The Sea—Colombo—Arabi—Ceylon Tea—Stoppage in the Canal—Tilbury Docks—The Future of Australia—Australia as a Field for Emigration.
Oncemore I am afloat. I bid good-bye to a friend who was six months coming out, and lived on salt beef and pork all the while. In this respect we have changed for the better. But the sea, is it ever to be depended on?
According to the Duc de Joinville, when Saint Louis, King of France, was on his return journey from the Holy Land, whither he had been to fight the Saracen, off Cyprus the ship ran aground, and all were in deadly peril. But the King refused to get into another ship, preferring, he tells us, ‘to entrust to God’s keeping my own life and the lives of my wife and children, rather than ensure so much hurt to such a large number of persons as are onboard.’ Few of us have attained to such saintship, and, as a matter of fact, as regards most of us, our trust in supernatural interposition is that of the old woman of whom Mr. Gough used to tell us who, when asked how she felt when the horse ran away, replied that she trusted in Providence till the reins broke, and then she gave up. Alas, in a stormy sea, in a moment of peril from collision, or in case of a ship foundering, in the mad struggle for life it seems as if, in spite of all science has yet achieved, as if there were no power, human or divine, to ward off that cruel death, which in that hour of agony seems to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm; and day by day, and now more than ever, we hear of tragedies at sea which make the cheek of the landsman, even if he has no loved ones to lament, turn pale, and his heart to sicken. It is true ships carry boats, but they are smashed in launching, or they are launched too late, or they are upset; or if not, they carry no provisions, or are found deficient in oars, and the chances are if help comes in the shape of a friendly ship that has seen the signal from afar, only a few survive to tell the sad tale of cold and wet and hunger and thirst, under the fearful pressure of which their shipmates have succumbed. In the House of Commons, the other day, an M.P. suggested thatan Act of Parliament should be passed compelling every ship to carry as many boats as would accommodate all the crew and passengers—an utter impossibility. Clearly it is not in that direction that we are to look for help. It consoles one to reflect, however, that the commanders and officers of our Australian steamers rarely run their ships into danger, and manage when in it to get out again.
It is in the dark watches of the night that a passenger feels most timid. A lady assured me, the other day, whenever it was rough she lay awake all night expecting the ship to go to the bottom. I endeavoured to give her what comfort I could; but night in the tropics is slightly awful. The sun drops down into the waters in such a glare of angry red. The clouds that come, or rather fly, with the early dawn seem so dark and threatening, and then the ocean has ever a melancholy wail. These almost leave me sometimes absolutely awestruck. It is not in this case true that familiarity breeds contempt.
At length I lay down my pen so far as the great country of Australia is concerned. I have skirted its coast for many a hundred miles. I have tarried in its cities, have seen some of its best men and women, and have gone up into the interior, where population is scarce and life is of the simplest androughest. I came back by the dear oldLiguriafrom Sydney to Melbourne, was carried by theAustralto Adelaide, and then left Adelaide by theIberia, ‘the best ship of the line,’ said an old Australian to me, with a captain, whose name is Shannon, as fond of a good game of chess as myself, and who did much to make me and all his passengers comfortable. TheIberiais not such a grand ship as theOrizaba, and its smoking-room was uncomfortably small, but we managed to enjoy ourselves after we had left Cape Leeuwin, always washed by a stormy sea, and found ourselves once more on the Indian Ocean, calm all the way as a mill-pond, but hot as a furnace in full blast. What a relief it was to see Adam’s Peak, and green Ceylon, and Colombo; to exchange my warm clothing for the white suit of clothing the Cingalese tailor makes up for you while the ship is coaling, and to go on shore and take a ride along the parks and flower-gardens and cocoanut-groves of the gem of the Indian Ocean, as Colombo is fitly called! On my return I was exceptionally fortunate. Mr. John Fergusson, of theColombo Observer, had seen my name in the list of passengers, and, with a kindness for which I cannot be too grateful, had sent a native messenger on board to take me on shore—a