"Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And the days o' lang syne."
--Burns.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
--Haynes Bayly.
Entering Port Phillip on the morning of the 13th December, 1840, we were
wafted quickly up to the anchorage of Hobson's Bay on the wings of a
strong southerly breeze, whose cool, and even cold, temperature was to
most of us an unexpected enjoyment in the middle of an Australian
summer. A small boat came to us at the anchorage containing Mr. and Mrs.
D.C. McArthur and others who had friends or relations on board, and who
told us that for some days there had been excessive heat and a hot wind,
which had now reacted in this southerly blast, to go on probably into
heavy rain, the country being excessively dry.