Читать книгу An Australian Ramble; Or, A Summer in Australia - J. Ewing Ritchie - Страница 3

Table of Contents

The Orizaba—Reasons for Travelling—The Bishop—Soda and Whisky—The Spanish Coast—Heroic Memories—Gibraltar—Wickedness of Naples—Port Said.

I send this from the Orizaba, one of the finest, if not the finest, of the fine steamers of the Orient Line that keep open the communication between this country and Australia; and this is how it came to pass. One day last summer I was standing on the deck of a steamer, when a gentleman remarked to me, ‘I come from a country where they have had no rain for nine months.’ ‘Where is that?’ said I. ‘Australia,’ was the reply; and immediately I made up my mind to go there. As is the custom of most of us, I talked the matter over with my friends, some of them in the first rank of the medical world. ‘You can’t do better,’ was the unanimous reply; ‘you will come back ten years younger,’ said they all. Well, surely it is worth taking a little trouble and incurring a little expense, for a man—not to put too fine a point on it—presenting daily a more venerable appearance, to put back the clock, as it were, and to regain somewhat of his manly prime. ‘What can I do for you?’ said the family doctor to the mother of the Rothschilds, when he was summoned to her side; ‘I cannot make you grow young again.’ ‘No,’ was her ladyship’s reply; ‘I know you can’t, doctor; but I wish to continue to grow old.’ And here, just by taking a trip to Australia, and escaping the hardships of an English winter and spring, actually I shall achieve what the mother of the Rothschilds did not dare to hope for. Surely the attempt is worth an effort, especially when, owing to the kindness of a certain firm of publishers who shall be nameless, the question of expense was satisfactorily solved.

In these days of school-boards and universal travel a good deal has yet to be learned of our colonies. When I was younger, people in this country were in the most ludicrous state of ignorance as respects the size, area, wealth and value of what it is now the fashion to term the fifth quarter of the globe. At that time, say about 1830, there were not much more than 70,000 in all the land. Then Sydney Smith was writing of it as a region ‘in which Nature has been so capricious, that she makes cherries with the stones on the outside, and a monstrous animal, as tall as a grenadier, with the head of a rabbit and a tail as big as a bedpost, hopping along at the rate of five hops to a mile.’ Listen to Charles Lamb, as he writes, in his ‘Essays of Elia,’ to a friend in New South Wales: ‘What must you be willing by this time to give for the sight of an honest man? You must have forgotten how we look. Do you grow your own hemp? What is your staple trade—exclusive of the national profession, I mean? Your locksmiths, I take it, are some of your great capitalists.’ It was at that time the popular belief was embodied by Tom Hood as follows in ‘A Letter from a Settler for Life in Van Diemen’s Land,’ wherein Susan Gale writes to her old friend and fellow-servant in Mount Street, Grosvenor Square: ‘As soon as ever the Botes rode to Land I don’t aggrivate the Truth to say their was half duzzen Bows apiece to Hand us out to shoar; and sum go so far as to say they was offered to through Speeking Trumpits afore they left the Ship-side.’ There is still a legend of a Missionary Society at home sending out a representative to Australia, and so carefully planning his route that he was to preach at Adelaide on the Sunday morning, and at Melbourne, some hundreds of miles away, in the afternoon, and that was before they had a railway. There are many who still think that a colony is a place where men are fortunate, as a late colonial governor remarked, if they enjoy three meals a day and a place to sleep in, where the inhabitants sit down to dinner in their shirt-sleeves, and think it a hardship if they take off their boots when they go to bed. But the greatest fallacy of all is the supposition that in a colony anyone can get a living, no matter how incompetent he may have proved himself at home. We laugh, but are we much wiser now? In Fleet Street last week, as I bade good-bye to a friend, he said to me, ‘I have a boy who will be coming home just as you land. I sent him out with the best introductions. He has been six months in Melbourne and Sydney and elsewhere, and can find nothing to do, and now I have to get him home again.’ It will be something if, in the course of my letters, and as the result of my inquiries, I shall be able to save fathers and mothers at home the trouble and expense and pain of such fruitless ventures, and it will be better still if I can help men and women at home to understand and realize what is being done by our fellow-subjects on the Australian Continent to plant that great land with Anglo-Saxon civilization and freedom and religion—if I can duly describe its cities and their people, their wealth and intelligence, their general activity and enterprise, their inner and public life. According to all accounts a good deal is yet to be told. Even Mr. Froude has omitted much that would interest the reader, and Dr. Dale has left something for the individual who may chance to follow in his steps. The fact is, the subject is too big for any one man.

