We Are the Rebels Read Online Free PDF

not know one thing that I felt so much , lamented
Mrs Meredith, as the loss of the North Star .
    At the equator, you can see all the stars in the sky rise and set—the entire celestial
sphere. Another map begins unfolding. And as the weeks rolled by and the ship lurched
further south towards Australia, passengers had no choice but to fix their mental
compass on the Crux Australis: the Southern Cross.
    Matter-of-fact Fanny Davis recorded a single entry in her diary after crossing the
equator on 15 July 1853: Saw the Southern Cross at the Line. It is altogether different
to an English sky.
    The Southern Cross said to these voyagers that everything had changed. It told of
a new political identity, freed from old allegiances. But it was a symbol of belonging
too. The Southern Cross offered new immigrants the embrace of a new community. It
represented something shared. Something that became recognisable, habitual, as the
voyage continued. Something you could rely on when everything else was slipping
away.
    And before long that simple constellation would come to have tremendous significance
for the people of Ballarat, representing just how far their journey had taken them.

THE DEEP
    After skimming the equator and breaking free of the doldrums, ships plunged into
the South Atlantic, following the winds and current, heading towards the Cape of
Good Hope and the Roaring Forties.
    The dancing and music-making on deck came to an abrupt halt as ships entered the
arctic trade winds of the Southern Ocean. Heavy seas and strong winds buffeted the
ship. Passengers were forced to find their sea legs all over again. On a day that
was blowing a perfect hurricane , Fanny Davis stayed below but one of her cabin-mates
fell over trying to get on deck and knocked several teeth in.
    Later a woman delivered her baby in the middle of a fearsome storm only a week out
from Port Phillip. It was a night of terrors , with waves flooding the berths and
snow blanketing the deck. The baby died as soon as it was born; the mother followed
not long after.
    Another traveller, Mrs Graham, witnessed the sea burials of a baby and toddler from
the one family, dead within two days of each other and wrote: the body fell with
a splash and all was over but the cries of the Parents who felt deeply the loss of
the child.
    On Sarah Raws’ ship, a lady died this morning in our cabin, leaving ten grieving
children. She had become very intimate with Sarah’s mother and father, and Sarah
attended the funeral. They sewed her up in canvas, and it was an effecting [sic] sight to see the bereaved family . The woman’s son offered the very large sum of £200
to the captain to bring the body to land, but the law prohibited this and so she
was consigned to the deep . They had only three days left to sail.
    Passengers kept a watch out for land, but it was often the scents of Australia that
first alerted immigrants that their journey was almost complete. An aromatic odour,
as of spicy flowers greeted journalist William Howitt as he coasted through Bass
Strait. A beautiful awakening at 4 o’clock , wrote Maggie Brown Howden on 29 July
1854. Saw from my porthole Cape Otway lighthouse, a most cheering sight, and at 6
o’clock saw land of the country we had so longed for weeks to behold. At last that
comfort was granted us.
    But the ordeal was not over yet. Ships still had to navigate the Heads of Port Phillip
Bay to reach the port of Melbourne. Captains who didn’t know the local tidal and
weather conditions could stumble at the final hurdle. At least 50 ships have been
wrecked on the Rip.
    MARTHA CLENDINNING (NEE HOLMES)
    THE DOCTOR’S WIFE, NOT
----
    PIONEER OF THE POP-UP SHOP

    BORN Garryduff, Ireland, 1822
    DIED Toorak, 1908
    ARRIVED: January 1853, on the St George
    AGE AT EUREKA 32
    CHILDREN One daughter, seven years old at Eureka.
    FAQ Anglo-Irish upper class, married to a doctor turned digger. Went into business
with her sister as a shopkeeper on Ballarat diggings to support