"If an invalid, the voyager will, of course, prefer a sailing ship to a steamer, the latter mode of travelling being objectionable on account of the heat, dirt, smell, and vibration inseparable from steam sailing." The man that wrote this, among some other advice for people intending to emigrate from the Old Land to the New, is still with us, and his pen illumines the correspondence columns of the "Auckland Star" from time to time. The fact that he is still with us, hale and hearty, will serve as a reminder of the wonderful strides sea travel has made since 1881, the year in which the invalid would "of course" choose sail in preference to steam. Mr. J. Liddell Kelly was the author of the hint to intending travellers, and I have taken it from a most interesting diary which he kept of the voyage he made from Glasgow to Wellington in the Algoa Bay, a vessel of 1130 tons, commanded by Captain Emmett, which sailed on April 29, and arrived in Wellington on August 12, 1881, a passage of 105 days. Mr. Kelly's diary speaks of the "courage it required to make a married man with a family of five sell out and sail 12,000 miles to the other side of the world." In his case it was ill-health that caused him to pull up his tent-pegs, and looking at him to-day one must admit that New Zealand has some reason to plume herself on being a healthy country.

Although a fine big ship the Algoa Bay was not fitted up for carrying passengers—so they found out afterwards—and the Kellys were housed in a sailroom in the after part of the ship. "A place of about 8ft square, with two beds, to serve as kitchen, bedroom, dining-room, and sitting-room for seven souls seems rather contracted," observes the diarist. He goes on to remark that in fine weather it was all right, but in heavy weather they "might just as well have been in an open boat."

In those days travellers provided their own table gear, and Mr. Kelly recommends delf rather than tin, "which gives one," he observes, "a distaste for the food." And the food seems to have been sufficiently distasteful in itself, for the diary records that they could not eat the ship biscuit owing to its "flinty hardness," and the salt beef and pork were "villainously bad." The preserved potatoes were so badly cooked as to be "revolting to the palate." Most of the meat and potatoes went to the sailors, who complained of short commons, and welcomed the stuff. The food that could be eaten was 4lb of oatmeal, 4lb of preserved beef, 2lb of rice, 6lb of pease, and 8lb of flour per week, for a family of seven! The ration worked out at about five ounces of solid food for each individual per day. To add to their hardships the fresh water ran short, and at one time the Kellys had one pint served daily to the seven of them for drinking and washing.

Mr. Kelly was ever a poet, and of this trying period his Muse sang, in a poem called "The Song of the Ship":—

"Rice and porridge and soup,
Molasses and raisins and rice;
Such nasty porridge and vile pea soup,
One's palate need not be nice.
Salt beef and salter pork,
Salt pork and salter beef,
Till we sadly wish we were sent to 'quod'
To get the fare of a thief!"

Despite these disadvantages, the "sea air" must have been nourishing as well as curative, for Mr. Kelly records that, whereas he was a mere skeleton when he left Glasgow, he gained 16lb in weight during the voyage, and was asked by the first official that boarded the vessel in Wellington Harbour, "Are you the captain?"