I have said I send this from the Orizaba, one of the finest, if not the finest steamer of the Orient Line. Then there are the P. and O., who do not carry third-class passengers, and French and German steamers in abundance, to say nothing of other firms, who are always sending out steamers and sailing-vessels as well. As regards the latter, the firm of Devitt and Moore, of Fenchurch Street, deserve special mention, as they are the oldest people in the trade. Tourists who have the time to spare say there is nothing like a sailing-vessel for an Australian trip, and of the ships that sail in that direction, from all I hear, there are none that can equal the Sobraon (Captain Elmslie), and the Macquarie, in the Sydney trade (Captain Goddard, late of the Paramatta). All the fleet of this firm, however, bear a high character, and passengers, whether as regards accommodation or the commissariat, have no occasion to complain. The special objects of the managers of the Orient Company are to increase the facilities for the interchange of communication, and to promote the speed, safety, and, it may be added, pleasure of the passage. They are under contract with the Governments of New South Wales and South Australia to convey the mails fortnightly between England and Australia by way of Suez, and also run occasional steamers by the Cape of Good Hope. Since the Line was opened in 1877, upwards of 150,000 passengers have been carried to and fro, with all but total immunity from accident to life or limb. It cannot be doubted that the facilities thus afforded have added alike to the welfare and happiness of both the old world and the new. At home we are supplied with Australian produce, and Australia is a good customer in the English market. The service is performed by some eleven first-class steamers, varying from 3,000 to 7,000 tons. An old stager gave me the hint to choose one of the smaller vessels, on the plea that I should have better attendance on board. However, I prefer to follow the crowd, and have secured my berth on board the Orizaba, named after one of the highest mountains, somewhere, they tell me, in South America. Already she has carried the largest number of passengers ever taken by one vessel to Australia. She was built and engined by the Barrow Shipbuilding Company, the builders of the far-famed City of Rome. In the saloon there are chairs for 130 first-class passengers. The ship’s company numbers 200. There are second-class and third-class passengers on board. Apparently there is little danger of starvation, as the provision-chambers of the ship are sufficient to supply fresh provisions for 1,000 persons from England to Australia. The promenade deck is grand; and as to the saloons and drawing-rooms, they are fitted up in palatial style, and the electric light by night makes the interior look like fairyland. I ought to be happy with all the provision made for comfort on board. But who can say what may happen when I am in the Bay of Biscay, or even after I have set foot on terra firma? Strange things are constantly occurring. The other day I heard of a good man in Essex, in one of its small towns, who, as duty required, went to his favourite chapel on the Sunday morning; on his return to his Sunday dinner he was rather astonished to find that in his temporary absence his wife and daughters had packed up and started to join the Mormons on the other side of the Atlantic. It is to be hoped that no such calamity may happen to me. As to myself, there is little danger of my doing anything rash, for ‘he that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune,’ as the great Lord Bacon told the world long ago.

It was not till Sunday morning that we left Plymouth, instead of Saturday. The fact was we had a tremendous addition in the shape of passengers and luggage to take on board, as all the people from the North come viâ Plymouth, besides the London passengers who are glad to escape the dangers of the Channel. On Sunday morning we had a short service in what is termed the drawing-room. The bishop, of course, was a colonial (you never go to sea without meeting one), and wore his official robes, though his reading-desk was but a small table, which was covered by the British flag. The bishop followed up the prayers with a five minutes’ address, in which he said that a ship was like the world. In the world we were exposed to temptation, and so it was on board a ship. We were exposed to temptations from our fellow-passengers—an unkind reflection on some of us, I thought. Asking the purser what, from his wide experience of life on a ship, the peculiar form of temptation to which we were exposed was, his reply was ‘whisky and soda’—a form of temptation of which, apparently, the bishop had nothing to say. The bishop does not interest me greatly, though he has kindly volunteered to read prayers every morning. The air of the bishop’s lady is slightly subdued, as if the weight of her dignity were too much; she reads Church papers, whilst he evidently enjoys his novel.

