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.