Part 13

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11.—I celebrated my arrival in Adelaide with a slight illness, and the hotel people took quite an interest in me. The manager sent his regards, and wanted to know how I was, and when I went to the bath-room I usually met the maid, who spoke to me by name, and hoped I was better. Hotel servants here always know the names of guests. Adelaide took very good care of me, assisted by the maid on our floor. I told them that if they looked after me as faithfully as Mr. Adams looked after his wife on the “Sonoma,” I should feel satisfied. Mr. Adams was an honor to his sex; his wife was ill from the time she left Honolulu until her arrival in Sydney, and during all that time Mr. Adams was a marvel of devotion; even the women said he should really take a little rest. But he would never leave his wife’s side except when the women went down to sit with her; and even then, he walked about the decks in an obscure place, and didn’t seem to be longing for pleasure or company. And Mr. Adams was no amateur husband; he told me he had been married before. There was something about Mr. Adams which convinced me that, had opportunity presented, he could have played a stiff game of cards in the smoking-room, and bluffed his competitors to a standstill, but with a sick wife on his hands he was gentleness itself. He didn’t propose to be talked about by the women on board, and I think he was the hero of that particular voyage of the “Sonoma.”... This has been as hot a day as I have ever experienced anywhere, and the tea-drinking has been enormous. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon we were attracted by a sign reading, “Strawberries and cream,” and the place was crowded with women shoppers drinking tea. No one was buying ice-cream, or the “American soda-water” advertised, but all were drinking tea; every woman was served with a pot, and usually she drank two cups. This is the universal rule here; tea in the afternoon. When we went back to the hotel, the girl clerk was taking her afternoon tea, which had been brought to her from the kitchen. By-the-way, business is picking up at the Grand Central; thirty-one came in to luncheon today. The hotel could easily accommodate three hundred. All the other hotels we have visited have been crowded. Before I leave Adelaide I must ask some one what the trouble is with the Grand Central. Perhaps one trouble is, it has rooms with baths, and other up-to-date improvements.... The best exhibit at the Adelaide zoölogical garden is the roses; I doubt if the famous rose show at Portland, Oregon, can show a greater variety or finer flowers. It seems to me that one-half of the area of Adelaide is taken up with parks, zoölogical gardens, botanical gardens, hospitals, museums, playgrounds, and other public utilities, and in the mountains not far away is a national park of thousands of acres. The people here do not neglect exercise or amusement. You see almost as many people in the parks on Monday as on Sunday.... Another peculiarity here is that in all small orchestras the flute is used instead of the clarinet. I have not heard a clarinet in Australasia, whereas every orchestra in the United States has one. Music is about the same everywhere; we hear the same music here that we might hear at home, in London, Japan, India, or elsewhere. One evening, at dinner, the orchestra played “Every Little Movement Has a Meaning of Its Own,” which is heard everywhere in America, and we coaxed the leader to play it again, for the luxury of being homesick. All the hotel orchestras seem to be paid by the guests; anyway, we always put something in a plate we find in front of the leader.... We find few American publications in Australia. The _Ladies’ Home Journal_ we see in nearly all bookstores, and somewhere we found a real-estate agent displaying the _Journal’s_ pictures of houses properly and improperly painted. The _Saturday Evening Post_ is seen less frequently, and the _American Magazine_ and _Cosmopolitan_ occasionally. A lady in New Zealand told me she read the _Ladies’ Home Journal_ regularly, and greatly admired it, and that it is well known among the women of her country. We see few American books at the bookstores; the bulk of them are published in England.... We are becoming tolerably tired of the kangaroo. Every city has a zoölogical garden, and a big collection of kangaroos. Also, a big collection of an animal called the Wallaby, which is so near like the kangaroo that a tired, hurried and indifferent traveler does not distinguish one from the other. Then there is the kangaroo rat, and the kangaroo idea is carried out in two or three other ways.... We Americans shouldn’t laugh too heartily because Australia was originally a penal colony. In the days prior to 1776, England, instead of keeping evil-doers in prison at home, sent them to work on the farms or plantations in America. After the Revolution, when convicts could no longer be sent to America, they were sent to Australia. In 1787, ten ships were sent to Australia. The ships contained a thousand persons, eight hundred of them convicts, both men and women, and the remainder were soldiers and marines to guard them. The fleet landed at the present site of Sydney, and thus that fine city of more than half a million people was founded.... The boomerang, of which we hear much, is a native Australian weapon made of hard wood. It is made in peculiar shape, and the black fellows (according to the story) throw it in such a wonderful way that it hits the object it is aimed at, and returns to the hand of the thrower. I doubt the story; such a feat as that described is impossible. We have seen no native blacks here, and they are scarce in the interior.... The years 1839 and 1840 were years of terrible drouth in Australia, and cattle and sheep were killed for their hides and tallow. Ten years later came a drouth still more terrible. Then in February came a day which is remembered as Black Thursday. The wind had been blowing a hot gale for days, and somehow