Front matter (continued 3)

“Do you realize the waste of smoking? How many cigars do you smoke a day?”

The smoker estimated the number at fifteen, and said he had been smoking at least twenty years.

“Had you saved that money,” the good man said, “you might have owned that sky-scraper,” pointing to a big building across the street.

“Do you smoke?” the smoker asked the good man.

“Certainly not,” was the indignant answer.

“Do you own that sky-scraper?”

“No.”

“Well,” replied the smoker, puffing complacently on his cigar, “I do.”

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2.—This has been as fine a day as I have ever experienced on a ship. As a rule, the weather is better far out at sea than near land. Yesterday the passengers were confined to their rooms, and everywhere one might hear them trying to get rid of that last meal, but today they are all on deck. It is a polite and agreeable company, and the ship is fine, but I still dislike the sea. I don’t care much for close contact with a lot of people, however polite and agreeable they may be. It is pleasant enough to be in a crowd for an hour or two, and note human characteristics, but four or five days of it is too much.... From the time you start on a trip until you return, you have the same things to eat. Bills of fare on ships are exactly alike, and hotels copy the ships. I am offered a great variety of food on the “Maunganui,” but do not care for it: at dinner today I ordered a plate of soup, and lamb with mint sauce, although the bill of fare showed a very great variety. Meals are announced in the usual way: by a man playing a cornet. The man on the “Maunganui” is unusual in that he plays a part of a selection at every meal, and poses while playing.... In this country, the uglier the man, the more sheep he owns. The ugliest man I have ever seen is on board, and he is said to be the sheep king of New Zealand. It is no unusual thing for a man in New Zealand or Australia to own thirty or forty thousand sheep.... This evening, after dinner, I was amused in watching a smart young fellow in the second-cabin. The second-cabin deck is separated from ours by a rail containing this notice: “Second-cabin passengers not allowed forward of this.” The smart young fellow was amusing a number of companions by walking around the first-cabin deck. His companions thought he was extremely devilish, and laughed boisterously when he returned safely. I sat near them, and could hear their conversation. The bold young man said that if anyone would give him a shilling, he would go up the stairs to the next deck, and spend it in the first cabin smoking-room. The shilling was produced, and I saw the young man disappear up the stairway. Then he offered to speak to the captain for another shilling, and disappeared for that purpose, but whether he did it or not, I do not know. The young men were having a tremendous lot of fun without harming anyone.... Last night there was almost continuous piano-playing in the big parlor of the ship. A man or woman was waiting all the time, with music, for a chance at the piano; it reminded me of passengers waiting around the bathrooms during the rush hour. Two young girls, sisters, sat in the room the entire evening. They pretended to be reading, but they were really watching and talking about people, and their short, quick remarks to each other probably contained a good deal of ginger.... When you can’t do anything else to a boy, you can make him wash his face. There is a man on board with a son seven or eight years old, and certainly every hour I hear the father say to the son: “Go to your room, sir, and wash your face. And use a little extra soap on your hands.” ... Seasickness is no disgrace. Governor Crose, of American Samoa, and who is also captain of the warship “Princeton,” told me that he is often seasick; and he has been a sailor twenty-five years.... I heard a man making a long explanation today, and I knew he was not telling the truth; an explanation is never the truth, on sea or land.... A lonesome old woman on board attracts the attention of all the passengers. I talked to her awhile this afternoon, and she made one remark I’ll never forget.

“My children,” she said, “are already reconciled to my death.”

She is traveling alone, is ill, and occupies a room with three young women who don’t want her in with them, and she is very wretched. Will your children be reconciled to your death by the time you are sixty-five or seventy? Probably; maybe earlier.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3.—A man on board was born in Warsaw, New York, but has been in business in Sydney for the past thirty years. He says the Australian and New Zealand newspapers are habitually unfair with events in the United States. He often writes to the editors, and corrects their blunders, but they refuse to print his letters. The papers frequently print references to American crooks arriving in Australasia which are palpably unfair and untrue; on one occasion the American obtained a letter from the police authorities saying that certain thieves referred to as Americans, were not Americans, but not a newspaper in Australia would print the American’s indignant denial. All American news in the Australian and New Zealand papers comes from London, although it might be easily obtained direct from American papers. American news coming by way of London is of course unreliable. He says that the middle-class people here admire Americans, but that the Imperialists do not, and always misrepresent them. I asked him what he meant by the term “Imperialist.”

“Well,” he replied, “an Australian or New Zealander will go to London, and be entertained at dinner by a cheap duke or knight. After that, he is an Imperialist, and talks of England as ‘back home.’ Admiration for the rich is often ridiculous, but it is nothing compared with admiration for a title.”

I asked him how the general prosperity here compared with the average prosperity in America. He replied that the farmers here are more prosperous generally than the farmers of New York state.

“But,” I said to him, “the farmers of New York state are not typical American farmers. Our typical farmers are found in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Oklahoma, and states of that class.”

“I have heard of the great prosperity of Kansas farmers,” he said; “our farmers are not as prosperous as the Kansas farmers are said to be. And our farmers do not live as well as yours. Not on one farm in fifty here will you find a vegetable garden or fruit tree; I should say your farmers are much superior to ours in culture, too. Certainly the educational test is higher in your rural communities than it is with us. Your working-people, in my judgment, earn better wages than ours.”

