Explore "The Call of the Southern Cross, A Romance of Australia" by John Sandes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The sailing vessel that Syd. Verner took passage in for Port Phillip was a slow and unwieldy little tub greatly overcrowded with diggers. She took three weeks to make the voyage to Hobson's Bay, which was thick with masts, as she came up the South Channel and dropped anchor off Williamstown.
When Syd. Verner and a party of his shipmates at last reached Melbourne, after a tiresome journey along the bank of the Yarra, which was crowded with traffic, they found the town fairly humming with excitement. Although Syd. was familiar with the diggings in New South Wales, the roaring life of the city was quite new to him, and he felt uneasily with his fingers for the belt that he wore under his shirt--the belt that carried all his money. He wore the customary dress of the diggers--cabbage tree hat, blue flannel shirt, and moleskins.