Most of the old families in New Zealand have some memento or memory of the sailing-ship days when their forbears came out from the Old Country, and some of them have greatly treasured shipboard diaries, which in the present times of 40-day passages to London make most interesting reading; they show us how astonishing have been the changes in sea travel during the past fifty or sixty years. From one such diary I have been permitted to take some extracts concerning a typically protracted and eventful passage. The diarist was Mr. J. A. Pond, of Auckland, for many years one of the leading analytical chemists of the Dominion. He came out in the ship John Temperley, which left Gravesend on May 8, 1865, and took 114 days to reach Auckland. Among the John Temperley's passengers were Major Whitmore and Captain Machell, A.D.C. to the Governor.

Mr. Pond's diary opens with a fearful storm that struck the ship the day after she sailed from Gravesend. Then on May 29, when the ship was off Gibraltar, there happened one of those thrilling incidents that steam sailors are saved. Doing about ten knots, the ship was suddenly struck by a squall. At the time she was carrying all her canvas, and the squall threw her all aback, while at the same time she was struck by a heavy sea forward, which swept down the hatch and set everything movable on the dance and jingle.

One Sunday in June, just as the passengers had got up from the breakfast table, they heard a terrible commotion on deck, and rushing up they found that one of the sailors had been knocked off the jib-boom by the flying-jib. A boat was quickly lowered, and luckily the man was picked up.

Apparently the "Temperley" was not a clipper ship, for Mr. Pond's diary records that the Line was not crossed until the forty-third day from leaving Gravesend, a distance that generally was done in 25 to 30 days, and had been done in 17 days.