The following letter is the last sent before David Missingham reached the Goldfields of Western Australia. You will see he often refers to money matter and it seems that he had left some debts behind him in Charters Towers Qld. As with all letters I would love to be able to read the replies but as is often the case only one side of the correspondence has survived. I wonder what Annie wrote in reply, you will note a slightly condescending tone to Davids letters on occasion, I wonder what Annie was like.
17 November 1896, Port Adelaide, South Australia Tuesday 7 a.m.
My Dearest wife
We have just arrived here per Gabo and leave again this afternoon at 4 p.m. so we have little time for this part the city of Adelaide or of churches as it is often called by irreverent persons. It is situated 7 miles from here and to get there one has to take a train which runs up in half an hour. I am going up as soon as possible after breakfast to do business I expect to see F E Beafort here and his wife but I may not. When just leaving Melbourne I met Tom Smith formerly of Charters Towers and a friend of Louis Miller and others about the “2 fevers” (Gold and Typhoid) We have a great number of passengers on board, about 300 and the bulk of them have had an awful time with sickness. I picked one married woman up yesterday out of the lee scuppers where she had fainted through continuous illness and she kept up a succession of fainting fits all day. Of course yours truly has not as yet lost a meal and on my word I am getting hungrier every time.
The weather has been as is now positively cold it rained in Rockhampton, Brisbane, Sydney and again in Melbourne and now again here. I was foolish enough to get a real good Turkish bath in Melbourne and got cold after it and ache all over head and chest & back. The cough tears me into little bits. I am going to see a doctor today but little wife, its nothing for you to make any fuss about you know. I expected my sweetheart that I would get a wire from you here but I expect no news is good news at any rate and I will accept it as such. We are in doubt as to whether this steamer will stop at Albany where I am booked and which will take one week sail from here or, whether they will land me at Fremantle which takes ten days from here. I must send you a map my dear and then you can follow out my movements. I am likely to have some trouble with my big box containing the theodolite etc as it is coming after me to Albany and although now in Melbourne only three days behind me will not leave there before the 30th instant. I expect that I will have to borrow or hire or steal an instrument to make observations for any report etc.
Post Office Adelaide
My dearest love I am never going to consent under any circumstances to a separation again, I am getting too old and we have been too long together and life is too short for it. I sorely miss you Anne, and the babies. Give me plenty of news when you write to me but above all things my sweetheart keep cheerful and everything will be alright and inside of that terrible six months we will be together again for the better.
My dearest love D Missingham
Moya Sharp
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