a fire started. This swept over the parched earth with relentless fury, and the country was almost burned up; forest trees, farm-houses, wild animals, cattle and sheep, and many men, women and children, were consumed. When rain finally came, it came in such torrents that nearly everything left by the fire was swept away by floods. Australia has always had a battle with drouth and hot winds, but has steadily prospered in spite of these drawbacks. Its people are learning what to do, and what not to do, and great tracts of land formerly worthless are now productive. This is true everywhere; it is true in our own western states and territories. In the United States the rain belt is not extending westward, but the intelligence belt is.... The shop windows of a strange city are an interesting exhibit to a traveler; they are a complete history of the industrial habits of the inhabitants. The most interesting window I have seen in Adelaide contains photographs of amateur Lady Bathers. A clever genius who runs a bathing-house at the beach offered prizes of twenty guineas to the Lady Bathers receiving the greatest number of votes for perfection of figure. A great many young women who had a secret notion that they had Great Shapes, entered the contest, and an enterprising photographer is displaying pictures of the leading contestants. All the contestants must have visited the gallery and posed for pictures in bathing costumes. All of them pose in imitation of some classic figure, and the result is very amusing, for an amateur showing her figure is quite as amusing as an amateur appearing in a concert or in a dramatic performance. Some of the figures are so bad that you wonder their owners ever thought they were good, and all the poses are so awkward that the display is extremely amusing. You have no doubt been familiar with contests where young ladies ran for prizes as the most beautiful woman, or the most popular woman, in town, and wondered that the contestants considered themselves either beautiful or popular, but women running a race for perfection of figure, and submitting their charms to the public, is a still more amazing performance.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12.—An unusual thing in Australian towns is that seed stores sell a great variety of flowering plants; instead of buying sweet pea seeds here, you buy sweet pea plants five of six inches high. At one store in Adelaide, I saw a dozen different varieties of plants put up in small bunches, and offered at reasonable prices.... Australia and New Zealand are very Progressive, when active and powerful labor unions are concerned, but not a great deal is done for the quiet and patient farmers; there are no rural mail routes in either country.... There are more banks, trust companies, loan companies, etc., in Australian cities, it seems to me, than elsewhere. In some sections of the large towns I see almost nothing but financial institutions for blocks.... The people here not only know I am from the United States, but they know what section I am from. “You are not a New-Yorker?” a gentleman said to me this morning. I told him I was from Kansas. “My guess was Denver,” he said. He came within five hundred miles of locating me.... At all the hotels, we have noticed that the maids have false teeth. There is something in the water that is injurious to teeth; you see advertisements in the papers offering a remedy. In Australia, probably you see three times as many women with full sets of false teeth as you see elsewhere. And dentists here are like dentists everywhere, in that their false teeth can always be promptly detected.... The duck-bill, interesting because it is an egg-laying mammal, is found in Australia. It is supposed that at one time all mammals were egg-laying; later, these early mammals were replaced by more highly organized descendants. The duck-bill has a bill like a duck, fur like a mole, webbed feet, and is about as large as a terrier dog. It burrows in the bank, as a muskrat does, and thousands of learned men have journeyed to Australia to see it, as an interesting and rare link in the chain of life. An ant-eater having a bear-like snout, and also an egg-laying mammal, is found in Australia. Egg-laying mammals are found nowhere else in the world.... I have heard it said that the women of Australia are a year or two behind New York or London in the fashions. I do not know as to that, but it is certainly true that the shop girls in Adelaide are just adopting the big bunches of hair with which American shop girls disfigured their heads a good many months ago.... At 4 o’clock this afternoon we walked to the railroad station, and took a train for the Outer Harbor, to go on board the “Anchises.” The distance is fourteen miles, and the train made so many stops that we did not get our first sight of the ship until an hour later. It was lying not a hundred yards from the station where we left the train, and we went aboard at once. The Outer Harbor is a lonely place; nothing there except a railroad station and a loading-dock. Most of the passengers had joined the ship at Sydney or Melbourne, and looked us over critically as we walked up the gang-plank. I found I had a large room to myself, on the upper deck, and Adelaide had one just like it. Our baggage having been sent in the morning, we found it waiting for us in our rooms. There are 120 first-class passengers; no second-class, and no steerage. The ship is two years old, 508 feet long, with an unusual beam (which means width, and width means steadiness at sea), and altogether we are well pleased.... An old gentleman and his wife attracted our particular attention because so many had come to see them off. There were many children and grandchildren, and after the whistle had warned all visitors to go ashore, we stood beside the old gentleman and his wife at the rail, looking at the crowd. A woman in the crowd below was evidently a married daughter of the old couple we admired, and she had a nurse girl with her, and the nurse girl was carrying a baby.