But let me leave the bishop alone, and turn to things of a more worldly character. Poor Edgar Poe writes: ‘There are four conditions of happiness in life, and one of them is life in the open air.’ In this respect we are especially fortunate. We are no sooner out of the Devonshire mists than we are in the Bay of Biscay, calm as an infant on its mother’s breast. We live in the open air. Passed Cape Finisterre after dark on Monday night, and steamed pleasantly down the Spanish coast, having an especially fine view of Cintra and the mouth of the Tagus. All along the coast were dotted, amongst the foliage, white villages, and towns, and villas, all basking in the summer sun. Heroic memories come to us as we pass over the seas where the Captain was lost, in consequence, it is to be feared, of defective seamanship, with her crew of picked men and some of our finest lads of noble birth. All along that coast, when Old England was fighting for pre-eminence and power, and on those far-away hills has the noise of battle rolled, and not in vain, for the struggle that ended with Waterloo placed England in the first rank among the nations of the earth. From Tilbury’s ancient fort to Gibraltar we are reminded how England, with her wooden walls and hardy sons, proudly swept the seas, and was a terror to the despots and a deliverer of the slave. Plymouth especially calls up a host of glorious names, as we think of Drake, and Hawkins, and Frobisher, and the Pilgrim Fathers. It was from Plymouth that Cook and Vancouver sailed, to give us New South Wales in the East and British Columbia in the West. As soon as we cross the Bay of Biscay we think of Corunna and Sir John Moore. Afar off are the heights of Torres Vedras, celebrated in the Peninsular War. Cape St. Vincent, a bluff 260 feet high, having a convent, on which is the lighthouse, reminds us of the brilliant victory won by Sir John Jervis, with Nelson and Collingwood fighting under his flag; and in a little while we are at Trafalgar, to which sailors still look as the greatest sea fight in the history of our land, and as the one which saved our national existence. And we step on shore at Gibraltar, which rises out of the water, with its endless rows of barracks and its few scattered villas, and make our way to the lightning-struck tower known as O’Hara’s Folly—the O’Hara who was the friend of Johnson, and who ought to have married either Fanny Burney or Hannah More.

But it is idle to call up what to most of modern readers must be bare names, so soon, in this age of reading and writing and universal progress, do we forget the past. History in these mechanical days is getting as much out of fashion as theology. Let me write of living people; of men and women, poor creatures as they are at the best, to be brushed away as gossamer. There are just upon a thousand of us in the shape of passengers on board the Orizaba, and almost all are happy. The dark figure in the shape of Black Care we have left behind, as we have slipped out of English fog and cold into the region of cloudless nights and starry skies. We smoke, or read, or talk, or walk the deck, in a climate brighter even than that of an English summer in the leafy month of June. The ladies crochet or knit all day long in their lounging-chairs on deck, while the little ones play as if they had no fear or thought of the sea and its everlasting hunger for precious human life, and its cruel storms. What we should do with this unmanageable mass if anything were to go wrong no tongue can tell. All we can do is to hope for the best, for no Parliament will ever go so far as to order that no ship should leave an English port without its sufficient complement of boats; and if they did, no shipowner could carry on a profitable passenger trade. It ought not to be so, I know. What can one do? We are bound to travel, and we take the risk, whatever that may be, and trust to our sailors and captains, who are not half paid for the work they have to do. As it is, there is no life so pleasant as that of life on board one of our great passenger steamships. The Orizaba never rolls—well, only a little. The saloons are beautiful, the living is first-rate, the waiting is excellent, and the sleeping-berths are all that can be desired. By night, with the electric light all along the deck, the scene reminds you of the Arabian Nights, and mirth and music are everywhere; I pity the poor people who have to spend their winter at home. It is now a real pleasure to live. The only thing one misses are the newspapers and the old familiar faces. Well, I am not sorry to be out of the way of the papers; they only make me sick and sore as one reads the daily chronicle of poverty with which no one can grapple, and of crime which it seems impossible to repress, and the twaddle which envelops all. And as to the familiar faces, the further one travels the more one realizes all their loveliness and charm. For once the poet is right; absence does make the heart grow fonder.

