"Wednesday, 18th December. Light airs and thick, at 7 weighed and made sail, at 12 Sea Lyon Island* south-south-west about 10 miles. (* Islands of the Furneaux Group.)
Saturday, 21st December. At 4 heavy sea, at 5 saw strange sail, found the same to be the Estramina, at 8 lost sight of her.
"Sunday, 22nd December. At sunset saw the land extremes from south-west to north-west by north distant off shore 7 leagues. A.M. At 8 made all sail for Port Jackson: at 9 hauled in for the Heads: at half-past 11 came to in Sydney Cove."
CHAPTER 12.
TIPPAHEE AND HIS FOUR SONS ARE CONVEYED TO NEW ZEALAND IN THE LADY NELSON.
The following months were months well spent by England's little ship; months which, like many others, left their mark on the early history of Australia and New Zealand, when seed was sown in England's name that was afterwards to bear fruit and extend her power and prosperity.
Empire builders to-day may well envy those whose lot it was to be the first in that vast southern field.
They were a gallant little band who, in early days, carried the mother-flag from New South Wales to lands and islands yet more distant, discovering the shores, planting the first settlements and moulding them into shape—men who worked with such untiring energy that succeeding generations found a city, where lately had stood a few miserable huts, and a flourishing seaport surrounding a once silent cove.
Looking back across one hundred and twenty years of time, we can picture the empty spaces on the sea-shore, which are now towns, and the monotonous wildernesses of bushland, which have been replaced by smiling landscapes; and we can realise the enormous difficulties that had to be overcome before houses could be built, or the bushland cleared and cultivated.