brown, slightly-dressed young gentleman, whose brokenEnglish helped at any rate to while away the time, and to make me forget the awful heat. Mr. Fergusson, after a warm reception—all the more agreeable as up to that time I had not even known his name—being an editor and too busy to give me much of his time, handed me over to the care of his pastor, the Rev. Mr. Durbin, a Baptist minister, whose chapel is one of the most attractive places of worship in the town, and whose congregation, I found, was in a very flourishing condition. In company with this gentleman, I inspected the oldest ecclesiastical building at Colombo, the old Dutch church, built much after the fashion that prevails in Holland to this day. Then we did the Law Courts, a pile of white buildings, forming a perfect square, crowded all day long with natives, who are never so happy as when at law with each other. The courts were lofty and airy, and the crowd of half-dressed witnesses and criminals were kept at a respectful distance. The proceedings were somewhat slow, as the evidence had to be translated into English for the benefit of the presiding genius. Native police guarded both the exterior and interior, and in the library I was introduced to several native barristers—very fine, manly-looking men—whose manners and appearance were of the most unexceptionable character.In company with Mrs. Fergusson, I visited the far-famed Arabi Pasha, in his picturesque place of exile—a well-made Egyptian, in the dress of his country, who received us politely, but the conversation we carried on was not of very thrilling character. The gentleman is shy of interviewers. A correspondent one day had called on him, and to his disgust the whole conversation was related in a London newspaper. Consequently, now, Arabi says little, though, perhaps, he thinks the more. One of our party had taken Mr. Caine, when in Colombo, to call, but the English M.P. failed to get much out of the wily Egyptian, though he tried him in every possible way. Nor was Arabi much more communicative to myself. He seemed to me weary of his exile. Indeed, he told me he would prefer London to Colombo. ‘He ought not to dislike the English,’ said a resident in Suez to me. ‘He would have been murdered had he stopped there. He has no friends in Egypt; the Egyptians always kick a man when he is down.’ I returned to theIberiain a catamaran, and with a box of the finest Ceylon tea, kindly given me by Mr. Fergusson, and which, for the benefit of my home readers, I may mention may be procured of Messrs. Swan, Laurence Pountney Lane, London, dealers in Ceylon tea exclusively.
We had the usual fine, hot weather up the Red Sea. I had a disagreeable attack of what is called prickly heat—the only consolation, and it was a real one, being that the weather-wise assured me that if I had not had it, I should have had something worse. We did not call at Aden, nor were we sorry for that, as most of us had got rather tired of the long travel and exhausting heat. Already we had had three deaths on board, and were eager to be safe at home. One morning the captain pointed to our left, and told me that on one of the islands far away in that direction the woman is master, and the man has to take the back-seat. It would have been interesting if we could have gone there and seen how they got on, but mail steamers are bound to keep on their proper course. He who would study the islands and waste places of the Indian Ocean must have a yacht to himself—and there is a good deal to be learned, which can be got at in no other way. In due time we were in the Canal—alas! there to remain all night at anchor, with the lights of old Suez in the distance, which we were afraid to visit, as we might be off at any moment. The Egyptians, with their donkeys on the beach, all night long screamed to us to come on shore and have a ride. At length, theKatie, of West Hartlepool, which had grounded and stopped our passage, wasgot off, and we made our way to Port Said, which did not prove more attractive on a second visit than it did on the first. Of course I went on shore to look at the veiled women and bearded men, to be attacked by the sellers of cigars and rubbish of all kinds, and to get very tired of the place, which, however, must do a good deal of business in the course of the year.
Cooler weather comes to us as we sail through the Straits of Messina, and pass snow-capped Etna afar off. We stop at Naples to set down the mails and take up passengers. We are full to suffocation. My cabin, too small for myself to live in in comfort, has to submit to intrusion: but old gentlemen who have been spending the winter abroad with their wives and families have to be accommodated.