‘How do you like our little town?’ said an Englishman to me as I was about to leave Gibraltar for our good ship, the Orizaba. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘for a place to spend an hour in I like it amazingly.’ ‘Oh, that’s about it!’ was his reply. It seems to me, however, as I plough my way on the blue waters of the Mediterranean—not bluer, however, at present than what we have on the English coast—that a couple of days may be agreeably spent at the far-famed rock, of which, however, you get a very fair idea without stepping on shore. As your eye rests on the harbour you see it full of steamers, which seem to come and go at all hours. As I write a French steamer slowly glides by with the yellow flag denoting sickness of some kind on board. Before us is the town, on our left the old Moorish fort—the oldest building in the place—and on our right the hospital, with houses reaching almost to the end. All the space between is filled with yellow or white houses, save where a thick grove indicates the existence of the Alameda, a public garden, where the band plays, where the townsfolk promenade, and which, with its cactuses and geraniums in full bloom, looks bright and gay even in December. The company have so arranged that you can step into a boat and get rowed to shore and back for a shilling each way—an example which I recommend to the corporation of Gravesend.

I land, and declining a carriage drawn by mules amid the loud vociferations of the Spanish owners, turn to my left, and find myself in the main street, the only ugly building in which is the red-brick mansion in which the British Governor resides. All the houses are shops—full of the little trifles of Morocco manufacture, such as pipes and jewellery and gay mats and carpets, with which we are familiar at home. There are 20,000 Spanish residents, and the place swarms with them. There are some 5,000 British soldiers here, and they are en evidence, as was to be expected. They have five years to stop here at a time, and they evidently think that—as indeed it is—too long. One of the first things to interest you is the little graveyard on your right, in which the heroes of the siege were buried—shaded by trees, especially by a fig-tree of gigantic size and very old, as you can tell by the smallness of the leaf. A building which attracts your eye just before you enter the busy street is that of the Soldiers and Sailors’ Institute, which is erected on a freehold site, and comprises on the ground floor a coffee and refreshment-bar, dining-room, bath-room, and lavatories; on the first floor a reading, writing, and recreation-room, with a small library; and above is a large hall for mission services, public meetings, Bible classes, and mothers’ meetings. The soldiers and sailors, I fear, do not appreciate the advantages as they might, though Mr. Holmes, the superintendent, tells me at times the hall is more than filled. It is in the streets—or rather in the people that crowd them—the chief charm of Gibraltar lies.

The life of the place is al fresco; everyone seems out of doors. Carts drawn by mules or donkeys, with country produce, bright little carriages to hold two or four persons as the case may be, the English officer on horseback—all these block up the middle of the street; whilst on the narrow sideway you wind your difficult way amongst monks and nuns and dark-eyed Spanish women with the national head-dress, and Moors who shuffle along bare-legged, with slippers to their feet, their whole person enveloped in their ample, hooded brown or blue cloak, while some wear the picturesque turban, and others simply rejoice in the well-known fez. As I contemplate the motley group a black-eyed and black-bearded, aristocratic-looking Moor makes a dart at me with a couple of fowls; but, as I decline to purchase, he manages to ask me for a penny—and, let me add, in vain, for I could not think of insulting such a gentleman by offering him so ridiculously small a sum. But I see no beggars, and if the common people look dirty, at any rate they appear to be well fed. I fancy a good deal of British gold, somehow or other, finds its way into their pockets. There are no ragged scoundrels to be seen, such as infest our London streets and are the terror of suburban residents. As you pass, the shopkeeper stands at his door and bids you look at his miscellaneous wares.

