Part 2

This particular Nubian in the course of the process asked me my age, my profession, whether I was married, what my financial prospects were, and whether I had any children. However, I refused to answer questions; but I very nearly did once or twice, so insinuatingly were the questions put. I further tested the process by having my fortune and character told by a second seer, and he said exactly the same things as the first had said, and I afterwards found out that he also had said exactly the same thing to some one else.

_The Red Sea: in July_

The first day you say it is pleasant. The second day you say the stories about the heat you have heard are gross exaggerations. The third day you feel the heat; and the fourth you realize that you are morning, noon, and night in a Turkish bath that hasn’t got a cooling-room. And yet the energetic played cricket and quoits.

One morning (quite early in the morning) a tragedy happened. One of the stokers, a Maltee, went mad, owing to the heat, and jumped overboard. The steamer stopped, but nothing could be done. The sea is full of sharks.

The air is full of little particles of dust which makes your hair gritty. The best way to spend one’s time is, I think, to remain obstinately motionless in a chair, dressed in the lightest of clothes, and to read novels, stories which engage without unduly straining the attention.

How grateful one is on such occasions to the authors who have written books of that kind!

Somebody once said that there were books which it is a positive pleasure to read. To my mind the most precious of all books are those which seem to do the work for you. You don’t have to bother; you are not aware that you are reading. Nobody could say this of the works of George Meredith or of Henry James. You may be interested, delighted, and moved, but you know you are reading.

Anthony Trollope and William de Morgan do the work for me, personally; so do Victor Hugo, George Sand, Count Tolstoy, and Rudyard Kipling.

Then there are books which one can’t stop reading. To this class belong, in my case, the works of Dumas: “Monte Cristo,” “La Reine Margot,” and the many volumes which tell of the Musketeers.

“Monte Cristo” is the only book which for me has ever annihilated time, space, and place, and everything else.

I read it at school at Eton, on a whole school-day. At three you had to go into school, which lasted till four. I began reading, or rather flew back to my book, as soon as luncheon was over, about half past two. I had just got to the part where Dantès is escaping from the Château d’If. I sat reading in a small room in my tutor’s house. A quarter to three struck; three struck; Dumas silenced those bells, whose sound your whole unconscious self, as a rule, automatically obeyed. You couldn’t forget that sound if you wanted to, any more than a soldier forgets the bugle-calls that mark the routine of the day, or the sailor forgets the boatswain’s whistle. The sound is in his flesh and bones as well as in his ears. Nature responds to it automatically, unconsciously.

But the sound of the clock striking three escaped me; and the clanging echoes of the school clock chiming the quarters struck in vain for me through my open window on that June afternoon: and a quarter past three, half past three, and quarter to four. I may have heard, but I heeded not; my mind was far away. Now to shirk school altogether was an unheard-of thing. You could do it in the early morning and say you were ill, and “stay out” under the protection of the matron, who always certified that you were ill. (Who knows? it might be measles!) But if you shirked afternoon school, it meant probably writing out four books of “Paradise Lost.” A little time after the quarter, the boys’ maid came into my room and asked me whatever I was doing. I was brought back from the Château d’If, and my heart stopped still. I raced downstairs, across the street to the schoolyard, up the wooden stairs into the old Upper School, where beneath the busts of famous old Etonians, our little lessons dribbled on. I found school just over, and oh! miracle of miracles! my absence hadn’t been noticed! In every division there was a boy called the _Præpostor_ whose duty it was to see that every boy was present at chapel and in school (that is to say, in the various classrooms). The office was held for a week by every boy in the division, in turn. If you were absent, he had to find out whether it was due to certified illness or whether you had any other reasonable excuse. If not, your name went in to the Head Master. He hadn’t noticed my absence, nor had the master, and I walked away with the other boys as though I had been there all the time instead of at the Château d’If. I sometimes think that perhaps the spirit of Dumas impersonated me during that hour in Upper School, so that my rapture in reading of Dantès’s escape for the first time might be complete, perfect, and uninterrupted. If Dumas could make one forget the chimes of the school clock at Eton, he could make one forget anything.

Another book which has (in addition to many other glorious qualities such as poetry, pathos, and passion) the same riveting power is, to my mind (if you skip the historical dissertations), Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables.” Mr. Basil Thomson says it is the favourite book of the convicts in Dartmoor Prison, and that they call it “Less Miserable.” It is a favourite book among the Russian peasants also--among those who read and write. So is, as a matter of fact, “Monte Cristo.” Most literary critics say the latter part of “Monte Cristo” is a pity. Not so the Russian peasant, and not I. The proof is in the reading. Whoever heard of anybody not finishing “Monte Cristo,” and stopping halfway, bored?

