The "Salier," which was one of the German Lloyd line of steamers, sailed
from Port Melbourne at daybreak on the morning of January 8th, 1889, and
before many of us had put in our appearance on deck, although we were
awakened long before by the cries of the sailors and the usual noise and
bustle that precedes the departure of a steamer from her dock in all
parts of the world. Long before we had left Port Melbourne out of sight,
however, we had assembled at the rail to wave our last adieus to the
many friends who had come down from Melbourne to see us off. The
"Salier" was a delightful vessel and one that was most comfortably
equipped, as are all of the vessels of this line, and the quarter deck,
with its open-windowed smoking and card-rooms, soon became the chosen
lounging place of the boys by day and the sleeping place of many of them
by night, they preferring to don pajamas anti sleep in the easy steamer
chairs rather than to seek the seclusion of the staterooms, which, as a
rule, were hot and sultry. Captain Tallenhorst, who commanded the
"Salier," was a fine fellow, and both he and his officers were inclined
to do pleasant one, and a pleasant one indeed it proved.
In the steerage we carried a mixed lot of emigrants from all sections of
the world, among them being Chinamen, Hindoos, Turks, Cingalese,
Italians and Germans, and to walk through their quarters and listen to
the strange languages that they spoke was to get a very good idea of the
confusion that must have reigned when the building of the tower of Babel
was in progress, and gave us at the same time a chance to study some of
the manners and customs of a people that were strange to us.
The meals that were served on board the "Salier" were an improvement on
those of the "Alameda," though we had found no fault with those given us
on the latter, but there was one drawback to our enjoyment of them,
however, and that was that the waiters spoke nothing but German, and
consequently those of us who were unfamiliar with the language had some
difficulty in making ourselves understood, our efforts to make known our
wants by the sign language often resulting in ludicrous blunders. Fred
Pfeffer was right at home, however, and as a result he managed to get
the best there was going, the waiters evidently mistaking him for
nothing less than a German Count, judging from the alacrity with which
they flew about to execute his orders. We had been out but a few short
hours before we began to miss Frank Lincoln, whose never-failing fund of
humor had helped to while away many an hour and who had bid us farewell
at Melbourne, having decided to remain for some little time in
Australia. Among our fellow-passengers in the cabin were a couple of
civil engineers from England, who had been making a tour of Australia,
and very pleasant companions they proved to be; a Melbourne lady who was
taking her two little daughters to Germany to be educated; and last but
not least in his own estimation, if not in that of others, a Mr.
Theophilus Green, a loud-mouthed, bald-headed, red-faced and portly
gentleman of middle age, who, according to his own story, was possessed
of unlimited funds, a desire to travel, and an inclination to pass
himself off wherever he might happen to be as a representative American,
God save the mark! Mr. Green journeyed with our party as far as Suez,
and when he left us the long-drawn sigh of relief that went up from all
hands was like unto the rushing sound that is caused by the passage of a
hurricane over the surface of the waters.
Among the second cabin passengers were two stalwart Australians who were
bound for Zanzibar, Africa, and who meant to penetrate into the interior
of that wild country in search of big game. They were well equipped with
firearms, of the most improved designs, and unlimited quantities of
ammunition, and had the appearance of men who were perfectly capable of
taking care of themselves in any country, no odds how wild and
uncivilized it might be. They accompanied us as far as Aden, where they
left us, taking with them our best wishes for their success and safe
return.
The second night after leaving Port Melbourne we stopped at Port
Adelaide, a little seaport seven miles distant from Adelaide, where we
remained until two o'clock the next afternoon to take on a cargo of
Australian wool. This was a hot town, at least to look at, the streets
being dusty and devoid of shade trees of any kind, and the buildings of
a low and inferior description. We had considerable sport while laying
there fishing from the rail of the steamer and watching a big shark that
came nosing around the stern of the boat in search of food. After he
swam away for some distance some of the boys amused themselves by
shooting at him with their revolvers, but if they succeeded in hitting
him, of which I have my doubts, his sharkship gave no sign of being in
trouble and pursued the even tenor of his way until he was lost to
sight.
For days after we left Port Adelaide the weather was of the most
disagreeable variety, the sky being overcast by clouds of a leaden hue
while the huge waves were lashed into foam by the wind, and this,
together with a heavy ground swell, gave to the steamer a most
uncomfortable motion. This sort of affair was too much for my wife, and
also for the other ladies in the party, with the exception of Mrs.