Here, as elsewhere, the railroads are considered fair game for every swindler. This man says that a few months ago there was a railroad accident in Australia, and three hundred and forty-three claims for damages were filed. Investigation revealed the fact that there were but two hundred and fifty-one passengers on the wrecked train.... One prominent fault here is overcrowding. You notice it on every railroad train, in every ship, and in every hotel. Crowding is barbarism. The railroads, although owned by the government, do not run enough trains. The ship on which this is written is crowded beyond the legal or safe limit.... Possibly you do not know that the casings of American “wieners” come from Australian or South-American sheep. I met a traveling-man the other day who sells nothing but sausage casings; mainly sheep entrails, and his house has branches nearly everywhere. The most interesting thing in the world is business, but it is neglected by magazines and newspapers for scandal or foolish fiction.... There is a good deal of excitement here now over what is called “American blight,” which affects fruit. My American friend who lives in Sydney says he secured undoubted evidence that the blight existed in Tasmania in 1832, and does not come from America, but the newspapers will not print his evidence.... I can easily understand that everything American is unfairly treated by the papers of Australia. We in America are grossly unfair with everything English, not because we desire to be, but because we do not know any better. I grossly exaggerate that which I do not understand, and so does everyone.... The fine weather continues, and all day the sea has been as smooth as a pond. I am in good humor today, but I am still of the opinion that four men in a steamship room nine by ten is an outrage. You cannot realize its discomfort until you have had experience.... Late last night, while sitting in the music-room of the ship “Maunganui,” a steward came in to collect the steamer rugs scattered about. The steward told me that for several months he has averaged $35 a week in tips. The ship is always crowded; this trip there were ninety people at the second sitting in the dining-room. As a result, the stewards have a double number in the dining-room and a double number in the staterooms. I doubt if the captain makes more than the most popular and capable stewards on his ship. A passenger told me that he frequently sees the stewards of the “Maunganui” riding in motor cars in Sydney, and drinking champagne with lady friends in the expensive restaurants. The steward said that when he starts on a trip, he can look over the passengers in his care and tell almost exactly what he will get in tips when the ship lands. He showed me a $5 gold-piece which one man had given him, although the usual tip is $1.25. Why did that passenger give $5? Largely because he was a fool, I should say, for ship servants rarely do anything special for passengers. The steward told me, also, that the tourists are the best pay; that commercial men demand a good deal of service, and tip lightly, whereas all tourists tip liberally, whether they receive any special attention or not. As soon as a tourist goes on a ship, he begins inquiring concerning the tipping customs, and if he asks the barber, or an officer, he is advised to be liberal. There is a law in New Zealand which prohibits ship employees from working more than eight hours a day.... One of the passengers is a man named Willis, Speaker of the New South Wales House of Parliament. He is accompanied by his wife, two young lady daughters, and a son. All of them ate at the second sitting in the dining-room. I was told by several passengers that Willis is very unpopular; he certainly received no attention on board. In Australia there are only two political parties: the Labor and the Liberal. Willis, it is said, was a Liberal for years, and then switched to Labor, although he is not a workingman; on the contrary, he is well off. Many people regard him as a political adventurer, but they all credit him with unusual cleverness. I predict that some of these days he will get even with the Union Steamship Co. for putting him at the second sitting in the dining-room. I heard an American woman say lately that New Zealand women wear funny shoes and corsets. The Speaker’s women-folks do; for several days I thought Willis was a prosperous sheep farmer going to Sydney to spend his money. The women of Australia lack the good taste in dress that distinguishes the women of countries less prosperous.... Young children are better behaved here than in the United States; they “mind” better, and lack the impudence which distinguishes so many children with us.... The population of New Zealand does not increase; that country does not hustle for immigrants, as Australia does. Besides, a good many of the New Zealand sheep farmers are going to Argentina, in South America, one of the wonders of modern times, and more favorable for sheep-raising than this section. Wellington, a fine town, and the capital of New Zealand, does not grow; when I was there, the old wooden capitol was being repaired, and will probably be used another forty years. The population of New Zealand is only a million; but for that matter big Australia has only five times as many, almost one-half of them being in the big cities on the coast. The interior of Australia is hot, and its inhabitants hug the coast.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4.—The greatest pleasure of this day consisted of leaving the ship. At 8 o’clock this morning I had another sight of Sydney’s famous harbor, and at 9 we landed and went to the Australia Hotel, where we saw another fine sight: several Americans. We found Mr. and Mrs. Harry Clay Blaney, the New York theatrical people, there, and several others we knew on the “Sonoma.” The Blaneys leave next Saturday for the Philippine Islands and China, by a ship of twenty-seven hundred tons; it is so small that it cannot accommodate more than two dozen first-class passengers. Nothing could induce me to take that trip; the ship is too small. I leave on the 12th for Durban, in South Africa, on the “Anchises,” a ship of 12,000 tons, and have been grumbling because it is not larger.... Another American I met there is W. B. Knight, born in New York state, and reared in the Standard Oil Co. family at Cleveland, Ohio. He is now connected with the Texas company, but received all his training with the Standard. There is a great deal of romance connected with Mr. Knight’s business career. He has lived in Persia, India, China, Japan, Australia, the Straits Settlements, and half a dozen other strange places. His wife is the daughter of another wandering oil man, and they were married at Canton, China, at the American Legation, by a preacher from Pennsylvania. His wife is with him here, and they are both anxious to get home: both declare that this is their last trip—that they are tired of hotel, ship and railroad life. Mr. Knight said to me: “I am now an opponent of the Standard Oil Co., but have no hesitancy in saying that the manner in which that company is persecuted by the government is a disgrace. I have been intimate with Standard affairs a quarter of a century, and have never known the company to be guilty of a disreputable or dishonest act. The company with which I have been connected a year, the Texas company, is composed almost entirely of men trained by the Standard, and we are trying to do what the Standard has done. We are the opposition, but our business methods are no better than those of the Standard.”

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5.—I am almost persuaded that Sydney is one of the handsomest cities I have ever visited. One of its numerous bays extends so far in the interior that it is called a river. We traveled up it today by boat for an hour and a half, and all the way saw handsome homes, and attractive coves. Returning, we came by electric car most of the way, and saw another interesting part of the city. While waiting for a car, we went into a little place for a drink. We ordered what seemed to be ginger ale, and it was cold; it is warmer in Australia than in New Zealand, and the people have learned the value of ice. “In America, you would call it pop,” the woman said. There is no doubt here as to our identity.... The weather today has been as hot as we ever get it on the Fourth of July. And this the 5th of February.... In the United States there is a great rivalry as to the best five-cent cigar. Here the manufacturers of six-cent cigars make equally extravagant claims.... There is nothing serious the matter with this country except that managers of steamships put four in a room 9×10 feet. The officers of the ships do not sleep in any such higgledy-piggledy fashion; they insist upon large single rooms for themselves, but force four passengers into a room not big enough for one. During the Spanish-American war, you may remember that the American officers, including Theodore Roosevelt, rebelled against certain regulations of their superiors. This rebellion they called a round robin. This country needs a similar rebellion against four in the same steamship room.... There are so many ferries in Sydney harbor carrying people to different suburbs along the bays that occasionally incoming steamships are held up during rush hours, in order that the ferry traffic may not be interfered with. This usually happens between 7:30 and 8 in the morning.... Wherever English print is in use, you will see the name of Theodore Roosevelt. He knows more of the art of securing free advertising than any other living man. In a morning paper I find a Melbourne dispatch saying the Minister for Home Affairs has received a letter from Mr. Roosevelt. A part of the letter is quoted, as follows:

“There is nothing that would give me more pleasure than to visit Australia. I cannot imagine any American seriously interested in the affairs of his country and of the world who would not feel himself fortunate to visit your great commonwealth. You have been pioneers along many paths of social and industrial reform. I have personally a very great admiration for the Australian people. One of my prized hunting companions in Africa was an Australian,” etc., etc.

In the same newspaper I find the following from New Zealand:

“The High Commissioner for New Zealand said he was proud that the Dominion had led the way in presenting a battleship to the British Empire. Mr. James Allen, Minister for Defense, said New Zealand would not be satisfied until she gave both men and ships.”

