Читать книгу Advance Australasia: A Day-to-Day Record of a Recent Visit to Australasia - Frank Thomas Bullen - Страница 5

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Of course the time of year—the middle of March—must be taken into account, otherwise I should ask, in utmost bewilderment, why all this wholesale vituperation of the Red Sea? I am quite prepared to believe also that we have been especially favoured this voyage, as we have never, since leaving London, had an unpleasant day at sea. But when all has been said I am perfectly certain that many other places of my acquaintance, notably the Spanish Main and the East African littoral, are quite equal, if not superior, to the Red Sea in its alleged bad eminence of torridity. No; it was not until we began to near Colombo that the heat waxed at all oppressive, and even then only so to people who persisted in worrying about it. In Colombo it was hot and coal-dusty, and generally unpleasant to the traveller eager for sight-seeing, yet fresh from the coolth of home and even the Suez Canal. But it was over soon, and the latter half of the day was also tempered by a few tremendous tropical rain-showers, heralded by a thunder-clap out of a blue sky which sounded like the crack of doom and brought seriousness to many faces. I thought it was the report of a big gun fired close at hand, and looked vainly about for the smoke-wreath.

Away again at midnight, passing through the narrow way between the ends of the two magnificent breakwaters at nearly full speed, so confidently are these modern twin-screw ships handled, and the long stretch across the Indian Ocean to Fremantle lay before us, the last lap of the ocean passage. So we settled down to quiet enjoyment again, marred only by the digestion of the news heard about the outbreak of Vesuvius, fully justifying my fears when I saw his angry glow on the night of leaving Naples. Swiftly we passed into the realm of the faithful South-east Trades, meeting the world-old swell from the southward and listening half-pityingly, half-contemptuously to the querulous complaints of passengers at the ship's motion, after their unstinted praises of her steadiness before. I reserved most of my pity, however, for the skipper, who had to meet these unwarranted aspersions upon the character of his fine ship, with explanations which his interlocutors did not understand, or, if they did, disbelieved, paid no heed to it, and went on grumbling.

At last, punctual to the appointed hour, in the perfect wharf of a pearly morning, we steamed into the snug harbour of Fremantle, and after a brief delay for turning the ship so that she should be ready to steam right out without delay, we gently glided alongside the wharf, arrived in Australia. It was my first visit to Western Australia, and from what I had heard of the Swan River I had pictured something very different indeed from a waterway, which, though narrow, was deep and secure as a dock, and lined with wharves alongside of which such a ship as the Omrah, drawing 26 feet of water and measuring nearly 9,000 tons, could be berthed with the greatest ease. As the light strengthened and it became possible to make out details, I was charmed at the finished look of everything, the absence of that squalor which, in American ports especially, seems inseparable from shipping quarters. There was nothing unkempt or untidy, and as the sun rose and the clear atmosphere shed its searching light upon every corner, this was most noticeable. One other point, too, about this most modern port was the use of the motor for harbour work, the lighters even being brought alongside by a motor-tug, while two or three others were gliding about the river with that uncanny air of sentience and absence of fuss which is extremely characteristic of the motor-boat, if not of the motor-car.

Having met the inevitable interviewer who did not ask me how I liked Australia, but who did put me to considerable inconvenience by requesting (in about five minutes) my views on the result of the recent elections in Great Britain, and the consequences to the Empire of the sudden rise of the Labour Party, I entered the train at half-past eight and gat me unto Perth, about an hour's ride. We passed through many thriving-looking townships, glaringly new to all appearance in that all-revealing sun-glare, but still, to my delight, free from squalor. I saw no tumble-down hovels, neglected fences, weed-overgrown forecourts, unpainted houses with "don't care" posted in unmistakable characters all over them, such as may be seen in the suburban districts of Chicago, for instance, to say nothing of many less important American cities. And I take it that to the observant traveller there are few better criteria afforded of the character of a great city generally than the approaches to it by train, for by some strange series of coincidences a railway almost always runs through the worst part of a town or city's environs.

Therefore I was most pleasantly impressed by my journey to Perth—an impression which was deepened and confirmed upon leaving the train and entering the pretty little city itself, which I mentally compared with its ancient namesake in Bonnie Scotland. For its lovely surroundings old Perth can hardly be surpassed, but it is in itself a "dour auld toon," hard and grim, while new Perth, the capital of the young and strenuous giant, Western Australia, is bright and brisk and gay, humming with activity and yet solid and permanent-looking in its buildings, as if its citizens had faith in its capacity not merely to endure but to go on. To use an expressive if horrible Americanism, "there are no flies on" Perth. Its citizens are obviously full of go, and they have called to their aid all the most modern appliances for expediting communications either by road or rail. The electric trolley-car hums along the beautifully graded streets, alongside of which run a very forest of telegraph poles supporting a shimmering network of telegraph and telephone wires. I take off my hat metaphorically to those responsible for the roadways of Perth. To my mind nothing more fitly stamps the character of those in charge of a city than the condition of its streets, and I bear witness that the streets of Perth put to utter shame the roadways of many far more pretentious and incomparably older towns and cities that I could name both in the Motherland and in the United States.

My stay in Perth on this occasion being limited to about two and a half hours, I could not waste time, so made haste to present my credentials to the Premier, Mr. Rason, and a leading citizen, Dr. Hackett, proprietor of the West Australian, and a gentleman of whom I heard nothing but praise. By both of them I was received with the greatest cordiality, but of course there was no time for any hospitality or investigation, and as I hoped to make a stay of a week or so on my return it was quite unnecessary to do more than exchange a few compliments and retire. But I confess that one thought has worried me. To judge from the newspapers which I have been devouring since they came on board this morning, the rulers of this Colony are mainly men whose time is principally devoted to the vituperation of one another and the promulgation of schemes of socialism, the difference between the ins and the outs being, as far as I can see, that between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. If, however, there be any truth in this, how is it that the evidences of good government and prosperity are so abundant, so unmistakable on every hand? It is a conundrum the answer to which I hope to learn later on.

