business, when one of the first things I was told was that there were a lot of my countrymen in the depôt waiting for engagements. Toowoomba is about a hundred miles inland, and they had been sent up from Brisbane. Well, I felt quite pleased, and decided at once to go and see them and to speak a kind word to some of them, if I could not do them any other service. But I came away a great deal less pleased than I had gone. There were some long forms outside the building, and on those forms sat as close as they could find room a score or so of men. Each man had wooden clogs on his feet and a long pipe in his mouth. On his knees sat his girl with her arm round his neck, and there they sat smoking and kissing perfectly regardless of ladies and gentlemen who would walk about looking at them and going on again. One I stood glaring at seemed to me the worst. He was a big ugly fellow, dressed in a blue calico blouse, black trousers and wooden clogs. In his hand he had a pipe five feet long, but on his head he had a sugar-bag. These sugar-bags are of straw and about two feet six inches in length. He had tied in the corners to fit his head. This gentleman would rush about and look in at the doors of houses, throwing side glances in all directions with the evident desire to attract attention. At last he stood in the middle of the street singing an old Danish song and jerking his body about like a maniac. I could not contain myself, so I went up to him and asked him if he did not think he was ugly enough already without trying to make himself still more so, and what did he mean by sticking that sugar-bag on his head?

"Oh," cried he, quite unconcerned, "here we are right up on the top of these blue mountains, that does not matter. It is a first-rate straw-hat. Does it not look nice? Why! this is a free country," &c.

One very conspicuous figure on board the emigrant ship was the Icelander, Thorkill; he was so unlike anybody else that I would like to describe him, especially as he became my mate in Queensland and we became close friends. His eyes were bluer and his complexion clearer than that of any one else I ever saw. He had long yellow curly hair, and a big yellow beard. He was himself also big and strong, and about twenty-eight years of age—altogether I should say, as far as appearance went, the beau ideal of a man. But as no one is perfect, so had he also a grievous fault, viz., a certain softness, like a woman. He always spoke as with a comma between each word, and although he had plenty of good sense and was, like all Icelanders, well educated, yet he would, I believe, give most people the impression that he was not fit to battle with a wicked world. I often wondered what might have brought him on board that ship, but he was very reticent about his own affairs. Meanwhile I have never known anybody whose mind was so pure, whose thoughts were so lofty as his. But he was unpractical, to a degree. He claimed to know all his ancestors from the twelfth century, when they had emigrated from Norway to Iceland, and he said his father still farmed the same land. Unless as a professor in ancient folklore, I do not know what Thorkill was good for. I had, in school, learned much Icelandic folklore, and to see his eyes sparkle with joy when he discovered this and knew that I was interested in it besides, did me real good, and so we agreed that during the voyage we would refresh each other's memory in "Sagamaal." He arranged to teach me the whole complete "Rümi Kronike." So we bribed the fellow who lay next to me (we had double bunks) to exchange berths with Thorkill, and he and I then lay together, and there we were telling "Sagamaal" from morning to night and sometimes the whole night through. He would make me tell him one of the "Sagas" I knew, although he knew it far better himself, just to see if I had mastered it properly. He would listen with all his might, then he would say: "Excuse—me—for—interrupting you—but—are—you—sure—that—you—are—correct—in—describing—Sharpedin—the—son—of—Hakon—as—a—longbearded—man. The—Rümi Kronike—does—not—say—so—on—the—contrary." Then we would have a long argument about that, Thorkill insisting upon the importance of being exact.

He wrote a splendid hand, but from the pedantic ungainly way in which he took hold of anything, I made sure he was not a good worker. He had studied scientific farming at the agricultural college in Copenhagen, and afterwards had been, he said, a sort of overseer on a large farm on the island of Als. Whether he had given satisfaction at that or not, I did not know, but what was the good of all his knowledge, supposing he had any, when he did not understand English, had no friend nor money, and was a bad worker? One day I said to him:

"Thorkill, do you ever try to draw a real picture to yourself of how we shall get on when we come to Queensland? I am thinking of this, there are, according to what we have been told, no more people in all Queensland than there is in a good-sized street in Copenhagen, and here are all these people on board ship who will be, the moment they land, ravenous in their competition for something to do, and another ship has sailed from Hamburg a week after us. How will they fare? I cannot solve it. But it strikes me very forcibly that if the sail of this ship were set for Copenhagen harbour instead of Queensland, the only solution to the problem there would be for the police to have some large vans in readiness and to give us a drive in them straight out to the workhouse." "Oh say not so," cried Thorkill, "say not so. God will protect us. You and I will never part." "No," cried I, in the fulness of my heart, "we will stick together, and we will get something to do too, you will see." And then, with a new sense of responsibility on me, I would talk to him cheerfully about Queensland, and the opportunities there would be to do well for both of us, which could not fail, but meanwhile I would rack my brain with thinking about how to make a few shillings to land with. I had not got a cent, and I knew very well that Thorkill had nothing either. It was a bad place I was in for making money, for there was not much of it on the ship, but I now very much regretted that I had spent all that I had before I came on board. Here were all these empty bottles lying about the ship which nobody seemed to claim. Why, thought I, they must be worth a little fortune in Queensland. Good idea! We will collect them all. I communicated with Thorkill. "Oh," said he, "you—will—make—your—fortune—in—Queensland. They must be worth a mint of money. But is it right to take them? What—a—business—ability—you—have—got. Nobody seems to want them. I think we might have them."

So then we went about begging and borrowing empty bottles everywhere, without letting anybody know for what we wanted them, and we piled them up in our bunks so that we could scarcely get into them; then people, when they saw what we were after, put a price on the bottles and came to us to sell. So Thorkill bought five shillings' worth on my recommendation, all the money he had, and still they came with bottles, but the firm was compelled to suspend payment. Then I, who was understood to know a little English, opened a class for teaching that language. My pupils had no money, but I took it out in empty bottles, and by and by we had them stacked by the hundred all round about ready for market.

The food we got was so wretched and insufficient that it was scarcely possible to keep body and soul together upon it. I have asked many people since how they fared in other ships, and I have come to the conclusion that our ship was the worst provided of any in that