What may be said of New Zealand may be said of Australia. Is it pioneering in social or industrial reform for a peaceful country to build battleships, and present them to a quarrelsome king thousands of miles away? ... This afternoon I went to a theatre, and saw moving pictures of the Panama canal. The pictures have packed the house for weeks; they are doing much to increase respect here for American energy and ability. The comments I heard around me were extremely gratifying. Never in the history of the world has a great work been carried on as energetically, as economically or as intelligently as at Panama. These pictures prove the smartness of the Yankee, and the actual accomplishment at Panama is as great as the big talk about the smart Yankee has ever been.... In this city of Sydney there is a big department store operated by the Anthony Hordern Co. Anthony Hordern was a plodder who built up a great business, and died from overwork at sixty-four. The business is now managed by heads of departments trained by Anthony Hordern, but his two sons own it. A floor-walker told me today that the store employs four thousand people, and has fifteen acres of floor space. I do not know just how much an Australian’s statements should be discounted; the average at home is about one-third. The store has a special sale on now, which is attracting great crowds, as special sales seem to everywhere. Wherever I go here, floor-walkers step up and ask if I have been waited on, whereupon I reply that I am simply a visitor looking about, etc. In most cases the floor-walker will show me around; at Anthony Hordern’s today, he mentioned Marshall Field’s place in Chicago, and at once labeled me as an American. The Anthony Hordern store is very large, but not half as big as the Marshall Field store. And it isn’t half as fine. The Hordern store looks old-fashioned; the ceilings are low, and the place isn’t very neat—I don’t know exactly what the trouble is, but I was compelled to tell the floor-walker, a very polite man, that it wasn’t in the Marshall Field class.... At sea, I become angry, and half the time won’t take my bath, or shave, or dress for dinner, but when I am on land, I am good-natured, and thoroughly enjoy going about. It is a joy for me to poke around a strange town. On our return to Sydney we employed the same boy who showed us about on our first visit; we liked the little man, although we could not understand half he said. At the Anthony Hordern store today, we wanted to go up to the art department, but the elevator man could not understand my pronunciation of the word Art. The boy had heard the floor-walker recommend that we visit the Art department, so he pronounced the word Art, and the elevator man understood him.... The floor-walker wanted to introduce me to young Anthony Hordern, but I asked to be excused. No doubt the son was like a sailor on the “Sonoma:” Captain Trask said he wasn’t worth much except to play the part of “Neptune” when the ship crossed the line.... I am good-natured now, and intend to dress for dinner tonight, and drink coffee in the Winter Garden afterwards, but as soon as I go on board the “Anchises” at Adelaide, I expect to be mad again. The sea knocks me, and I can’t help it. And it will knock you, if you fool with it, and have lived in a prairie country a good deal.... Adelaide has been much interested in the fact that there is a smart city in Australia named Adelaide; it is at this town we take ship for South Africa. She has also been interested in Cape Howe, and Lord Howe Island; but I called her attention to a historical fact today which had previously escaped her. It seems that in the early days, one of the famous bush-rangers was Michael Howe, a convict who had been a sailor. He was sent here to serve seven years for robbery, but he escaped, and joined a band of bush-rangers. He soon became their chief, and ruled like a tyrant. He was also very haughty, calling himself “the governor of the range.” The governor of the colony he called “the governor of the town.” A price was placed on the head of Michael Howe, and one day a sailor named Worral, also a convict, brought it in. Worral received the promised reward, and was sent back to England a free man. No convicts have been sent to Australia from England since 1868.... You may think I grumble about ships a good deal. You mainly hear grumbling on shipboard. Whoever tells the truth will confess that he didn’t have a very good time at sea. When I went on the trip to the West Indies, I did so well that I fancied I was becoming a sad sea-dog. This experience induced me to undertake the present journey; but I know now that my sea-legs are wobbly. I can get along well enough on land anywhere, but I do not understand the ways of ocean-going crews, or of those strange persons who pretend to like ship voyages.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6.—This morning we went with the Blaneys to inspect the “Prince Waldemar,” the little ship on which they will sail next Saturday for the Philippine Islands and China. Except that it is small, we were delighted with it. The servants are Japanese, and the sailors of a brown race with which we are not familiar. The Blaneys have a stateroom with two windows; it is so large that the chief steward of the “Maunganui” would have crowded at least six into it. Never travel on a popular ship, or fall in love with a beautiful woman who has many admirers. The servants of the “Prince Waldemar” were as grateful for a little attention as an old maid. The boat is said to have excellent management, but it is only half as big as the “Sonoma,” and the “Sonoma” is a pony. The “Prince Waldemar” is a 2,700-ton boat; the “Anchises,” on which we sail for South Africa, is 12,000 tons. Any ship under 17,000 tons is a crime. There are no real ships in Australian waters; if a real ship should visit Sydney, people would come from New Zealand, and travel four and six in a room, to look at it. A ship of 12,000 tons is referred to as a “Leviathan of the Deep” in the papers here. The “Baltic,” on which I crossed the Atlantic not very long ago, is a 38,000-ton ship; and, when the weather is rough, it is none too large. The Hamburg-American company is building a ship almost twice as large as the “Baltic.” ... Near the “Prince Waldemar” lay the “Ventura,” sister ship of the “Sonoma,” and which sails for San Francisco next Saturday. We went on board, and it was like a visit home, as it is exactly like the “Sonoma” in every detail. We showed our “Sonoma” pictures, and soon had members of the crew interested. Among other pictures, we had one of the “Ventura,” taken at sea when we passed it on Christmas day. The American flag was displayed at the ship’s peak, and it looked as good to us as it probably looks to an old soldier on Decoration Day.... We meet traveling acquaintances every day. This morning we met Mr. Adams, the life insurance man, whose wife was so ill on the “Sonoma,” and who was so devoted to her that the men were proud of him. “I am staying at the Wentworth,” he said; “it is twice as good as the Australia.” The Australia Hotel is the best in Australasia (which includes New Zealand), and of course many hotels are said to be superior to it. Mr. Adams is meeting his wife’s kin for the first time, but I neglected to ask him if he suited.... We also met the Sandersons. We greatly admired Mrs. Sanderson, in spite of the fact that she is English. She was coming over to meet her husband’s people for the first time, and we predicted she would be satisfactory; but she was fearful—people are so particular in cases of that kind. Mr. Sanderson, however, told me that his folks dearly love his wife. Mr. Sanderson is the man who operates apple orchards in Oregon, and they leave for home on Saturday, on the “Ventura.” ... At 7:40 in the evening we resumed The Traveler’s Trot, and departed by train for Melbourne, 585 miles. The railroad is standard gauge, and the sleeper very good. As usual, we found the train crowded. Melbourne is almost as large as Sydney, yet there is but one railroad between the two cities, and this runs but one train a day: a train in three sections, leaving at 7:40, 8 and 9:30 P.M. Between Kansas City and Chicago there are at least five direct lines, and each line runs numerous through trains daily: morning, noon, and night. The government lines do not pay as high wages as our privately owned lines. The train on which I traveled between Sydney and Melbourne is the best in Australia; it may be compared with the Pennsylvania Limited between Chicago and New York. The conductor, or guard, received $3 a day. The engineer received $3.75 a day, and the fireman $1.75. Engineers on freight trains here receive as low as $3 a day. The wages of similar employees in the United States are certainly double.... The train made good time, and I slept better than I usually sleep in a sleeping-car. The sleeper was not gaudy and heavy like a Pullman, but it did very well. The only attendant was a white man, who made up the beds as well as took the tickets. The sleeping-car fare from 8 P.M. to 7 A.M. (when we changed to cars of another gauge), was $2.50. The charge for a similar service in the United States is universally $2. The train fare was about two and a half cents a mile; in Kansas, the universal charge for first-class passengers is two cents a mile. The time was rather fast, but as the cars were light, the train was noisy and unsteady. The people in Australia are more accustomed to Americans than are New Zealanders, and we do not attract so much attention, but they immediately spot us as Americans. I have never in my life, anywhere, met as many polite people as I have met here and in New Zealand; I believe I have said this before, but I wish to repeat and emphasize the statement.... I think I detect a slight difference between New Zealand and Australia: the last named is more prosperous, and does everything a little better. Australians have a little of the swagger and strut you detect in Chicago people, whereas New Zealanders are as modest as people living in St. Louis, or any other less prosperous and enterprising city.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7.