In reading what Mr. Basil Thomson says of the books liked and the books disliked by the prisoners in Dartmoor Prison, I was startlingly reminded of what I had heard and seen myself of the literary taste of the Russian peasants.

They both dislike books which are “full of lies” (including many excellent modern stories). “Monte Cristo” has the seal of romantic truth. I met a man in a steamer later on in my journey who said that “Monte Cristo” was the best book in print. I agree.

In the Red Sea it was almost too hot to read, and I murmured to myself those lines from H. Belloc’s epic, “The Modern Traveller”:--

“O Africa, mysterious land, Surrounded by a lot of sand-- Far land of Ophir, mined of old By lordly Solomon for gold, Who sailing southward to Perim, Took all the gold away with him, And left a lot of holes: Vacuities which bring despair To those confiding souls, Who find that they have bought a share In desolate horizons where The Desert, terrible and bare, Interminably rolls.”

Perim we passed in the night, and then there suddenly came a moment when it got cooler. We had turned a corner and the breeze began to blow. A hot breeze, but a breeze. And it’s something even to get a hot breeze after four days and four nights in a Turkish bath.

_The Gulf of Aden: July_

Everybody up to now has been vaguely discussing what kind of monsoon it would be. The most dismal prophecies were made. We were told it would be very rough, very hot, and very wet. As it turns out, it is not rough, not wet, but still hot: steamy and damp, that is to say.

I now feel as if I had been all my life on board. The passengers, the officers, and crew seem to be the only people in my universe; the rest are shadows and dreams. There are not many passengers on board. People fight shy of the Red Sea and the monsoon in July. I think they are wrong. There are just enough people for company and not too many for comfort. There is a pleasant variety of passengers; a few Australians, two Germans, a Frenchman and his wife, an Irishman,--once a mining expert and now a professional painter who paints bold and capable landscapes in oil, full of colour and light,--a Scotch family, a High Commissioner (whatever that may be), an American lady singer, a missionary, and two young North-Country Englishmen.

If one travels for over a month on a liner, one’s fellow passengers sometimes may become something more than what Bourget calls _profils perdus_: meaning the chance acquaintanceships of the _table d’hôte_ and the railway train. In a steamer one can, if one chooses, get to know people really well.

Every evening a small crowd play whisky poker for cocktails; after dinner there is a good deal of bridge; sometimes some music. But from ship’s music, as a rule, one can “withdraw one’s attention” without difficulty.

I am told a good deal about Australia and the Australians by people who have been backwards and forwards. They agree to its being a splendid country, full of openings for the emigrant. “In Australia,” some one tells me, “people don’t ask you for references. If you ask for a job they give it you, and as long as you show you can do it, they let you do it, and as soon as you show signs of not being able to do it, they fire you out.”

That is, indeed, a different system from what obtains in the mother country, where references are regarded with awe, and where a thousand small side issues often contribute not only to a square peg remaining in a round hole, but to an utterly hopeless peg remaining in any kind of hole.

One also hears that the Australians (_a_) resent criticism on anything Australian; (_b_) are very critical of what they see in other countries.

[Illustration: FROM SHIP’S MUSIC, AS A RULE, ONE CAN WITHDRAW ONE’S ATTENTION WITHOUT DIFFICULTY]

What irritates the Australians, no doubt, and what justly irritates them, is when globe-trotters rush round the country in a few days and then write a book of critical impressions. In England (and in America, I should think) the people have got over being irritated by that particular form of literature. They don’t care. If a visitor, after spending a fortnight in England, writes a book called “The Rotten English,” or “Those Damned English,” or the “God-forsaken Country,” we don’t much care. And as for criticism, if it be well founded and well expressed, it will be certain to obtain a wide popularity in England. Witness Mr. Collier’s “England and the English.” Personally there is nothing I enjoy reading more than the critical impressions of my own country written by an intelligent foreigner. It opens the window on all sorts of shut-up points of view, and it calls one’s attention to what one had never noticed because it was too obvious; because we ourselves are in it.

But the Australians appear to be sensitive to the criticism of the foreigner, even when it is just and well founded. My very slender experience has convinced me that they are often unduly critical with regard to the objects of interest in other countries. One day, on board, one of the Australians expressed disappointment and censure with regard to London architecture. I thought at first he meant the new public offices; but not at all; he meant Westminster Abbey, which compared unfavourably with the cathedral in Adelaide.

I was inclined to think this critical point of view which was attributed to the colonials was perhaps imaginary, or in any case exaggerated. It certainly is exaggerated; it isn’t imaginary.