“Mother,” the married daughter called out, softly, “did you say good-by to Daisy?”

Daisy was the nurse girl, and the fine old mother said she had said good-by to Daisy, but, to make it good measure, she said good-by to her again.... My room is considerably larger than the one I shared with three others on the “Maunganui.” I have two chairs, a clothes closet, and a chest of drawers, all of which were lacking on the “Maunganui.” On that ship I hadn’t a single hook on which to hang my clothing; in my room on the “Anchises” there are fifteen hooks. If I live fifty years longer, at the end of the forty-ninth year I shall still be telling with indignation of my room on the “Maunganui.” Four men in a room nine by ten feet is as bad as asking four men to use one bathtub at the same time.... At exactly 6 P. M. we got away as advertised.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13.—When we awoke this morning, rain was falling, and a heavy sea running, but owing to the ship’s unusual width, 60 feet, we did not mind the motion, and went down to breakfast in good humor. One of the stewards informs me that he has worked on many ships, and that the “Anchises” is the steadiest of them all. The weather is bad, but not many are seasick.... A lady at our table has five children and two nurses with her. “And,” added her husband, “at sea, five are quite enough.” These children are all boys, except one, and this girl is known as Tom, she is such a Tom-boy. The girl knows nothing about girls, and has never played with them, and the mother is rather glad of it: usually a Tom-boy humiliates a mother.... The passengers are very nice; a better lot than we met on the “Maheno” or “Maunganui.” Most of them are making the long journey to England.... We are now in the great Australian Bight, which, on the map, makes Australia look upside down. The rough weather of the voyage is usually encountered in the Bight.... In 1806, a certain Captain Bligh was appointed governor of Australia. This is the Bligh associated with the mutiny of the ship “Bounty,” one of the most thrilling stories of the sea. Some time prior to 1806, Bligh, as commander of H. M. S. “Bounty,” was sent to the South Sea Islands after trees and plants to be taken to the West Indies; the English have always been noted for trying to improve their possessions. I have forgotten the name of the island where Bligh went with the “Bounty,” but will call it Island No. 1. He remained there a considerable time; long enough for his sailors to become well acquainted with the natives. Finally, when the “Bounty” sailed for the West Indies, the sailors were mutinous, as they had made friends in Island No. 1, and did not wish to leave. Captain Bligh was a hard man, and, noting the discontent of the sailors, gave them extra duties; if there was nothing else for them to do, he made them polish the anchor. One night, as Captain Bligh sat in his cabin, he was seized from behind by three sailors. He was bluntly told to get into one of the small boats, and row where he pleased; the sailors said they were going back to their native wives and friends at Island No. 1. Seventeen members of the crew, including all the officers, chose to go with the captain, and, with a scant supply of water and provisions, were set adrift in an open boat. Captain Bligh was cruel and ill-tempered, but an able seaman, and, after a voyage of four thousand miles, landed on the coast of Java. Most of his companions died as a result of the hardships through which they passed.... But the history of the mutineers is still more interesting. They returned to Island No. 1 in the “Bounty,” and, collecting their wives and other particular friends among the natives, set sail for a remote island one of them knew about. I have forgotten the name of this island, too, though it is possibly Pitcairn, but I shall call it Island No. 2. Arriving at Island No. 2, the “Bounty” was burned, after being robbed of all its guns, furniture and supplies.... The mutineers quarreled a good deal among themselves; mainly about women. Every sailor had two or three wives, and the natives of Island No. 1 did not get along very well with the natives of Island No. 2. Many murders were committed, and at the end of twenty years only two of the original mutineers remained. These two had scores of half-breed children, many of them grown.... One day a sailing-ship stopped at Island No. 2, the first seen there since the mutineers landed, many years before. The captain knew the story of the “Bounty,” and rightly guessed that the two old sailors must have