Not about his travels but about the initial colonization of Australia with English convicts and their harsh treatment with the cat-o-nine-tails. The British colony founded by Captain Cook in 1770 and the establishment of the Australian and Tasmanian penal colonies. Twain then goes on to the corrupt "protection" organization, the New South Wales Corps and the setting of rum as the national currency. The state of New South Wales, by the establishment of mining and wool ranching, eventually developed into a thriving region.
September 15th, the Warrimoo approaches Sydney harbor. Twain relates the story of the ship, the Dunbar (Twain refers to the ship as the Duncan Dunbar which was actually a different ship), breaking up on the rocks at the harbor entrance in 1857. Twain writes of the beauty of Sydney but Australia's interior brings to mind Nevada's dust storms, the Zephyrs.
Twain become acquainted with an English naturalist who lives in New Zealand and learns of the natural history of Australasia, particularly the platypus, Ornithorhyncus.
William T. Wawn, Master Mariner and captain of the schooner Stanley, was a capitalist and capitalism treats everything as a commodity including people. The dedication in his book, The South Seas Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade provides an excellent illustration of just what his biases are:
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