—In the wash-room of the sleeping-car, early this morning, I met an American, a Boston man, who has been a gentleman farmer in Australia for twelve years. He told me he owned 52,000 acres of land, and that whereas he came here with nothing twelve years ago, he would not take a million and a half dollars for what he owns now. He originally visited the country on business, thought he detected great possibilities, and came here to live. He didn’t know corn from barley when he began, but applied business rules to farming, and has succeeded. I expressed surprise as to his large land-holding, whereupon he told me that in the interior there are sheep farms five hundred miles square, or as big as the state of Kansas. This land is leased from the government at a penny an acre. Artesian wells three thousand feet deep are being bored, and these wells are greatly improving the arid districts. There are plenty of stock farms in Australia 150 to 200 miles square.... The Boston man pays a good deal of attention to dairying, although he is interested in all branches of farming: fruit, vegetables, grain, stock, etc., and employs 280 men. Farm wages are lower here, judging from what he told me, than in the United States. He has no renters on his land; he calls that “the lazy, shiftless way.” He says the people here do not know the meaning of hard work; that they work only five days a week, and have very short hours, whereas he has always worked long hours every day; and it agrees with him, for he is stout, and looks exactly like a prosperous business man. He owns thousands of sheep and cattle; and if I did not make an error in my notes, he told me he made $175,000 from his land last year. I remember the statement particularly because he had just been telling me about an income tax lately imposed, and which hit him hard. One tract of his land, 2,500 acres, cost him $150,000, counting an irrigation plant which he built; but lately he refused $225,000 for it. He predicts that as soon as Americans find out the opportunities for making money here, they will come in flocks. He told me of one piece of land that is worth $400 an acre, and which has been producing corn at the rate of 100 bushels per acre for sixty-five years, without manuring. This is choice land in a choice district, and perhaps the statement is exaggerated, as we exaggerate when we talk of forty bushels of wheat per acre, or seventy of corn. The country through which we were passing looked very dry, but the American said it was good land; the famous chocolate land of Australia, so named because the soil has a reddish cast. “We have been having a drouth for two months,” he said, “and the dry weather is good for the land.” He talked a good deal about “sour” and “sweet” soil. I said the expressions were new to me, and my companion laughingly replied that he was forgetting all he ever knew about America; he made me think of an Englishman who had traveled a good deal in America, and had the rough edges worn off. At several of the stations through which we passed we saw a great deal of wheat piled on the ground, in three-bushel sacks. We also saw numerous twelve-ox teams along the country roads, hauling sacked wheat to market. Wheat is harvested here in a fashion which seems better than our way. A machine slightly larger than our harvester is used. This machine pulls the heads off the wheat, and threshes them; the grain is then put into sacks, and dumped on the ground, as our harvesters dump the twine-bound sheaves. A number of Australian gentlemen farmers had joined the conversation by this time, and they all assured me that such a thing as a thresher is almost unknown here. Asked where the machine came from that harvested and threshed the wheat in one operation, they said they were supplied by the International Harvester Co., of America; also, by an English company. I was compelled to confess I had never seen such a machine, or heard of one. Along the road I saw numerous wheat-fields which had evidently been treated in the manner indicated; the grain heads had been frayed off, and the stalks left standing, for sheep pasturage. The gentlemen farmers told me of one man who had tried a new experiment in wheat-raising. He cleared his land, but did not break, or plow it, as we say; instead, he drilled in his wheat on the unbroken land, and followed the drill with some sort of farm implement which slightly covered the seed; possibly it was a harrow—I did not quite understand the term used. The season was exceptionally favorable, and the wheat made an average of thirteen bushels per acre. The land on which the experiment was tried was worth about $25 an acre. The rainfall here varies from six to sixty inches, but the heavy rainfall usually comes in torrents, when it is not needed. In the center of the country, at points farthest from the coast, there is almost no rain at all. We were passing through what is possibly the best section of Australia, and it looked very dry to me; I saw almost no rivers or creeks. It reminded me of India, or Colorado, or California, but my traveling acquaintances said: “Ah, yes; it looks dry now, after two months of drouth, but when the rain comes it will look as green as your country.” I said: “It is evident that you run fewer sheep per acre here than in New Zealand.” They admitted it, but said the volcanic soil of New Zealand was much inferior to the chocolate soil of Australia; New Zealand has more rain than Australia, but not as good a soil, a fact I had myself noticed.... Wheat piled on the ground in sacks, seemed very shiftless to me. I saw no grain elevators, such as we have, and when the wheat is shipped, it is loaded in open box cars; no protection from the weather. But in spite of many evidences of a dry country, you see many evidences of prosperity here, too. Australia is almost as big as the United States, but has only five million people; it doesn’t need to feed a dozen sheep per acre. I also heard much of irrigation projects, and the country seems to be booming.... At 8 A.M. we changed to another train; to a railroad with a gauge of five feet three inches. The standard gauge of the world is four feet eight and a half inches; the usual narrow-gauge is three feet six inches. The train on the broad-gauge—5 feet 3 inches—had a diner, but we could not get in, so we ate breakfast at a railway restaurant. The broad-gauge train also had a parlor car, in which we had reserved seats, and were very comfortable. We stopped every two or three hours, to permit the passengers to drink tea. The train was a fine one, but it could not be compared with our best trains, and was badly crowded, as is the usual custom over here in all public places. At ten minutes after one in the afternoon, we reached Melbourne.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8.—At Sydney, we had heard of 107 in the shade at Melbourne, but found the weather very pleasant. In a very gentlemanly sort of way, Melbourne and Sydney are jealous of each other. They are of about the same size, with Sydney in the lead, and forging ahead rapidly; but Melbourne has the capital, and this is a bone of contention. To get rid of it, there is a plan to build a capital in the interior, as we built Washington to patch up the quarrel between cities anxious for the national capital. But Melbourne will indefinitely delay building a capital city in the sage-brush of the interior; I have heard this guess made many times.... I have been particularly pleased with the hotels in Australia and New Zealand, and am inclined to believe that Menzie’s, in Melbourne, is the best of the lot. I have a telephone in my room, and a big wide bed, and the meals are surprisingly good. The price is $3.60 per day, including everything. I was recently at the Sherman House, in Chicago, and paid $3.50 per day for a room. What we call “the European plan” is almost unknown at hotels here.... Melbourne is a better town than I expected to find it. Its citizens admit that Sydney is larger, and growing more rapidly; indeed, I have heard them say Sydney will continue to grow more rapidly, as it has a better country around it. But Melbourne is a beautiful city, and Sydney has nothing to match its St. Kilda Road. This is a great driveway leading from the city to a sort of Coney Island. This driveway is lined with flowers, green grass and beautiful homes. And I did not see a bathing-beach in Sydney as handsome as St. Kilda beach. Melbourne has wider streets than Sydney, and seems to be more modern. “Don’t you think,” one man asked me, “that Melbourne is more like one of your American cities than Sydney?” The people here are as familiar as the people of New Zealand with the fact that we are Americans, but they see more Americans, and are not so much interested in them. Every man I talk with reminds me that I am an American; always politely. I went yesterday to see about my baggage. “Don’t you find our system almost identical with yours in the United States?” the very agreeable and accommodating baggage agent asked. And the system of handling baggage here is the same as our system.... I think the people of Melbourne are sick and tired hearing of Sydney’s beautiful harbor; particularly as Melbourne’s harbor is not very large. There is a great bay here, but it is not a harbor; it is almost as much of an open roadstead as Manila bay.... Melbourne has cable cars, but the system was not adopted because of hills, for the city is almost flat. I enjoyed riding again in the front end of a grip-car, as I used to do in the old days in Kansas City. On one line, the fare is six cents per passenger for riding the shortest distance. I saw one short electric line; also, one horse-car line.... Years ago, the boomers declared that Melbourne needed a Convention hall, and one was finally built, after every citizen had been bored for a contribution, and soundly abused because he did not give more. Now the boomers are kept busy to find use for the hall. This month it is the scene of a Manufacturers’ exhibition, and I saw a good many interesting things there yesterday afternoon. There is an aquarium in connection; and at this place I saw the most interesting thing I have seen since leaving home—a monkey mother with a baby four or five weeks old. Monkeys always interest me, but this monkey with a baby was so much like a human mother that I watched her half an hour. The monkey baby was not well, and the mother watched over it precisely as a human mother would have done. Occasionally the baby played with its toes, as you have seen human babies do. The mother gave all her attention to the baby; she did not neglect it for a moment. There is a human quality about monkeys that always attracts me. One I saw this morning at the zoölogical garden was an old chap, and he was frowsy and irritable, as old men are, and the younger ones were afraid of him, and scampered out of his way.... We are still meeting “Sonoma” passengers; we encountered one at this hotel last night—a Mr. Smart, a London publisher. Another passenger on the “Sonoma” is a newspaper man here, but we have not yet seen him. ... The eggs used at Menzie’s hotel are labeled. The two I had for breakfast were marked with a rubber stamp in this fashion: “A. J. Paine, The Sisters, Teremo; February 6, 1913.” ... This morning, while at St. Kilda beach, we looked at the many ships in Port Melbourne, and distinguished a big blue funnel. It belonged to the “Anchises,” of the Blue Funnel line, and we will live on it for three weeks, beginning next Wednesday. It started from Sydney a week ago, but we will join it at Adelaide, for which