Of British manufactures I see little, except the biscuits of Huntley and Palmer or Peek and Frean. I see no shops with books except the depôt of the British and Foreign Bible Society—but the people manage to live, nevertheless. Meat is but sixpence a pound. You buy beautiful oranges at a shilling a hundred. The only dear thing in the place is house-rent. Not a room is to be had under five shillings a week. Some of my fellow-passengers dined at the leading hotel, and they think, and I agree with them, that the charge was rather high. Only goats’ milk is to be had, but as to cheap wine and low-priced spirits, they are to be procured in abundance, as two of our steerage passengers find out to their cost, as we leave them behind, and some who do manage to return may be termed rather fresh. The one great drawback of Gibraltar, as regards the resident, is the absence of fresh butter. Alas! ‘man never is, but always to be blest.’ Of what avail are cheap cigars and wine and meat without fresh butter? Many have their bread buttered on both sides, and surely the humblest of us have a right to its being buttered on one, at any rate. But I may not linger, as I know the Orizaba will sail at the appointed hour; but we seem long in getting out of the crowd of boats, full of oranges and cigars, the proprietors of which are doing a roaring trade with the steerage passengers, who let down the money from the deck and receive in exchange oranges that will set them up for the rest of their journey, and away we go, leaving the Rock, at the bottom of which nestle the yellow rows of streets and houses, all with green or white lattices, whilst on its lofty head rests a drizzly cloud worthy of Devonshire itself. On the other side of us are the brown African mountains—we steer between them as the day closes in, and early in the morning I open my eyes to see afar on our left, the rocky outline of Spain, and then we lose sight of land, and can see nothing but the Mediterranean till early on Saturday morning we pass the first lighthouse on the coast of Sardinia. We are now coming to ancient history, but for that I refer the reader to Rollin, the terror of British youth in an age of which the present reader, intelligent though he may be in his way, has but a faint idea.

People who believe in Italian skies and summer seas ought not to trust themselves in the Mediterranean in December. We had what the captain calls ‘a very heavy gale of wind,’ after we left the ‘Rock,’ which lasted till we were almost in the Bay of Naples—a gale that sent all the ladies to bed, and damped the spirits of everyone on board. I had the full benefit of all the discomfort, as, instead of choosing a berth for myself, I left it to the officials, believing that in fine weather any berth is pleasant, and in bad weather all are equally disagreeable. But at any rate I should not have chosen the one allotted me, the very last of the berths forward (you are aware that in the boats going through the Red Sea the best berths are all forward, on account of the heat), but in my case, unfortunately, every wave that fell on the deck all night long came with a heavy thump overhead, which did not exactly secure me a good night’s rest. However, all was forgotten as we steamed on Sunday morning past rocky Ischia into the famous Bay of Naples, which is far fairer than that of Swansea—in spite of all that gallant little Wales may say to the contrary. As I write the view is simply charming. All Naples is before me. On my left rises the lofty hill on which stands the Castle of St. Elmo. On my right are two high mountains—one of them, by the cloud of smoke hanging over it, and the flame of fire issuing from it, renders it quite unnecessary that I should ask anyone its name. You can tell Vesuvius at a glance. All the low land gradually rising away from the sea between them forms the site of delightful but dirty Naples.

I land as soon as the necessary formalities have been gone through—for they are very particular at Naples, and our purser and medical officer have first to go ashore in order to satisfy the authorities, a work sometimes extending over two hours. Fortunately, however, in a little while they are back, and we crowd on board the company’s tender, which for half-a-crown conveys the passengers on shore and returns them safe and sound as late as eleven or twelve o’clock at night. Boats of all kinds are around us. One contains a bold swimmer, who performs all sorts of wonderful exploits; others are laden with straw hats and baskets, and vendors of oranges and cheap jewellery and pipes, lava match-boxes, and amber mouthpieces. As I board the tender a pretty, smiling Italian flower-dealer puts a small camellia in my coat, which, however, I am ungallant enough to return. I fear she is like the flower-girls of Paris of whom Tom Moore writes, that they spoil a romance with pecuniary views. In a few minutes I am on shore amid a crowd of dirty black-haired and black-eyed Italians, who offer me carriages and guides with an intensity of verbosity (recalling that of a certain Grand Old Man) sufficient to appal the stoutest heart.

