Rising immediately, I went on deck and found the morning calm and sulky-
-no rain, but everything very wet and very grey. There was Tilbury
Fort, so different from Stanfield's dashing picture. There was
Gravesend, which but a year before I had passed on my way to Antwerp
with so little notion that I should ever leave it thus. Musing in this
way, and taking a last look at the green fields of old England, soaking
with rain, and comfortless though they then looked, I soon became aware
that we had weighed anchor, and that a small steam-tug which had been
getting her steam up for some little time had already begun to subtract
a mite of the distance between ourselves and New Zealand. And so, early
in the morning of Saturday, October 1, 1859, we started on our voyage.
The river widened out hour by hour. Soon our little steam-tug left us.
A fair wind sprung up, and at two o'clock, or thereabouts, we found
ourselves off Ramsgate. Here we anchored and waited till the tide,
early next morning. This took us to Deal, off which we again remained a
whole day. On Monday morning we weighed anchor, and since then we have
had it on the forecastle, and trust we may have no further occasion for
it until we arrive at New Zealand.
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