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While the food rations initially had been sufficient ~ passengers were given
quantities of rice, potatoes, beans or cereal which they secured into small sacks and
lowered into an enormous pot of boiling water for cooking ~ they eventually became
smaller and smaller untU the passengers received almost nothing. The Italian speakers,
clauned Aquilino, had only been able to control their hunger through their experience
with fasting during the period of Lent. ^^ Other miseries included insect bites and the
fear of pkate attack: though this was more a perceived than an actual threat, the men
had at one stage armed themselves for battle. When the ship finally docked at Sydney,
the authorities were so appaUed by the travellers' state of ill health that they placed
them in quarantine until they could be deemed fit to go among the Australian public.
Like Celestino, AquiUno spoke well of his compatriots but criticised one 'supposto
awocato italiano' (so called Italian lawyer)" who took his money promising to
arrange a refund on his fare from the shipping company again, like other of his
compatriots, revealing a traditional mistmst of the law. Disillusioned by the way he
had been treated and too poor to go to the goldfields, he remained in Sydney where he
eventually found work on a vineyard and tobacco plantation. Celestino, in contrast,
had departed immediately for Jim Crow, possibly in the company of his fifteen year old
cousin Battista who had also travelled aboard the infamous H. Ludwina.
Before leaving Ticino, Battista and Celestino had borrowed (respectively) 600
francs and 700 francs from their father; although this money had not been made
available to the other brothers, the father appears to have had some savings for he later
made a much larger loan to Celestino.^'* Arriving at Jim Crow the boys may have
mined with their brothers, as another of Stefano Pozzi's letters suggests: 'Righetti
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