I am rather disappointed at first. Cook’s agents were to come on board, and one of them did put in an appearance, but that was all, which was a pity, as many of us were trusting to Cook as a tower of strength. In one respect I was especially disappointed. Cook was to take us all to Pompeii, give us lunch there, and bring us back for 12s.; but, alas! the King’s uncle had died, and Pompeii was shut up, and so was the Museum. What a misfortune it is that royal personages should trouble us so much! While alive, of course we must do all we can for them; but surely, when dead, when they have fairly passed to where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest, it is hard that they annoy us still. Many of us may never again have a chance of seeing Pompeii. But I steer clear of the guides and start off for a three hours’ prowl. What strikes the stranger is the loftiness of the houses, the narrowness of the streets, and the number of people. Locomotion in some is almost impossible, so dense is the crowd; while it is the same in others in consequence of the number of equipages, chiefly open carriages drawn by black horses quite overdone with heavily-plated harness. To add to the difficulties there has been a slight shower of rain, and as the scavenger seems to be unknown, the streets are very slippery; I saw one little child run over in consequence. Another difficulty of the pedestrian is the number of stalls on each side, for the sale, apparently, of everything that can be brought into the street to tempt the purchaser.

Judging by the number of bookstalls, the Neapolitans must be very great readers, for I never saw so many anywhere else. In many of the streets that run between the leading thoroughfares, the passage is so narrow that it would be almost easy to shake hands across. All the lofty houses are yellow, with green latticed windows and balconies. In many of the churches into which I peeped Mass was in progress, and the attendance was large of men as well as women. In some of the streets the shops were handsome, though quite small, while in the great arches between were caves, as it were, where carriages and horses waited, apparently for hire, while in others the cave had been fitted up as a café. The further one got from the harbour, the finer were the shops and streets. In one I saw a statue of Petrarch, and in another of Dante. The place is like a rabbit warren, and just as populous. Priests and policemen were everywhere. Here and there was a religious painting on the side of a house, before which tapers were burning, and in one street I observed a crucifix, to which the passers-by took off their hats. I went into a café and watched some play at a billiard-table, much smaller and with much bigger balls than those in use among us. Omnibuses and tramcars abounded. Perpetual motion seemed to be the order of the day. Some of my friends patronized the English hotels, where the charges seemed to me dear. One thing, and one thing only, amused me; I stumbled on a kind of eating-house; on the outside was inscribed, Déjeuner à la fourchette, which was Englished underneath as follows: ‘Breakfast to the fork.’ I did not enter. I feared, as the English was so bad, that the cooking might be worse. Altogether, my impression is that Naples looks best at a distance and by moonlight, when a halo of soft light is thrown over bay and street and mountain far away, and the hoarse cry of its thousand street-sellers and cabmen and guides is unheard; when even the distant tinkling of the bells of its many churches no longer reaches the ear; when between you and the crowded city is a world of water calm and still.

At Naples we took up more passengers and more mountains of luggage. Our captain is in despair. That luggage question is the terror of his life. He says that there would be no need of it if the company would but establish a laundry on board; and why should they not? It would be a great convenience to everyone, and save a vast amount of trouble. The cabins are choked up with packages. It would be as pleasant again for the passengers if they could have their clothes washed on board.

I fear I did injustice to a dead royalty. I find, after all, it was simply the fault of the company’s agent at Naples that most of us spent an idle day in that far-famed city. The distinguished representative of the distinguished Cook informed us that the Museum and Pompeii were closed that day, because the agent of the company with whom he came on board informed him such was the case. I find that they were not, and that a small party of our fellow-travellers visited both places; had lunch on shore, returned to the ship to dinner, and paid a visit to the theatre in the evening for a sum under £1 per head. As you may suppose, most of us were highly indignant at the conduct of the company’s agent, and described him in terms that, with the fear of the libel law in view, it may be dangerous for me to report. I mention the fact that travellers may not be deceived by what they hear on board, but go on shore and act for themselves. Many of my fellow-travellers are Scotch. The Scotch, Mr. Charles Reade tells us, are icebergs with volcanoes underneath, and we had quite a volcano on board as we summed up the experiences of the unfortunate day. I own it served me right, for, as a rule, I only believe half that I hear. I ought to have started for Pompeii—by myself, trusting to luck to get into the place. I am glad, however, to be able to do justice to Cook and Sons, the friends of the traveller in every part of the world. It is seldom that they make a blunder, or their agents either.

