“No peace for the wicked they will not let Joey & I enjoy the morning’s sleep but come at 8 & reopen both doors so that the cold breeze nearly took us out of our bunks. I expect you people at home are now making arrangements for Xmas. Joey has been fishing for birds all the morning but has caught nothing except cold hands & feet. The living to-day is not very extraordinary. Pea soup & fish.

We have eaten nearly all our stores & the fish scarcely any of us can mouth, the smell is enough for all but myself now. You will say it is bad management in running out in stores, but we have no shops here where we can run to & buy more & I think it is best to live well while you have the stuff to do it with. In the evening Joey was missing for 2 hours & we went all around the ship looking for him. But could not find him till the 3^rd mate heard him in the ladies room telling yarns. We thought something perhaps had happened as he had been complaining of feeling peculiar like all day. Bed at 11.30. Read till 1am”

Extract from A.Whelen’s Australia travel journal sailing aboard the Hesperides from England in 1878