Here, for instance, are some extracts taken from a book written by A. W. Rutherford, of New Zealand, on Europe. I quote them from a review which appeared in an Australian review, “The Bookfellow.” Mr. Rutherford, says the reviewer, was disappointed with Paris; “the streets are not equal to those of any of our cities; the respectable restaurants are mean, shabby affairs; the swell restaurants are the haunts of gilded vice and supported by vice; the Seine, like the Thames within its city boundary, is just a dirty ditch--neither of them to be compared with the Waikato. Most Parisians look dowdy. Our Maoris could teach the French a lesson in politeness. Meat is not safe in France.... Much of the wine is vile; no colonial could possibly drink it; the cheap wines of France are deadly rubbish.”

Of the tombs in Westminster Abbey he says they are dirty, untidy, inartistic; “some of them look like great cooking ranges.”

He is disappointed in Venice, but he gives a clear reason for his disappointment in the gondola. “I had imagined the latter a frivolous, giddy thing, gaily painted, and the gondoliers clothed as in the play of that name. The gondoliers are just plain sailormen, in their work-a-day clothes.”

That explains everything. Everything, as I said about Naples, depends on what you expect, on your standard. If you expect a gondola to be gilded and giddy and it turns out to be black, you are disappointed. If you expect the Seine and the Thames to be vast rivers, outside their cities and not in them, you are disappointed. What such authors never seem to bother about is whether their standard is likely to be indorsed by the rest of the human race or not. Their standard may be an excellent one for some things. The things which everybody else in the world would acknowledge to be good. For instance, in this case, the manners of the Maoris. The Maoris are the most courteous and chivalrous race in the world. But if they can teach manners to the French, there are many people in the colonies who would benefit by a lesson from them also. Another thing which the author of this book does not seem to realize is that there are many people who prefer a gondolier should look like a sailor, which he is, than like a singer in operetta. They prefer him to be dressed in his ordinary work-a-day clothes. They think it not only more appropriate to his task, but more picturesque. They think a man who is dressed in the clothes which befit his profession will look more dignified than a man who is dressed up as for a pageant.

The reviewer ends by saying, “Mr. Rutherford is a representative New Zealander, and in many ways a typical New Zealander. His interesting book is worth reading. It is compounded of keen observation, shrewd judgment, parish prejudice, and pure ignorance ... in its narrowness and in its depth, its arrogance and its enlightenment, it comments upon New Zealand as effectively as upon Europe; it shows us why Dominion standards are condemned in Britain, sometimes justly, and it may suggest to British readers how the Dominions feel in regard to the comments of hasty British tourists with frequently less ability than Mr. Rutherford displays.”

Yes, it does suggest that. It also suggests to one to hope that free trade and liberty may be maintained in the matter. Let the colonial say exactly what he thinks about Europe, but let the European say exactly what he thinks about the colonies, and then neither side can have a grievance. But when the colonial complains of the hasty and narrow judgment of the European, let him have a thought for the possible beam in his own eye.

Another time, on board, another Australian complained that the works of G. K. Chesterton were bosh. “Thank God,” he added, “he’s not an Australian.”

But fancy if G. K. Chesterton had been an Australian. One wonders what would have been the effect on his figure, his style, and his philosophy. Instead of his romantic, adventurous optimism, would his genius have been sultry, pessimistic, and rebellious?

[Illustration: IF G. K. CHESTERTON HAD BEEN AN AUSTRALIAN]

I think he would have written gigantic epics on the Blue Mountains, the Bush, and gum-trees; wild romances about bush-rangers, and beach-combers, and swinging songs about Botany Bay.

I can imagine G. K. Chesterton, looking lean and spare, riding a horse bareback. One of his qualities would have certainly developed in the same way, had he been born and bred over the sea, and that is his geniality, his large, hospitable nature, his belief in goodness; for hospitality and friendliness grow if anything quicker on Australian and colonial soil than they do in England.

Here is a fragment of verse supposed to be written by G. K. Chesterton, had he been born and bred in the country which Adam Lindsay Gordon sang:--

_“The Melbourne Cup,” or “Hippodromania”_

The crowd came out of the Eastern lands To see the Melbourne Cup, Like Titans under tiger skies They were as simple as surprise And pleased as a bulldog pup.

Beyond the twisted gum-trees They suddenly ceased to swarm; Like statues the wild crowd stood still, Like soldiers little children drill, And silence came upon the hill More loud than a thunderstorm.

And the bell rang a little, And the riders were up at the post, Full of strange fire the racers strip And ramp and rock and boil and skip Each like an angel in a ship That charges the tall white coast.