In another respect I am not disappointed. ‘The grand object of travelling,’ wrote Dr. Johnson, ‘is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great empires of the world—the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. All our religion—almost all our laws—almost all our arts—almost all that sets us above savages has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean.’ To sail down the Mediterranean, past Capri—a sunburnt rock—past Stromboli, through the Straits of Messina, over the far-famed Scylla and Charybdis of the ancients, past Etna, though unfortunately hidden from our vulgar gaze by the clouds of night, is undoubtedly an immense treat. But the rest of the journey is rather monotonous, though we were favoured by fine weather, a fortunate circumstance, as this part of the Mediterranean is particularly liable to sudden storms; and if it were not for sea-quoits, and the still more popular game of dumps, which consists in throwing small flat balls with lead inside on to a white-painted square board, on which numerals from one to ten are inscribed, it would be rather hard work to get through the weary hours. At Naples an agent came on board with the London morning papers four days old, which sold readily at half a franc each, and the perusal of them has helped to kill an idle time, and, besides, afforded topics for general conversation. For pedestrian exercise the Orizaba is admirably adapted, as eleven times round the promenade deck is supposed to be a mile, and at certain hours every one is supposed to be doing his or her ‘constitutional;’ thus, what used to be considered one of the bad effects of life at sea, its confinement, is entirely got rid of. Captain Conlan, our commander-in-chief, when off duty, has a friendly word for us all; but I must say, if tobacco be a slow poison, some of us are in a bad way, for I think without exception all the male passengers smoke; and at Gibraltar, where tobacco and cigars are cheap, most of them replenished their exhausted stores.

The principal event after leaving the Straits of Messina is the appearance of Crete, by the side of which, with her snowy-capped mountains, we steamed for about five hours. From her rocky foreground, resting on the blue waves, rise three mountain ridges, the chief of which ‘is many-founted Ida,’ towering 8,000 feet above the sea. As a caution to travellers, let me assure them how much one of Smith’s dictionaries would be appreciated. Smith, it may be, is correct, but he is pedantic. Lemprière would, perhaps, be better; in the home of legendary lore it is not wise to be over-critical. The Orient Company publishes a guide-book, but it is of little practical use, though it contains an immense amount of information, some excellent maps, and is a marvel of cheapness. You rarely get in such books what you really want to know. We have a professor on board, but professors nowadays are somewhat common. Men who shave and cut corns—men who examine your head, who risk their necks in parachutes, who excel in gymnastics, are called, or call themselves, professors; and I, perhaps because I know no better—probably it is so—may be a little sceptical as to the class. I always think of Barry Cornwall’s lines in which he speaks of

Professors of hall and college,

With a great deal of learning and little knowledge.

And, alas! I have known many such. It amuses me more to talk to some of the third-class passengers. ‘Ah, sir,’ said one of them to me, as we steamed out of Naples Bay—‘ah, sir, that is a very wicked city; it allus reminds me of Nineveh.’ I was compelled to admit that I did not know much of the wickedness of either; but that I did happen to know that, excluding Jack the Ripper, there were not a few wicked people left in London. I always like to look at home before I begin censuring other people. There is a good deal of truth in the remark of the old Californian, when Sir Charles Dilke told him ‘Californians in the Empire City were called the scum of the earth.’ ‘Them New Yorkers,’ was the old man’s reply, ‘is a sight too fond of looking after other people’s morals.’

Just as we are nearing the lowlands of Africa, and Port Said—a wretched place, where we stop a few hours to coal—is in sight, a death occurs on board; a tiny babe, weary of the world of which it knows so little, refuses to live any longer. In the drawing-room few of us know of the event, and the gaiety goes on much as usual. I rush on to the deck, and see a dark cloud of passengers at one end, and there is the Bishop standing at a red kind of box or reading-desk, repeating that grand burial service which is nowhere more impressive than when heard in the ocean’s solitude, with nothing but the wide, wide sea below, and the clear, moonlight sky above. The parents are, of course, there to mourn, and the bearing of the little crowd is sympathetic. The poor little corpse, covered by the British flag, is placed on an inclined board, which is tipped over when the sentence ‘we commit this body to the deep’ is reached, and the sea receives its dead. I had only asked the doctor that morning what was the state of health on board the ship, and his reply was that it was as well as could be. Perhaps steerage passengers don’t count, especially when babies. At any rate, the funeral is over, and we are taking our evening tea as if nothing of consequence had occurred—as if no tender mother’s heart had been torn with anguish as she saw her babe fall a victim to the Reaper whose name is Death. Not for a moment did the ship slacken her career, and we press on to Port Said with all our might.