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altar, ourselves, our souls, and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice. But all who
were present assured me that they would offer up their sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving at the
first communion which they could have the opportunity of attending.'
The description of MereweatherJs week in Adelaide, which was shared by William
Honeycombe's family (at least the weather was) is fuller than usual and begins a second diary,
the Diary of a Working Clergyman in Australia and Tasmania, which was published in London
in 1854.
'17 June, 1850: Today, though in midwinter, we have a gfowing sun, modified by a balmy
breeze. All the deck is in confusion, for the emigrants, who go no further than Adelaide, are
getting out their baggage. I, at the request of the passengers, drew out a testimonial for the
doctor, which was unanimously signed; and he deserves this mark of attention, for,
professionally, he has been most assiduous, and socially, he has behaved as a gentleman should.
Many of the surgeons on board of emigrant ships are disreputable characters in every way. In
the course of the day I went with two passengers to Adelaide. [Possibly his cabin companions
Mr Rogers and Mr Wildman.] We travelled in a public conveyance, which was a Whitechapel
cart, drawn by two horses, tandem fashion. The drivers of these vehicles carry as many
passengers as they can get. We were said to be lucky, for there were only six besides us three.
The road, which passed through a desolate tract of country, was full of large holes, which by
recent rains had been converted into round ponds. These ponds we
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had to coast round, making a great halfcircie, so that instead of travelling seven miles, the
distance between Port Adelaide and Adelaide, we travelled at least ten miles.
On our way we met and passed innumerable bullock-drays, drawn by eight, or ten, or 12
patient, hard-tugging bullocks. We also saw several of the aborigines, clothed in dirty blankets
and kangaroo and opossum-skins. They looked half-starved, like the dogs that followed them,
and were hideously dirty and ugly. Adelaide strikes me as a very miserable, squalid place. Wide
streets are laid out, but there are few houses in them, and those few are mean and wretched: the
roads are full of holes, receptacles of dust in summer and mud in winter; public-houses abound,
and drunkenness seems everywhere prevalent. There is a substantial Change for the merchants
to congregate in, but ail the business of Adelaide seems done at a noted public-house, kept by a
man called Coppin. Here is to be seen a strange mixture of merchants, newly arrived
immigrants, squatters, bullock-drivers, shopkeepers, loose characters, trafficking, blaspheming,
laughing, singing, yelling, and drinking innumerable nobblers. Everybody goes there, for every
business rendezvous is made at Coppin's.
'As I could get no conveyance to the port in the evening, I slept at an inn there. Each bed-room
has three very plain sofa-couches, and I was told that if I didn't wish companions, I must pay for
all three. The guests here live table d'hote fashion, and their breakfasts, dinners and teas, are
served with a monotonous prodigality. At every meai there are beef sausages, mutton-chops,
beef steaks, roast mutton and boiied beef, good potatoes, and most delicious bread; and of
these three substantial meals the guests partake with the most perservering elasticity. The table-
talk is of bullocks, highly flavoured with oaths, and each person seems bent on making his
fortune as quickly as possible. I can imagine the early Puritan settlers in North America to have
been a very different set of persons.
'A young woman at table, speaking contemptuously of some newly-arrived immigrants - "Jimmy
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