city it sails tonight.... I was talking today with an intelligent Australian, and he says that in three or four years the cost of living here has increased one-fourth, owing to the advancing prices for labor.... In both Sydney and Melbourne, I found crowds around employment agencies. This surprised me; I thought every man who wanted work here, had it.... In coming from Sydney by rail, we saw hundreds of piano-boxes along the way. Each box contained an advertisement for the Steck piano. It was a new use for empty piano-boxes.... Here, when a doctor charges a big fee for an operation, the newspapers make a fuss about it. The Sydney papers were full of a sensation of this kind the day I left there. It is a fashion that might be copied by American papers; great outrages are perpetrated by some doctors in the United States, and nothing is said about it.... I have heard a great deal about rabbits in Australia; they are said to be so numerous as to be a curse. Still, while riding through the country yesterday on a railroad train, I saw two boys out hunting. One of them had three rabbits, and the other had four. Considering the rabbit stories I have heard, I thought the number quite modest. At another place, I saw a boy out hunting, and he had but one rabbit. Australia looks about as I expected it to look, except the rabbits.... At the zoölogical garden in Melbourne, there is an exhibit labeled: “American Cats.” And that’s exactly what they are: plain cats, such as you see around any American home.... At 4:15 we drove to the station, and a quarter of an hour later left for Adelaide, capital of South Australia; distance, 508 miles. The train is a better one than that running between Sydney and Melbourne, and we were told that the sleeper in which we had engaged berths would go through. The railroad is owned by the government, and the gauge is five feet three inches; eight and a half inches wider than our standard gauge. But the cars do not seem wider than ours, and certainly they were not so heavy. The rails were also light, although the train made good time. There was a dining-car attached, and at 6 o’clock we had an excellent dinner, at 96 cents each. There were only four others in the dining-car, and we had compartments to ourselves in the sleeping-car. The compartments are for two, but travel here is always light Saturday night, I am told. With a room to myself, I began almost having a good time, particularly as I have become accustomed to the pronunciations of the people, and they no longer distress me. On the dining-car bill of fare, this was printed: “Waiters are not permitted to accept tips, on pain of dismissal.” But when I offered our waiter a tip, he ran the risk of dismissal, and took it.... The trainmen told me that they are often compelled to work sixteen hours a day, and that they receive a shilling an hour: that is, for a day of sixteen hours, $3.84. Government ownership of railways is certainly a mistake, so far as the men are concerned. The government can bluff employees easier than a private employer.... I shall always remember the town of Ballarat, the largest interior town in Australia, with a population of 40,000. It was at this town that I lost my luck, and a man was assigned to my compartment. But Adelaide’s luck continued, and she had a compartment to herself all the way. In addition to having towns named for her, she is lucky in other ways. I never have towns named for me; you never heard of a town named Ed., did you? ... We passed through one section of country which seemed to be noted for potato-growing. I remember we reached it after climbing a mountain of considerable height, and the potato-fields continued many miles. This must be the best section of Australia, since the railroad did not run more than thirty to sixty miles from the sea, which supplies the few rains Australia has. But the country looked very dry, and the soil thin.... We see no barns on the farms; in the United States, travelers remark that the barns are often huge, and the residences pitifully small. Possibly one explanation is that stock run out all winter here; it is not necessary to house them, or winter-feed. But the fact remains that Australia has no country like the best parts of Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Ohio, or a dozen other states that might be mentioned. Australia somehow reminds me of California, where an exceptionally clever people have made a great deal out of a semi-arid country. The farmers I know pay little attention to agricultural reports. The Australian farmers do, and greedily devour everything printed that concerns their business.... The dining-car in which we ate dinner has two sections: first and second-class. We paid four shillings for dinner, and the second-class passengers paid two.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9.—When I awoke this morning, the train was running rapidly through the bleakest country I have seen in Australia or New Zealand. This is the land settlers are encouraged to “take up,” and improve. It did not look to be worth ten dollars a quarter-section, but occasionally I saw a settler’s cabin. A trainman told me that the original settler rarely did well, but that the man who bought him out for almost nothing, often did quite well. Suddenly we came in sight of the Murray river, the only considerable stream in Australia, and navigable for small boats a thousand miles above where I saw it. Soon after, we crossed the river at a little town, and stopped for breakfast. From the railroad bridge I saw several steamboats, and rather extensive facilities for loading and unloading freight.... Remember that in passing through the bleak, dry country referred to above, we were not fifty miles from the sea, and that the rainfall decreases toward the interior of the country.... This morning we began seeing plenty of rabbits; many times, forty or fifty were in view at the same time, and we are now satisfied.... A gentleman on the train who lives in the Fiji Islands, says that not long ago there, more than thirty-six inches of rain fell in one day; the government rain-gauge records thirty-six inches, but this filled, and ran over. It is a pity that the industrious Australians cannot have some of the rain that goes to waste in the Fiji Islands, where the inhabitants are shiftless.... Our first view of Adelaide was from a mountain, where the railroad runs. It is a city of 180,000, the capital of South Australia, and located on an extensive plain, between the sea and the mountain. Adelaide is not located on the sea, as I had imagined; its shipping is done at Port Adelaide, twelve miles away. We reached the city at 10 A. M., and went to the Grand Central Hotel, a large, new place, but we were almost the only guests; at one time, we saw only two others in the dining-room, and never more than fifteen. The dining-room is very large and very fine, and a good orchestra plays for dinner, but there are almost no guests. On our floor we see no one; we have it to ourselves. We like the quiet, but the proprietor of the hotel must be suffering. We asked a waiter for an explanation, and he said Saturday, Sunday and Monday are usually quiet days. The town is much like the hotel; it is not crowded. Here, as elsewhere in Australia and New Zealand, the people are exceptionally polite. We were standing on the street this afternoon, somewhat confused about the proper car to take, when a policeman stepped up and asked if he could do anything for us. I do not know where the people learned their exceptional politeness; they certainly did not learn it from the mother country, England.... In this dry country, people like to hover around the words “river” and “creek.” In a morning paper, I looked at a list of towns, and the first three were Tennant’s Creek, Brock’s Creek, and Powell’s Creek.... The newspapers here are very prosperous, as they are lately all over the world. Their great prosperity, I am told, has come within the past twenty years, and that is true everywhere. One Adelaide paper prints a department entitled: “Fifty Years Ago,” a brief résumé of events half a century old. One item reads: “A special harvest holiday train will leave Kapunda for Adelaide on Thursday, on account of the Agricultural Society’s exhibition,” etc.; so it seems that Adelaide is not at all youthful.... An advertisement in the morning paper read: “Wanted—Position by bird scorer.” ... Over here, the word Trust, which we despise, is used without the slightest delicacy. The street-railway company is unblushingly called the Tramway Trust in its own announcements. And just now there is some excitement because the Tramway Trust, in a disagreement with its employees, refused to accept arbitration. All the papers are full of labor-trouble news. It seems to me that in the United States we do not hear half as much about labor disturbances as we hear here. Every workingman who is not on strike, is discussing one, with a view of forcing another increase in wages. But labor rioting is not as frequent or serious here as in the United States; there are practically no “scabs” to assault—it is a rare thing to find a working man or woman who does not belong to a union.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10.—No country in the world makes more of parks, gardens and hospitals than Australia. And probably no other country makes as much of the Salvation Army. About the first thing I saw on my arrival in Adelaide was a street meeting of the Salvation Army, a feature of which was a good brass band of forty men. Two other things travelers from the United States will notice here: drouth and prosperity. I have seen no poor people; no evidence of poverty—yet how dry the weather is! In the section of country where I live, we have had two very dry summers in the past thirty-five years; but during those summers the country did not look as parched as the country looks everywhere in Australia.... About the only vegetables we get at the hotels here are potatoes, cabbage, and canned beans. Tomatoes are served occasionally, but they are smaller than those we get at home, and not so good. On the streets, we see many carts selling fruit, including strawberries.... The city of Adelaide and the young lady in whose honor it was named, are very much alike in one particular; both are very quiet. We see no crowds here: we had plenty of room on the train coming here, we have plenty of room in the hotel, and we have plenty of room on the streets when we ride or walk about. This afternoon we went riding in an automobile, and everywhere we found it quiet and dusty. There are no crowds on the street-cars; and it may be mentioned incidentally that the street-railway system of Adelaide could not be more complete than it is. One may go to any nook or corner of the city in a clean electric car, and one line runs to a seaside resort, a distance of eight or nine miles.

