July 25th, 1865

I write this because I fear gravely for my family and myself. It has been 100 days at sea, may as well be eternity. Our ship Venus sails on like her celestial body would suggest- perfect and beautiful. I believe now that fate never meant for me to be a man of the sea, my feet should be firmly planted on the earth. The rolling of my body with the waves feels unnatural and I am told this by the sickness I feel, and the hours I spend with my head between my knees. On my worst days I yearn for England where the streets of Surrey flowed through my veins. I see now that I was foolishly tempted like man in the Garden of Eden. To find a better life I became drunk in anticipation for adventure. If I had been an educated man, would I have known better?

My education came in the form of what I learned, from the intricate way houses are formed. I myself am not God but merely Christ’s earthly father. A carpenter who knows not the way of the world, but the intricate craftsmanship of a table, a chair, a bed. The grain of wood softer to me than silk beneath my hands. My beautiful Bella would be bathing my blistered hands in salt water if we were home, though I am thankful that at least Bella holds my hand now, and the hands of our children. If only soon I could lay my eyes on this new, foreign land. To see for myself savages as dark as night, and land green and fertile, that rolls on, and on forever. I felt the tides of time changing in England as we left. Yet would those changes have been as great as certain death?

August 15th, 1865

I am starting to lose hope. In my dreams my face is reflected in walls of ice, like a nightmarish hall of mirrors. I search in desperation by feeling my way through the white, hollowed halls. Smooth to the touch- but so cold, so very cold. I would like to say that the sunken, dirty and diseased faces that look back at me are only in my nightmares. Alas, those are the faces of my family and fellow passengers- one look at them and I fear that the only exit out of this journey will be a slow demise. I pray for a death that is the least traumatic. Shall it be the freezing- my body snapping off piece by piece- or would it be my savage organs, ravaging me from the inside out?

I am not been negative, simply realistic. For I am a God-fearing man, so there has always been hope. I am starting to fear that like light- hope fades. The sea looks endless and the same. I hear the sea men’s talk like poetry through the wind. We are heading too far south and the crew have lost a few good men so far in this perilous journey. Thrown overboard, they are like discarded waste. In times bygone that sight would turn my stomach, but the law of the sea says that it is the way most humane. I am starting to fear that they be the lucky ones, the lucky ones that die. I am a strong man, so I wonder how the women and the children on board have the strength to move- even the strength to breathe. I look over the edge and all I see is white. The purest white you will ever lay eyes on in your human existence, because surely it is the white that you expect in heaven.

August 27th, 1865

Maybe we are in heaven, and the Albatrosses with their monstrous wingspans are indeed angels. They have guided us so far throughout our passage- maybe they knew we were not to make it. Food has completely gone. My children have taken to chewing the skin around their fingers and their fingernails just to fight off the death. The Captain believes that we are finally heading north, a choir of angels heralded that moment. However, I fear we may arrive on land a ghost ship. Some of the men tried to kill our guiding Albatrosses. They were beaten to an inch of their lives by the sea men- for the death of an Albatross even for food means certain bad luck or probable death for seafarers. In that case the great birds may as well circle us like vultures, ready to pluck out our eyeballs during our weakest moments.

September 5th, 1865

Hunger pains continue to plague me. I look into the eyes of my children, though scared and frightened, they continue to fight. There seems to be a lift amongst the passengers as rumours spread of land close by. I spoke to the Captain, and he told me that we are a thousand miles south of Cape Leeuwin, and that perhaps we are heading for more danger as we aim for a tiny yet dangerous gap at Cape Otway. As daylight breaks we will then pass into Bass Strait. I pray in my heart that we will finally make it. If this is the Lord playing games with my mind, then let me die peacefully in the arms of the ocean. I may be tempting fate myself- or perhaps my dreams and hallucinations have begun to morph into one. I swear on my mother’s grave- today, that I could see- no- begin to feel fresh timber beneath my fingers. For heaven may indeed be wood that is not covered in a layer of sea mist and barnacles. My only wish is to lie in the grass, I want to be a man of the land again. Acreage of my own which I purchase to build a house and raise a family. My love- to have blistered hands and to bathe them in salty water- not from the sea.