Back again to the ship in a great hurry, and punctually at the time appointed we steam out around Rottnest Island, and head for Cape Leeuwin, the "Horn" of Australia, where for the first time the sedate Omrah begins to manifest symptoms of levity, evoking plaintive protests from those passengers who, spoiled by the persistently calm and uneventful passage we have made from Britain, have grown to resent any additional movement of the ship as a breach of faith on the part of the Company or a lack of seamanship on the part of the captain. We have with us as passengers to Adelaide the members of an Interstate Commission on Shipping Freights—gentlemen who all bear the distinguishing badge of membership of a State Parliament, a gold emblem on the watch-chain entitling them to free transit throughout the Commonwealth. They form a select coterie, holding severely aloof from all meaner folk, sitting together at a table of their own, and not deigning to recognise the genial captain, whose withers are quite unwrung by the neglect. It is impossible to avoid hearing their conversation in the smoking-room, for it is naturally of the aggressive order, one gentleman especially having a voice like a foghorn, with which he endeavours to drown any utterances of his colleagues. Yet—for the reflection will thus intrude itself—these are the men to whom, with their like, the destinies of this mighty continent are entrusted, and, judging by what I have already observed, with no small measure of success. Is it, I wonder, another proof of the dictum that man is better than his creeds, and that whatever irresponsibility may utter, responsibility will curb?

Now one thought dominates others—that I must leave this happy home of mine and launch into the vortex of shore life. Mentally I contrast this feeling with the time when I almost always hated the ship that I was in, and in any case was anxious to get ashore. But inevitably as fate the big ship breasts the mighty south-east swell, accompanied by a graceful cohort of albatrosses and mollymauks, until at daylight on Easter Monday she glides through Investigator Straits into the calm waters of St. Vincent Gulf, and punctually to the appointed minute lets go her anchor in Largs Bay off Port Adelaide.

As far as memory will serve me, there is nothing new in the appearance of the Port from this distance since last I bade farewell to it twenty-six years ago as second mate of yonder fine sailing ship, the Harbinger, now under the Russian flag, which by a most strange coincidence is the first vessel to strike my eye on my return. That argues little, however, for the approach by sea to Adelaide is unimpressive to the last degree, the distant range of blue hills giving no promise of the beauties which lie between their slopes and the sandy levels of the sea-shore. And I cannot help being struck by the fact that here alone, of all the great ports of the Commonwealth, is it necessary for the mail steamer to lie out in a roadstead exposed to any weather which, indeed, might not mean any danger to herself but does often spell much misery and delay to outcoming and ingoing passengers. Not, I hasten to add, because there is no harbour for even such large ships as the Omrah, but because the snug berths up the Port River, as it is called, take up far too much valuable time in reaching and leaving. There should undoubtedly be an outer harbour or breakwater; and one was commenced, but the contractors failed, and it remains in that condition awaiting the time when the authorities can make up their mind to go on with it again. Fortunately the fates are kind to us to-day, the weather being beautifully fine, and we are soon in the tender steaming for the Semaphore Pier, where a scene awaits us (it being Bank Holiday), which reminds us vividly of home. The spacious sands are studded with holiday-makers behaving after the manner of trippers at Margate or Southend, but, methought, a trifle more sedately and of course far fewer in number, while the long pier is thronged with anglers, but to my amazement there are no more signs of any fish being caught than are apparent on the piers of the before-named English watering-places.

But now comes the always unpleasant business of Customs examination—unpleasant, that is, to most people, but fortunately in my own experience invariably modified by the courtesy of the officials in every port which I have yet visited, with one isolated exception, Syracuse, Sicily. Even the much-abused Customs searchers at New York have invariably treated me as if I bore indelible signs about me of inability to attempt fraud upon a confiding Customs officer, and refused to examine my baggage at all. So that I was not at all surprised when, despite what I had been told of the drastic scrutiny to which all personal belongings entering the Commonwealth was subjected, the most cursory glance into my baggage sufficed to enfranchise me. But then I never do smuggle anything, not considering it worth while, any more than it is worth while running the risk of detection involved in riding in a first-class carriage with a third-class ticket, to put the matter on no loftier plane. Then into the train, and away over the perfectly level country for Adelaide the beautiful. The same characteristics of neatness and apparent prosperity prevail here as on the road from Fremantle to Perth; but casting my memory back over the slight gap of twenty-six years, I am compelled to admit that I was unable to see very much development. Within a quarter of a century a dozen large cities of the size of Adelaide have been added to London, villages have grown into huge towns in this effete old land of ours, as it is contemptuously termed in America, but here in one of the fairest and richest countries under the sun the returning wanderer can note but little difference except in the erection of a few fine buildings in isolated spots. And I well remember that two of the finest of them, the Town Hall and Post Office, were in existence when I was here before.

Why is this? Has Australia deliberately chosen the motto, "Festina lente," and if so, is she in doing so wise or unwise? Far be it from me to offer an opinion upon so momentous a matter, or to say that the watchword of "Australia for the Australians" is wrong. Fortunately I am not called upon to pass judgment, but only to record impressions, although I confess my grave doubts as to whether rapid gigantic growth of cities or of nations makes for the best of all things in the best of all possible worlds. However, here we are at the fine, spacious, and splendidly built railway terminus, opposite to which is the hotel to which I am conducted, and with a sense of having most comfortably and auspiciously begun my tour I sink into a cosy chair surrounded by friends, luxuriously content.