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two of those old ships lost that winter, bound to Dunedin
with coals that was in 1873 as there was no plimsol (sic) mark
to load ships to in those days and that was before so many
steam colliers came about. And we also met the old captain that
got discharged for paying us of with half pay and he shook hands with
us, as he said it was through us that he got discharged and that
we all ought to be thankful that we had escaped being drowned.
I don't suppose the owner would lose much, as those old ships
was always well insured. So we stayed on shore for a week or two
when we heard of a gold rush that broke out at a place
called Scone so three of us packed up and away we went
and took our own tent and gear with us and tramped
for about a week. But when we got there we found plenty
of men there and we found it was only a storekeepers rush
so down we came again to a town called Maitland where
we got a train to take us to Newcastle. So that saved us a bit
of walking. So we went to the same sailors boarding house
as there was no sailors home in Newcastle in those days
so we lived a week there when one day me and my mate
was sitting at the door on a [form?] when a captain came and
said he wanted a couple of hands and we asked him what
ship and he said the Barque Adeline Burke a collier belonging
to Howard Smith in Melbourne, trading between Newcastle and
Melbourne. So we agree to ship with him, so we got to
the shipping office, and signed articles for six months, and
he had all the rest of his crew who signed on in the morn-
ing so we got on board and found she was a different
ship to the one we left and also in a better trade. So we put
our six months in very comfortable trading between Melbourne
and Newcastle so we got paid of in Melbourne and they layed
her up for a month as Howard Smith had plenty of coals in stock
so we all went to the Sailor's home in Spencer Street at that time
so while we was living there the captain of a barque came
in for a crew called the Wodonga. She had came from the
Mauritius with a cargo of sugar which was all discharged
and his ship ballasted ready for seas. So he wanted a crew