At Gibraltar we stop to take up a few more passengers, and to buy Spanish fans and Moorish trifles. It really does strike one how, as you approach the Rock from the Mediterranean, it resembles a huge lion, with its back on Africa, and its face looking towards Spain. In the Bay of Biscay there is what the meteorologists call a slight depression, which means a little rolling; all that we have had to encounter since we left Cape Leeuwin. The rolling, more or less, accompanies us to Plymouth, where wearrive at night. The knowing ones get out, and proceed to London by train, as they say we shall catch it in the Channel. As usual, the knowing ones are wrong. Who but a fool will talk with certainty about horses, wine, women, or weather? It is fine, beautifully fine, till we get to Deal, when down come the heavens in waterfalls of rain. It rains all night as we lie at anchor there, waiting for the daylight to take us to Tilbury Docks, to be examined by Custom House officers in the huge shed where all the luggage is landed, and the Queen’s taxes paid. This is a place where a passenger need have sharp eyes. I found, after a good deal of trouble, a beautiful fur rug, which happened to be mine, in a place where it had no right to be. It is hard on the passenger, that Custom House shed, and by the time the poor fellow is shot out at Fenchurch Street, where he has to seek his scattered luggage at the hazard of his life, it is not much to be wondered at if he resolves never to take an Australian trip again.
I must own, however, that no such feeling entered into my head. The difficulties which at one time beset the traveller are unknown. He is at home among friends. It is said the last of the Australian Bush Rangers now keeps an hotel in San Francisco, so there is little to fear. My experiences in Australiaremain in my memory, and will long remain, as among the brightest and pleasantest of a life mercifully varied and protracted more than that of many. I have seen a sunny land, rich in all that men hold dear, where our brethren have planted another Britain—minus the State Church, in which few of us believe, and the aristocratic element, which all the world over has had its day. Democracy has grown to be the ruler of the world, and in Australia the experiment, so far as it has been tried, is a success. Material wealth abounds, and statesmen have provided that ignorance shall be banished the new community; while the religious of all denominations have shown how churches are to be built and preachers provided, and Christ’s kingdom advanced better without a State Church than with it. In many parts, especially in Adelaide, I was the recipient of a graceful and lavish hospitality impossible to conceive of at home. There, also, I found a civilization as refined, an energy it may be greater, a hope—as regards this world, at any rate—more secure. If we have to mourn over a Paradise Lost, in Australia we realize a Paradise Regained. Of the Australian, I may emphatically say that his lines are cast in pleasant places, and that he has a goodly heritage. Whether he will long remain a colonist I more than doubt. The colonies, I hold,are prepared for separation; but, when it does come, it will be not from choice, but necessity. So long as no practical difficulties arise, matters will remain as they are.
Is Australia a fitting field for emigration? Will it provide our starving East-enders with good living and good homes? And can the young man of the middle-class find there the opening for his energies denied him here? The last question I am rather inclined to answer in the affirmative—if he has his head on his shoulders—if he does not rate his own services too highly—if he does not refuse the first opportunity that comes in his way. Friends he will find in the colony ready to lend him a helping hand, and in most of the towns there is a branch of the Christian Young Men’s Association, the secretary of which is generally in a position to give him suitable advice. It is a fact that people do well as a rule, and that, thanks to the climate, the tender-chested and delicate have a better prospect of healthy life than in our damp and fog-crowned island. In a land flooded with glorious sunshine, poverty loses some of its bitterness, for in Australia the blue sky and the bright sun are the heritage of all. As to our very poor—whom we gladly ship off—as a rule I question whether they would be much benefited by being shotout into the poor quarters of the great Australian towns and cities. They are too feeble to stand alone. There is no help for them as long as they breed as awfully as they do at the East End. Charity seeks to supply their needs in vain, and as to State interference, the less we have of that the better. The strong, self-reliant, clear-headed working-man—the man who can get on at home—will get on out there; as will also the capitalist who knows how to invest his money. A man who is in a good position at home, however, would be a fool to throw it up for the sake of a chance in the land of the Golden Fleece.
THE END.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
CARLISLE CASTLE.
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These splendid vessels sail regularly to and from Australia, and offer unequalled advantages to passengers travelling for health or pleasure. Each vessel carries a surgeon.
F. GREEN & CO.,13, FENCHURCH AVENUE,LONDON, E.C.
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Picture of steam ship
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[237]In the printed book this advertisement is before the title page.—DP.