been members of the mutinous crew. On his return to England, he reported his discovery, and gave the authorities a chart by which the lonely island might be found. Soon after, a ship was dispatched to arrest and bring back the only two of the mutineers remaining.... After a voyage of months, the captain of the ship returned to England and made a strange report. He said he found the two mutineers had become preachers, and were doing wonderfully good work among the natives. The two old men had entire control of the island, and controlled it in the interest of decency and civilization; having become old, the last of the mutineers had quit quarreling over women, and were looking carefully after their stomachs and souls. The captain of the ship concluded it was best to let the two old men alone; and the English government shared his opinion. A few years later, the old men died, greatly to the regret of a large number of half-breed relatives. Captain Trask, of the “Sonoma,” once called at Island No. 2, when in command of a sailing-ship, and met both of the old mutineers; it was Captain Trask who told me the story I have briefly outlined.... Captain Bligh also had trouble as governor of Australia. He quarreled with nearly everybody, and finally was deposed by force. On his promise to return to England direct, he went aboard a waiting vessel; but he broke his word, and sailed to Tasmania instead. There he tried to force the people to receive him back as governor, but they soon grew tired of him, and forced him to leave the island. The result of it all was that Captain Bligh was made governor of Australia again, but for only twenty-four hours; the king probably realized that Bligh was quarrelsome, and no one was punished much for impudence to him. Finally Bligh was made an admiral, and that probably satisfied him.... The early days of Australia, when Bligh was governor, were very rough. The convict settlers had little fear and no respect for anyone, and did about as they pleased. In those days, drunkenness and crime were rampant, and the only way to make money was to sell whisky, pistols and bowie-knives.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14.—Rain fell again this morning, but the sea is smoother, and we have an excellent prospect of getting out of the Bight without serious trouble. After passing out of the Bight we shall enter a section of the ocean where the air is said to be particularly pure and invigorating; it comes from the pole without contamination with land, and many old, nervous men come to take a whiff of it on the advice of physicians.... Every morning we are offered iced watermelon for breakfast. It is said to be an American idea, but I have never heard of it before.... Every passenger is assigned to a place in a lifeboat, in case of emergency. I think this is a new idea since the sinking of the “Titanic.” I found this notice in my room: “IMPORTANT.—Your boat is No. 8 port. At your earliest convenience please make yourself acquainted with the position of your boat station. The boat station numbers are marked on the promenade deck rail, immediately below each boat, and your boat station is there. If the emergency arises, go to your boat station, and submit yourself to the orders of the man in charge.”... Adelaide has been assigned to boat No. 2 port, so that in case of emergency we shall be separated; she might land on one island, and I on another. I find that the gentleman and wife who have five children and two nurses, are also assigned to my lifeboat, No. 8. But I shall not think of the necessity of spending days or weeks in an open boat with a family of five children; it would be worse than my experience on the “Maunganui.”... There is an Eurasian on board. He is supposed to be as good as anybody, but there seems to be a prejudice against him. An Eurasian is the son or daughter of an European and Asiatic; the term particularly applies to the offspring of natives and whites in India. Some of the Eurasian women are very handsome, but their social position is so bad that many of the more sensitive ones commit suicide.... The “Anchises” is not fast; its run from noon on Thursday to noon today was only 326 miles. The ship has one custom which is entirely new to me: the time is changed every time a watch goes off duty. At sea, the watch consists of the officer and men in charge at any particular time. As a result, the time changes three or four times a day. On most ships the clock in the companion way is set back or forward at midnight, and there is not another change for twenty-four hours.