Ten days at sea from Sydney down a coast

of bays and rocks (all which she sketched) to Hobarton;

squalls to brave, in as rotten carcass of a tub

as ever sullied Neptune's blue. Half-dreamy and half-dead,

(that slide-door to-and-fro-ing like a pendulum!)

she smiled at the miseries of heroines in books

a friend of Mr Meredith supplied for her;

then dirty water dripping on the bed; and once

a fork-tailed centipede fell on her cap

scarpering with railroad rapidity, more venomous,

she knew, than any scorpion's sting. Thank God

the dangerous reptile landed where it did,

not on the baby's head! The sooty beams in any case

were cluttered with woodlice; the ship

a leaking brewer's vat, half-rigged, in want

of top-gallants, studding sails: all which she braved

to gain a temperate clime, a life of health and strength

where the fair promise of infancy might have

prospect of being realised. Remembering

a nervous hubbub of voices, footsteps clattering, then

vehement flappings of a sail blown from its ropes,

another thunderously buffeted, rigging twanging, blocks

thudding about in aptly-named Storm Bay, cliffs sheer

to leeward, weather thick, squally, never-ending rain.

At length they dropped anchor where jingling chains

proved choicer music than any concerto she had ever heard.