Excerpt from This World of Ours

That at least I can do; here it is. A small enough thing; yet if it give pleasure to some weary ones, let that be placed against my great debt.

Travel was in my bones. I belonged, through my mother, to the Pinsons, English descendants, to all seem ing, of the Pinzons of Spain. Living at the Port of Palos, beside Huelva, Alonzo, Vicente and Francisco, three brothers of this family, not only financed Columbus as to one-eighth but sailed with him to the discovery of America; and to Vicente Pinzon, some years later, fell the actual discovery of Brazil. Of the Old Admiral himself, who made so many things possible 'for me, I shall have enough to say.

Conquistadores in the blood; an early instinct which told me I should sit at no desk - these counted for some thing; yet my destiny was shaped for me otherwise. I was fourteen, with overstrung nerves and a weak diges tion; and after thoughts of a public school had been put aside - what was there for it? Accompanied by a guard ian, I set sail around the Cape for Australia.

We saw no land. Our canvas was furled seventy-seven days later, off Wollongong, where a tug boat took us in tow, and that night we passed through Sydney Heads. Awaiting a berth in the dock, we dropped anchor in a cove on the north shore of the harbour.

In these days, Sydney must needs find room for people, but in those days that cove lay utterly secluded, wooded to the water's edge. All was green and sparkling, lobelia and maidenhair fern grew in each erev ice; landing on that first Sunday morning I roamed the woods enchanted.

In the evening I escorted three of our ladies over the water to church. In the gloaming we landed before a city where all the houses and superscriptions seemed Chi nese, presently passing into crowded streets, and the Brit ish town, where there was a cathedral, and splendid sing ing; but my thoughts lay in those woods over on the North Shore.

Retracing our steps to the boat, we passed the stall of a huckstress, where I would have refreshed myself; but it was conveyed to me that one of the ladies belonged to some stringent sect, and could not bear to see apples bought on the Sabbath. I had fingered the fruit, and al ready held it in a bag; nevertheless, my first deliberately ethical act in Australia was to replace those apples on the stall and the sum of threepence in my trousers pocket.

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