The emerald course was a course indeed, Between that crowd of men. And every steed became a steed. “Say when, old boy, say when!”

The flag is lowered, they’re off! They come! Like clouds on a roaring sky. Jim Whiffler swirls his whip away And the tall grey horse goes by.

His face is like a newspaper That many men take in; The colours of his sleeve are mixed Like cocktails made with gin.

Now Strop falls back, they’re neck and neck, Now Davis, Whiffler, ride; Jim Whiffler with his brainless face Is spun and swirled aside.

Jim Whiffler’s lost! but as he fails He screams into the din, The mare has still more heart to lose Than you have heart to win.

And Whiffler sits high in the saddle, A broken-hearted jockey; And our Jim Whiffler, robbed of fame, Singed by the bookmakers with blame, Cries out, “I’ll change my trade and name And take to playing hockey.”

_The Indian Ocean: during the Monsoon_

It’s not at all like the Indian Ocean of which Kipling sings, “so soft, so something, so blooming blue.” It is grey; there’s a swell, and it’s muggy. But at night you can see the Southern Cross, and that’s an excitement.

How did Dante know there was such a thing as the Southern Cross? He certainly did know it, because when he emerged from hell, somewhere near the South Pole, he says he looked at the polar sky and saw four stars which had never been seen before save by the first people--whoever they were (the inhabitants of Paradise?)--

“All’ altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle Non viste mai fuor che alla prima gente.”

I dare say, and I believe some commentators do say, that his meaning was allegorical, and that by the four stars he meant Woman’s Suffrage, or the battle of Waterloo. I take leave to differ. I’m sure he meant the Southern Cross. Perhaps it is in Herodotus, whose geography, long suspected of being fantastic, is proved to be more and more accurate. For instance, Herodotus said the source of the Nile was in the Silver Mountain. This was pooh-poohed for centuries, until the discovery of Mount Ruwenzori proved that Herodotus was perfectly right.

Dante was a great traveller, and the greatest pen impressionist who ever wrote. He describes a landscape in a line so that it stays with you forever. He uses the smallest possible number of words, hardly any adjectives, and the picture leaps up before you, immortal and unforgettable.

Who can do this among the moderns? Keats could sometimes. Tennyson gives you English landscape. If you read “In Memoriam” you have lived a year in the English country and seen the march of the English seasons. Crabbe can do it. Who reads Crabbe? Nobody. And yet he is a wonderful poet, as realistic as Tolstoy and Arnold Bennett, as poignant as Gorky. Byron called him the best painter of nature. (And Byron was a good judge.) He can give you a landscape in a line. For instance:--

“And on the ocean slept th’ unanchored fleet.”

He writes about the poor as they are, without sentimentality, and without exaggeration; and as a painter of English landscape he still remains the best.

What has the poet Crabbe got to do with the Indian Ocean? Nothing. But it can do nobody any harm to be reminded of the poet Crabbe, although he was born in 1754 and died in 1832. He may not be read by the modern generation, but he is not forgotten. A Frenchman wrote a long and excellent book about him not long ago. He is safe in the Temple of Fame, which once you have entered you cannot leave. And this temple is like a wheel. It goes round and round, and sometimes some of its inmates are in the glare of the sun, and sometimes they are in the shade, but they are there; and they never fall out. This is comforting. It also teaches us not to laugh at the taste of our fathers, because that taste which we despise may be the rage once more in the days of our grandchildren.

How we used to despise everything connected with the Early Victorian period. Now people have their rooms done up in Early Victorian style, and Early Victorian furniture is collected; rep sofas are precious, green tablecloths and antimacassars. They have passed the period of being like an out-of-date fashion plate; they have reached the hallowed moment of being picturesque and Old World. It is Late Victorian art that is now despised--William Morris and Burne-Jones. But they are safe in the temple, too, and a day will come when people will admire Burne-Jones’s pictures and collect Morris designs as a great curiosity, and say, “This is a very fine specimen of 1880 chintz.”

During this monsoon period I read more than ever. I once asked a famous politician what he did on a sea voyage. He said, “The first day I am civil to my fellow passengers, and after that I read Scott’s novels.” I adopted this plan.

_Ceylon: July_

A line of palm trees over a tumultuous fringe of silver foam, which leaps up on a dull opal-green sea, is your first impression as you get near the island. When you come into harbour, a quantity of narrow black boats swarm round the steamer. Then the tug comes alongside, and after waiting in it till it is no longer worth while to go on shore in a boat, I finally, in a burst of impatience, get into a boat and am rowed ashore. No sooner am I in the boat than the tug starts. However, the four black men in my boat pull hard and we reach the pier almost at the same time as the tug.