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available for a short time, however, after the State Council interceded to forbid the use
of such money for travel assistance.
The three Morgantis set sail for Austraha aboard the Asia which departed from
Liverpool on the 26 April 1853. Carrying nineteen passengers from Someo and one
from GiumagUo, this large ship departed only four days before the Marchioness of
Londonderry (which had carried Alessandro Pozzi) and arrived in Australia four days
after that vessel on 6 August 1853.' Alerting the Morgantis to the harsh life they had
chosen was the death of two fellow villagers during the voyage. Upon their arrival in
Australia, the Morgantis possibly looked for work as labourers in Melboume before
moving on to the goldfields of Jim Crow. Unlike the Pozzis, who left many letters
detaiUng their experiences in Australia, no such records remain of the Morgantis.
There is a possibility that the boys were illiterate, having left school at an early age to
help on the family farm: 20 per cent of Someo's Australian emigrants were
disadvantaged in this way, reflecting the village's poverty and the traditional
employment of its young sons and daughters in the main income eaming projects of the
family. Someo's illiteracy rate was, in fact, the highest of all the villages in the Valle
Maggia at that time.* Since most of its citizens were uneducated farmers, this figure is
not surprising, nor is it surprising that of the 121 immigrants landing in Australia,
almost half were farmers, a quarter stonemasons and the remainder mostly
stonecutters, foresters, carpenters and chinmey-sweeps.^ Along with the Morgantis,
they were hoping to find an outlet for their skiUs in Australia.
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