Fare, ten cents. All the cities in Australia have better street-railway accommodations than the country has steam-railway accommodations; it seems to me that the steam railways are not as numerous or efficient as the country demands, whereas I have everywhere remarked the excellence of street-railways.... In the United States, the privately owned railways cross the country from north to south, and from east to west, but the government-owned railways have not done as much for Australia. Comparing Australia with the United States, there is no railway across the continent, whereas we have five or six systems; nor is there a railway here crossing the continent from north to south. The Australian railways fringe the populous coast for a distance of fourteen or fifteen hundred miles; they take few risks, and do not attempt to make fruitful districts out of arid districts, as do the privately owned railways in the United States. Our railways have done more to develop the country than the government has done. Nor do the government-owned railways in Australia move perishable freight more promptly: at many stations along the road from Sydney to Adelaide, I heard complaints because the railway company did not provide cars in which to ship wheat piled on the ground. And when a car is provided, it is a small open flat-car, and does not hold much more than a big wagon. So far as I have been able to make out, railway rates are a little higher here than in the United States, and the service very much poorer.... We think we notice that women are rather better dressed in Australia than in New Zealand, and possibly a little better looking.... In every hotel dining-room here, we are always given ice-water; the waiters have heard that Americans like it.

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.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15.—People living in a dry country a long way from the sea do not realize that it covers three-quarters of the surface of the earth. Ninety-six per cent of the water in the ocean is pure fresh water, yet so great is the bulk of sea-water that the total amount of salt dissolved in it, if deposited in a layer over the surface of the land, would make a bed over four hundred feet thick.... No one is able to say what is the source of the salt in the ocean. Probably the sea has always been salt, having become so when first the waters gathered on the surface of the globe; but all rivers that flow over the land carry salt, which they have obtained from the rocks and soil, so the sea is probably becoming saltier all the time, just as some lakes without outlet are being transformed to salt seas.... Off the coast of Australia for fifty or a hundred miles, the sea is two hundred to four hundred feet deep, but the depth grows greater as you leave the land, and between Australia and Africa, in places, the depth is more than five and a half miles, being greater than the elevation of the highest land above the sea-level. It has been calculated that the average depth of the ocean is more than 12,000 feet. The plains of the ocean bottom are the most extensive in the world. Here and there these plains are relieved by single peaks, like Bermuda, or groups of peaks, like the Hawaiian Islands.... On the bottom of the ocean there is a constant rain of sediment, formed by the death of animals which have taken carbonate of lime from the waters, and built it into shells and skeletons, which, when they die, falls to the sea bottom. The sea-bed is made of an ooze chiefly composed of remnants of these shells.... The cause of waves is friction of the wind. Waves rarely rise more than twenty or thirty feet; waves sixty feet high have been noted, counting from the lowest point of the trough to the highest point of the crest, but this is very unusual. A wave of large dimensions affects the sea to a depth of two or three hundred feet, and may last for a long time after its cause has disappeared; travelers in ships often run into a rough sea when the sun is shining brightly, and there is no wind. These big waves also cause destruction on the beaches, and the shore-line is always being worn away.... In most parts of the earth, the tide rises twice each day; every twelve hours and twenty-five minutes there is a high tide, with a low tide between. At Key West the tide rises only two or three feet; in some other places the tide rises sixty feet, and comes in as fast as a man can run. It is believed that in some way the tide is caused by the moon.... The sea is more interesting than the surface of the earth, but its story is scarcely intelligible to those who have not been trained in the alphabet of zoölogical technicalities. I read a book today about the sea, and have a headache from trying to understand it. All our rain comes from the ocean; it is said that the evaporation of the Red Sea amounts to eight feet per year, owing to the great heat of the countries surrounding it. One of the most important facts that has been established by modern investigation of the sea is, that there is no region in its vast extent that is devoid of life. Strange animals are found at the greatest depth the trawls of man have penetrated, and very wonderful are some of the forms of life found. The three great laws of nature are self-protection, food, and reproduction, and here the sea has wonderful tales to tell. Some sea animals reproduce by simply dropping a piece of their body, and other forms of marine life are so low that we can barely understand that it is life. There is a fish which hides from enemies by shaking its fins in such a manner as to scatter a considerable quantity of sand over its body. Another fish poisons its enemies; another gives a strong electric shock. Many fish are colored like the bottom of the sea, to escape their enemies; others resemble sea-weeds. And the sea is a vast slaughter-house; fish feed upon one another, and constant warfare is going on. The whelk attacks and devours animals as large as itself; hidden in the recesses of the whelk’s mouth there is a ribbon beset with numerous sharp little teeth, which, by a complicated mechanism, can be worked backwards and forwards in such a manner that it can bore a hole through very thick and dense shells; and, the soft parts being reached, a tube is protruded which dissolves and sucks them up into the animal’s stomach. Certain of the cuttle-fishes, as they pass slowly through the water from one point to another, are able to change the color of the skin so as to resemble the color of the rocks or weeds which are below them. Another very interesting feature presented by these animals is their ability to discharge suddenly a cloud of inky substance into the water, and are thus able to escape pursuit.... The corals are so numerous that they build great islands, very much as bees construct honeycomb. Some of these coral reefs are highly colored; when seen from a boat through two or three feet of water, they look more like a flower-bed than a mass of animals. The corals are so abundant that rocky islands hundreds of miles in extent are composed of their shells and skeletons.... You have heard of the phosphorescent light often seen on the surface of the sea. This light is caused by millions of little animals which emit a light, and they are so numerous that it is frequently possible to read at midnight on the deck of a ship. The same little animals may be seen in the water of your bath, if taken on shipboard at night.... On certain parts of the coast of the Samoan Islands, where we were a few weeks ago, the Palolo worm appears in great abundance in the early morning hours of one or two days at the beginning of the third quarter of the moon, in the months of October and November. As the worm is regarded as a very great delicacy by the natives, the days of its appearance are looked upon as the red-letter days of the year. It appears just at the beginning of dawn, in countless millions, on a date which may be accurately foretold by those familiar with the moon’s phases. As soon as the sun appears, the millions of worms disappear, and are not heard of again until another year.... There are fish that fly, as every traveler by sea can attest, and it is to avoid the bonito that the flying-fish leave the water. The bonito is able to leap fifteen feet into the air, which ability it acquired in pursuing its favorite food....