Williamson, who proved to be a good sailor, and they remained in their
staterooms. I had thought that I, too, was an immune, not having been
sick since we left San Francisco, but the motion of the boat proved to
be too much even for me, and I was forced to pay common tribute to
Neptune that the King of the Seas is wont to exact from most
land-lubbers. Tener and Fred Pfeffer were about the only ball players
that escaped, and that Pfeffer did so I shall always insist was due to
the fact that he could speak German and so got all the good things to
eat that he wanted, while the rest of us, not being so fortunate, were
obliged to put up with what we could get. Even Daly and Fogarty were
obliged to keep quiet for a time, and this was something of a relief to
the more sober members of the party. One afternoon after the last-named
gentleman had begun to feel a little better he called to a passing
waiter and asked for a cheese sandwich. The Dutchman, doubtless thinking
that he was doing that irrepressible a favor, brought up a big plate of
sauerkraut and steamed bolognas, and the effect of this on the weak
stomachs of those who happened to be in that vicinity can be better
imagined than described. If John Tener had not happened along and
grabbed that waiter by the scruff of the neck and the slack of his
pants, hustling him out of sight, there is no telling what might have
happened, but I am inclined to think that murder might have been done.
After we had left the Australian Bight behind us and entered the Indian
Ocean the seas calmed down and, the weather, which prior to that time
had been cool and uncomfortable, became warm and pleasant. The ladies
were again enabled to join us on deck and with music, cards, books and
conversation the time passed pleasantly enough.
The steerage passengers were to us a never-ending source of amusement
and interest, as we watched them working in their various ways and
listened to their strange and incomprehensible gibberish. An old Hindoo
one day raffled off a richly-embroidered silk pillow at a shilling a
chance, and this, with my usual good luck I won and turned over to Mrs.
Anson for safe keeping.
The Hindoos and Mohammedans on board would eat nothing that they did not
cook themselves, even killed a sheep every few days, when it became
necessary, and carrying their own supply of saucepans and other cooking
utensils. One of the Hindoos, a merchant of Calcutta, who had been ill
from the time that the steamer left Port Adelaide, died when our voyage
was about half over. His body was sewn up in a piece of canvas with a
bar of lead at the foot and laid away in his bunk. It was in vain that
we asked when he was to be buried, as we could get no satisfactory
answer to our queries, but the next night, when the starlight lay like a
silver mantle on the face of the waters, the steamer stopped for a
moment, a splash followed, and the body of the Hindoo sank down into the
dark waters, and in a few days the episode had been forgotten. Such is
life.
Clarence Duval, our colored mascot, had been appreciated on the
"Alameda" at his true value, but on the "Salier" for a time the waiters
seemed to regard him as an Indian Prince, even going so far as to
quarrel as to whom should wait on him. A word from Mr. Spalding
whispered in the ear of the captain worked a change in his standing,
however, and he was set to work during the meal hours pulling the punka
rope which kept the big fans in motion, an occupation that he seemed to
regard as being beneath his dignity, though his protests fell on deaf
ears.
One hot afternoon a mock trial was held in the smoking-room, with
Fogarty as the presiding Judge, and then and there a decree was passed
to the effect that, "in view of the excessively warm weather and through
consideration for the comfort and peace of our entire party, Clarence
Duval, our chocolate-colored mascot, must take a bath."
Now, if there was any one thing more than another that our mascot
detested it was a bath, and the moment that the court's decree was
pronounced he fled to the darkest depths of the steerage in hopes of
escaping the ordeal, but in vain, for he was dragged out of his hiding
place by Pettit, Baldwin and Daly, who, in spite of his cries for mercy,
thrust him beneath a salt water shower and held him there until the tank
was emptied. A madder little coon than he was when released it would be
difficult to find, and arming himself with a base-ball bat he swore that
he would kill his tormentors, and might have done so had not a close
watch been kept over him until his temper had burned itself out and he
had become amenable to reason.
The afternoon of January 22d, as we were lounging about the deck, John
Ward, glancing up from the pages of a book that he was engaged in
reading, happened to catch a glimpse of a sail ahead, and announcing the
fact, there was a rush made by all hands to the steamer's rail in order
to get a good view of the welcome sight, for a strange sail at sea is
always a welcome sight to the voyager. She was under a cloud of canvas
and, as we drew near, with the aid of a glass, we made out her name,
"San Scofield, Brunswick, Me." A moment later the Stars and Stripes were
thrown to the breeze from her masthead and the cheers that went up from
our decks could have been heard two miles away. If there were tears in
the eyes of some of the members of our party as they saw the old flag
gleaming in the sunlight and thought of God's country at that time so
far away, the display of emotion did them no discredit.
