peculiar fashion. Altogether the prospect was
enough to frighten any one whose imagination was at all active, whose
organs of caution were not concave, and who, moreover, had not a
settled belief that he “was born to be hanged.” Fortunately the sea was
very smooth, and by degrees my qualms subsided into a calm submission
to my lot.
“I think we shall have a light north-easter to-day,” I remarked to the
captain, as he reseated himself, after he had given an order to his mate to
send the topgallant yard on deck.
“I don't think the wind will hold long in that quarter,” he replied, while
his experienced eye scanned the horizon. “We shall have a ‘southerlyburster’
before long. It will blow like thunder before sundown, or I am
very much mistaken.”
I thought so too, (notwithstanding I could see a ripple on the water, far