The largest existing animal, the blue whale, is found in the sea, and it attains the enormous length of eighty-six feet. Although living in the sea, the blue whales are air-breathers. They are able, however, to hold their breath for a considerable time under water. When they come to the surface to renew the air supply in their lungs, they first make a violent expiratory effort from the nostril, and drive a column of spray many feet into the air above them. This phenomenon is called “spouting,” and whalers are thus able to locate the animals. The skin of whales is often beset with barnacles, some species of which are found nowhere else but on these mammals. Parasitism is very common in the sea, and sometimes as many as four animals are found dependent on each other.... Some sea-water animals can only be induced to live in the aquarium when the water is kept as pure as it is in the open sea; on the other hand, several of the crustacea seem to flourish best in stinking and putrescent pools.... It is a fact generally accepted by learned men, that all animals are originally derived from ancestors that lived in the sea. In the birds and reptiles, as well as in the mammals, many things clearly indicate that their ancestors in remote periods, lived in water, and not on dry land. And when we consult the botanists, and find that they agree that all plants must have had a marine origin also, the case for the sea being the original home of all living organisms may be said to be complete.... We cannot tell in what form life first appeared upon the earth. Whether the unstable living substance called protoplasm was in the earliest conditions of the earth formed spontaneously by the chance combination of its elements, or whether some germ or other made a hazardous journey through space from another planet enwrapped in the casing of a meteorite, are questions upon which no light has yet been thrown by scientific observation or speculation. The majority of scholars believe that life originated at the bottom of shallow waters, or on the surface of the seas. Several naturalists believe that some free-swimming form of jelly-fish was the ancestor, and that from this simple start came, by millions of years of evolution, every living thing.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16.—The tallest man I have ever seen in private life turns out to be a clergyman of the Church of England, and early this morning he conducted holy communion in the music-room, which was attended by about a dozen women. At 11 A.M. he held another service, which attracted twenty-five or thirty. Both services were announced by tolling the dinner-gong like a church-bell. We call the tall man our pastor, and he will seem quite like it after we have been associated with him all the way to Durban. I have spent Sunday on three other ships, but no religious services were held.... Every Englishman, before he has known an American long, refers to the amusing manner in which Americans eat green corn off the cob. I suppose that seeing a room full of Americans eating corn off the cob is a funny sight that only foreigners can appreciate. An Englishman who sits at our table, and who lives at Johannesburg, says roasting-ears are widely grown in South Africa, and that Englishmen there eat them in American fashion. In Australia, I noted that green corn is sold in fruit stores, as a rarity; I never saw it at the vegetable markets, or in the grocery stores. Australian and New Zealand gardeners do not raise the variety of vegetables we have in the United States.... There are fifteen children and a phonograph on board, so we do not lack for noise. The children are better behaved than American children, and under more control; the phonograph is of American make, a Victor, with wooden horn. There are five nurses with the children; one of them is employed by the tall clergyman. American clergymen are not so prosperous, as a rule, that they travel with nurses.... It is so dull on board that last evening the passengers went down to dinner at seven o’clock, and remained at the tables until 8:10. The “Anchises” is introducing an innovation which pleases me: it gives the passengers better rooms, and less to eat. We have plenty, but on some ships there is so much to eat that the passengers are tempted beyond resistance, and eat too much.... We have been passing the western point of Australia today, and the sea has been rough. But the “Anchises” has such a gentlemanly roll that we do not mind it. The ship has ten thousand tons of cargo in its hold, and cannot skip about as do ships lightly loaded. From Adelaide to Albany, the western point of Australia, there is no railroad. The distance is twelve or fourteen hundred miles. Had the government kept out of the railroad business, private capital would have built that gap long ago, and passengers from Australia to South Africa might avoid four days of sea-travel. We followed the ship by rail from Sydney, and would have followed it to Albany, had there been a railroad to that place from Adelaide.... The weather has been chilly, but the latter part of this week we will run into warm weather, which will continue until we reach home. As a result of the raw, chilly weather, and no heat anywhere on the ship, I had a siege with neuralgia, an entirely new experience for me. The only thing to do was to go to bed and cover up well, with a hot-water bag to my jaw. Fortunately I have the best steward I have ever drawn on a ship, and he paid me a good deal of attention.... A young Englishman who sits at our table tells a terrible story of Business. He says that in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he lives, he is often compelled to take thirty drinks a day, or lose trade. I would like to tell him what I think of the statement, but do not care to start a row on board. Any man who says he is forced to drink intoxicants or lose trade, tells a silly falsehood. A drinking man usually admires a man who doesn’t drink. The men who have been most successful in business have not been noted as boozers. But while I didn’t tell the young man what I thought of his statement, an elderly Englishman did. “The Americans,” the elderly Englishman said, “are the smartest business men in the world, and they do not drink as much as we do. And the drinking habit in America is becoming more unpopular every day, and will finally become disreputable.” I have noticed that while most Englishmen “pick” at Americans, they really have a high opinion of them.... I have spent part of the day reading a book entitled, “Around Cape Horn.” It is a common sailor’s experience in sailing from San Francisco to Liverpool. For weeks the ship had terrible weather; it seemed that wreck was inevitable almost every hour of the voyage. I am of the opinion that the writer made the voyage much worse than it really was, in order that he might have a tale that would appeal to publishers. I have spent many weeks at sea, on many ships, but have never experienced any of the rough weather this writer tells about. I have experienced much disagreeable weather at sea, but I have never seen a ship in any danger of swamping. The stories of storms at sea remind me of stories of battles. There will be a perfect rain of shot and shell; pandemonium will reign, and, from the book account, it would seem that not a single man could live to tell the tale. But when the casualties are listed, it is found that only two men were slightly wounded. What a terrific affair the Battle of Manila Bay was! Yet not a single man in Admiral Dewey’s fleet was struck by shot or shell, although the engagement lasted for hours.... The man who has a wife and five children, and two nurses, on board, was talking to me today.

