MANUSCRIPT. [A hand-written account of a voyage to Sydney on the steam packet Wilmot, by R.F.M. Kebby. N.p: 1839-1840.] 13pp. manuscript, 8vo (252 x 198mm.) Unnumbered pages in a legible hand noting in diary form the events of a 118 day voyage on the 'Wilmot' from Gravesend to Sydney, 36 blank leaves to rear. (Slight browning.) Original half-calf (some loss to spine, rubbing to extremities). Note: Kebby describes the sense of life on a long voyage in the early days of hybrid steamships, where weather is still so important and, after two weeks ('waiting for a fair wind') and 'prayers and a sermon in the cuddy' they finally lose sight of land but rations have already been given out ('R.K broke a front tooth by eating a hard biscuit'). While the weather is a preoccupation, Kebby also notes domestic incident as the travellers try to fill the time 'plenty of employment in drying the bedding' but boredom overcomes the Roberts children while the adults drink 'too much Grog' and start rows 'a German woman servant became so refractory by drinking spirits that her master Mr. Games obtained the captains order to place her in the black hole, where she remained about two hours'. A shark and 'several albatrosses' are caught, locusts blow in from the African coast, we learn why the speed of ships is measured in knots and of the 'barbarous and absurd' practice of shaving any passengers who have not 'done homage' to Neptune when they pass the equator. Thankfully, although with much annoyance to the sailors, Captain Miller outlawed this practice and, finally, on 26th January 1840, they anchor in Sydney.