Davy walked back to
the port the same evening, and next day took in ballast, which was
mud dug out among the mangroves.
He arrived at Launceston in four days, and then went as coasting
pilot of the barque 'Belinda', bound to Port Fairy to take in oil for
London. The barque took in 100 head of cattle, the first that were
landed at Port Fairy. He then went to Port Philip, and was employed
in lightering cargo up the Yarra, and in ferrying between
Williamstown and the beach now called Port Melbourne. He took out
the first boatman's licence issued, and has the brass badge, No. 1,
still. Vessels at that time had to be warped up the Yarra from below
Humbug Reach, as no wind could get at the topsails, on account of the
high tea-tree on the banks.
OUT WEST IN 1849.
I did not travel as a capitalist, far from it. I went up the
Mississippi as a deck passenger, sleeping at night sometimes on
planks, at other times on bags of oats piled on the deck about six
feet high. The mate of a Mississippi boat is always a bully and
every now and then he came along with a deck-hand carrying a lamp,
and requested us to come down. He said it was "agen the rules of the
boat to sleep on oats"; but we kept on breaking the rules as much as
possible.
Above the mouth of the Ohio the river bank on the Missouri side is
high, rocky, and picturesque.
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