“I suppose you have heard,” he said, “that a young man may marry, and his expenses will be less than before; in short, that two may live on less than one?”

I replied that I had heard the story.

“Well,” he said, “there is nothing in it.”

From noon yesterday until noon today, the ship’s run was only 312 miles. There was once a famous American sailing-ship, the “Red Jacket,” which did a better average than that for ten consecutive days. But it must have had a great run of luck. Sailingships often make less than a hundred miles a day, and, when the wind is very unfavorable, lose in twenty-four hours all they have made in three or four days.... We are followed every day by the albatross: great birds which sail for hours against the wind without moving a wing. The sailors say that the young, after reaching a certain age, and being made very fat, are deserted by their parents, and have nothing to eat for six months. At the end of that time they are able to fly, and seek food for themselves.... In the smoking-room today I heard a man say that every vicious person may be detected by looking at his ears. If the tops of his ears are as low as his eyes, look out for him; he is dangerous.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17.—The manner in which the male passengers on ships drink coffee in the smoking-room, after dinner, has been getting on my nerves; but just as I was working up a fine case of indignation, I found the custom did not prevail on the “Anchises.” On this ship those men who wish coffee after dinner, drink it in the dining-room, and none is served in the smoking-room. You cannot realize how unusual this new rule is unless you have seen the smoking-rooms of many ships filled with men drinking coffee after dinner. I wonder the captain of the “Anchises” dared order the change, but I have not heard any complaints.... Among our acquaintances are a Mr. and Mrs. Steele, of Sydney. Mr. Steele has been married twice, and talks a good deal about his daughter in London, and his son in Philadelphia. Some widowers who have married again, speak of “our” children, while others say “my” children; just as some men who have been married twice are always talking about it, while others keep quiet, and let you find out about their second marriage if you can. I don’t think Mrs. Steele likes the manner in which he talks about his son in Philadelphia, and his daughter in London, preferring that he say “our” son in Philadelphia and “our” daughter in London. Stepchildren also amuse me; they try so hard to show respect for pa’s new wife, or ma’s new husband, and fail so lamentably. There is always something unusual in a second marriage.... This is our sixth full day on the “Anchises.” Had we been on a fast boat on the Atlantic, we should be landing tomorrow. But this is a long trip, and we are only fairly getting started: we shall not land at Durban until a week from next Monday. Those who came on at Sydney have already been on board fifteen days, and, if they are going to Liverpool, they still have thirty-two days of it. A gentleman and his wife who are at our table came on board at Melbourne, and they will be on board forty-seven days.... Every woman in Australia and New Zealand wears a bracelet watch; the custom seems to be universal. In the United States women wear watches attached to chains of one shape or another, but here it is a universal custom for women to wear watches set in a bracelet on the left wrist.... I believe this is the dullest trip I have ever undertaken, and almost scream with horror when I realize that I shall not see land for another thirteen days. Fortunately we have not been seasick; the “Anchises” is a wonderfully steady boat. But it is as dull on board as on a back street in a country town. Part of the passengers sit on one side of the main deck and part on the other, while some of them sit on the upper or boat deck. All of us walk about a good deal for exercise, and I think we tire of seeing each other go ’round and ’round. One restless woman is going most of the time, and I often hear the others growl: “If that woman would only sit down!” I fear we shall engage in fist fights before we reach Durban.... Two highly respectable spinsters from Australia have attracted my attention. On deck and in the dining-room they are so well behaved that I marvel at them; but this afternoon they became desperate, and left their side of the deck and came over to our side. And at dinner tonight I saw the bolder one looking about the dining-room, hoping to see something to talk about. If these highly respectable women are becoming reckless at the end of six days, what will they be doing in thirteen days more? ... A Sports Committee was organized today, to Keep Something Going On. But ship games are about as uninteresting as a Salvation Army street service. A subscription was taken up, to raise money with which to buy prizes for the winners of the games, and I heard it hinted that the promoters expect others to do the giving. There was no great demand for Sports, except in the minds of three or four men. It’s a good deal that way on land when a celebration is held, or a new church built, or money raised for a Y. M. C. A. building. I predict that the Sports Committee will not greatly relieve the dullness. One of the games is a special form of cricket arranged for the sea. A regular game of cricket is so dull that some of our most noted humorists have laughed at it, but sea cricket is much worse.... I was talking today with an Englishman who has lived in Australia a long time, and who married an Australian woman. He says it pleases Australians to be told they are like Americans, and it makes them very angry to be told that they are like the English. He confirms what I have noticed everywhere; that Australians and New Zealanders “pick” at the English constantly.... I am beginning to believe I can see a difference between the colonists and the English, although I couldn’t at first. A woman today told me of her troubles with servants in Australia, and her troubles are exactly like those I hear women complain of at home. There are English nurse girls and Australian nurse girls on board, but they do not mix. The English girls wear nurses’ costumes, but the Australian girls say that is beneath their dignity. One of these Australian nurse girls is not more than twenty years old, and has a full set of false teeth. There are many “American dentists” in Australia (one was shot by his office girl in Melbourne while I was there), and I judge they have a great deal to do.