about 2 P.M. and I went aboard to pay my respects to Capt. Paulson. He, I found, was enjoying the most popular Australian indoor spot, listening to the afternoon broadcasts of the races at Sydney. We had a pleasant chat to- gather but I could not persuade him to come ashore and watch the unveiling. Len was the only one invited to the speaker's rostrum, which consisted of five chairs; the other four were an old lad, the oldest resident on the Cape and one of the first arrivals, the mayor who looks after the lighthouse, a member of the Queensland Historical Society and another local man. Some of the speeches contained some unintended masterpieces such as "This monument has been constructed entirely by local workers. It will be all right when it is polished up a bit." The wind swept sideways across the gap between speakers and audience and little of the speeches were audible; I know that St. Paul and Lincoln were featured and at times Kennedy did not show at all, but after Len had spoken I retired to the Royal Sovereign. Joe was apparently completely used up after his dancing of the previous evening and did not circulate very much. I learned that he had been responsible for quite a bon mot while listening to the music in between his furious activi- ties - somebody played a little Beethoven which did not appeal greatly to Joe but, being in a gracious mood, he remarked "You've got to hand it to Beethoven; he certainly tried." My evening was another pleasant one, starting at the Royal Sovereign and ending at the West Coast, the place with the famous frieze. I am not sure who painted the frieze but it too has its place in history, depicting in pictures the departure of the gold-miners from the cities, waving goodbye to their wives and families, their search for gold, conflicts with the blacks, establishment of Coen and other mining centres, the entry of the Church and its depture with the arrival of the painted ladies and so on. It is an interesting thing, as so much of the small and distinctly ramshackle town is. Tomorrow the pieces really do begin to fly off our expeditionary machine but I shall deal with that when tomorrow comes. Sunday, 26 September 1948. The day for me has been one of sad farewells and incessant walking from the hotel to the wharf to find out when the Wandana actually would leave. At the time of the first walk I introduced Len and Capt. Paulson, who had not previously met and then re- turned to the hotel to take a number of local lads from the bush on a perso- ally conducted tour of the specimens which were not wrapped. It was Len's joy but he had been button-holed yesterday and bullied into a promise to go to Church. He managed to get out of it by invoking the uncertainty of the Wandana's departure, but still had to go and make his apologies. Joe was spruce, trim and erect but with a sob in the voice when it came to parting; he is a rogue by certain standards but a lovable one by any. I marched the black contingent down on the second trip to the ship and some of the passengers who were ashore photographed them standing in front of the Kennedy Memorial, unveiled yesterday. The passengers seemed unaware of it but there was a distinct touch of irony in the fact that these boys were direct descendants, and Moreton probably only one generation, of the men who had speared Kennedy. The town seemed strangely empty and the Royal Sovereign was in a decline after the ship departed. Joe has kept the town on its toes, the arrival of Wandana and the Memorial unveiling all made yesterday a great day in Cooktown annals; I called at the Sovereign for a moment on my way back and, leaving there the road was completely empty. The only signs of life and movement were two horses grazing on the grass beside the road.