We were all astonished one morning by a performance on the part of our
mascot that was not down on the bills, and that might have resulted in
his becoming food for the sharks with which the Indian Ocean abounds had
he not played in the very best of luck.
The performance of Professor Bartholomew had fired the "coon" with a
desire to emulate his example, and he had made a wager with one of the
boys that, using an umbrella for a parachute, he could jump from the
rigging some thirty feet above the deck and land safely on the awning.
It was late one afternoon when half a dozen of the party were sitting
beneath its shade that a dark shadow passed over them followed by a dull
thud on the canvas that made it sag for a foot or more, and a wild
scream of terror followed. Climbing up the rope ladder to where they
could overlook the awning, the boys found the mascot crawling on his
hands and knees toward the rigging and dragging behind him an umbrella
in a badly damaged condition. When Fogarty asked him what he was doing,
he replied, after a long interval of silence, "Just been a practicin',"
after which he informed them that had he landed all right he should have
attempted to win his bet the next morning. One experience of this kind
was enough for him, however, and though the boys begged him to give them
another exhibition of his skill in making the parachute leap, nothing
could induce him to do so.
"Craps," a game introduced by the mascot, soon became more popular in
the card-room than even poker, and the rattle of the bones and the cries
of "Come, seben, come eleben, what's de mattah wid you dice," and other
kindred remarks natural to the game coming from the lips of the
chocolate-colored coon were to be heard at all hours.
The nights during this portion of our trip were especially fine, and we
enjoyed them immensely sitting on deck until the "wee sma' hours"
watching the starlight that turned the surface of the water into a great
field of glistening diamonds, and the silvery wake of the ship, that
stretched away out into the ocean like a track of moonbeams, growing
dimmer and dimmer until it was lost in the darkness that lay beyond.
It was just as the sun peeped above the distant horizon on the morning
of January 25th that we first caught a glimpse of the shores of Elephant
Island, lying just off the coast of Ceylon, and at ten o'clock the
shores of the island of Ceylon itself were full in sight. As we drew
nearer the narrow-bodied proas, the boats of the natives, paddled by
dark-skinned boatmen innocent of clothing came crowding about the
steamer in great numbers, while the white-winged gulls hung above the
vessel in clouds, darting so near to us at times that we could almost
touch them with our hands. Past Point de Galle, with its crumbling walls
of white cement, that made them appear as if they had but recently been
whitewashed, we steamed until we came in sight of Colombo, and stopped
at the entrance of the breakwater to await the arrival of the harbor
master. That gentleman was apparently in no very great hurry and the
hour and a half that we laid there awaiting his pleasure we spent in
looking at the great stone breakwater and the city that lies upon the
open coast, the harbor being an artificial and not a natural one. It was
after four o'clock when the harbor master's boat, manned by half-clad
Cingalese, came alongside, and a short time afterwards we steamed to a
place inside the breakwater and dropped our anchors.
In an incredibly short space of time the steamer was surrounded by boats
of all shapes, sizes and colors, manned by Malays, Cingalese and
Hindoos, clad in all the colors of the rainbow, and all talking and
yelling at the same time. Four little Cingalese boys, the oldest of
which could not have been more than twelve of age, and who paddled a
bamboo canoe around with barrel staves, attracted the most of our
attention. They could swim and dive like otters, and shillings and
sixpences cast into the water they brought up from the bottom, catching
it in many instances before it had found a resting place on the sands.
"Frow it," they would shout, and scarcely had the shining piece of
silver struck the water before they were after it, disappearing from
sight and then coming up with the coveted coin secure in their
possession. The decks were soon swarming with hotel runners,
moneychangers, and tradesmen of various sorts. As yet we were uncertain
as to our destination, and depending upon word that was to have been
left here by our advance agent, Will Lynch.
A drenching rain was falling when Messrs. Spalding and Leigh Lynch went
ashore in search of news, and when Mr. Spalding came back an hour later
he had heard nothing but had arranged for the accommodation of the party
at the Grand Oriental Hotel, and we were soon on our way to the landing
place in steam launches provided for the purpose, still uncertain,
however, as to whether we were to go on in the "Salier" or not.