ACROSS THE PACIFIC.
At 1.30 p.m. the _Australia_ was crowded with a motley throng of
passengers and weeping friends, who were rushing up and down in search
of the cabins they were to occupy, claiming the same by the depositing
of bags and parcels. There was the luggage coming on board, the chief
steward receiving contributions of fresh provisions, a last supply of
water being given, apparently to the hold of the ship, by means of a long
hose on the wharf, and finally at the eleventh hour arrived the mails.
The warning bell rang; the decks were at last cleared; "All ashore!" rang
out. A few parting words from those leaning over the bulwarks to those
on the wharf, a rush of the excited crowd to the end of the pier, and
we were left in little groups standing on the hurricane-deck, looking
suspiciously at each other, in our floating home for the next few weeks.
The _Australia_ looked a noble ship as she steamed through the bay,
coasting slowly round the promontory on which San Francisco lies. The
captain, the officer of the watch, and the pilot were standing on
the bridge, the sun shining on the white sails, the various flags of
departure, of the company, and the Union Jack floating from her masts.
We sailed between the Angel Island and that of Alcatraz, saw the cliff
house, with the waves dashing over the Seal Rocks, looking very desolate
and dreary, surrounded by its burnt, dried-up downs. We passed out
through the "Golden Gates" into the deep blue ocean. Alas! alas! for
those "white horses" and for indifferent sailors. The ship began to roll
more and more; she pitched and tossed helplessly in a short, choppy sea,
and those already faint-hearted and unhappy at parting with friends on
shore lost no time in giving themselves up to _mal de mer_ and--misery.
Needless to say that C. was among the first to succumb.
The table at dinner presented but a dreary series of vacant spaces. An
old lady, a great-grandmother to three generations on board, was the only
one besides myself to put in an appearance. I confess that I could only
just manage to sit through that interminable dinner, and then I too gave
in, and crept into my berth very cold and miserable.
At the first start I think everything on board a ship seems depressing.
You look suspiciously into dingy corners of the cabins, on to the shabby
strip of carpet. The space seems impossibly small for any degree of
comfort; the blue moreen curtains, with their yellow cords, jar upon
the senses; the water you wash in smells of bilge oil; the towels are
marked with plentiful iron-moulds; the washstand is discoloured with much
use; the pillows are more like bolsters; and the last straw seems to be
the printed regulations, hung up in each cabin of the ship rules, which
appear superlatively irksome.
I feel sure nearly all on board would have echoed these sentiments on
that gloomy Sunday succeeding our start, when the tolling of the bell
at 11 a.m. vainly called us to prayer. The next day brought a slight
improvement to some, but the leaden sky and cold wind kept all below in
the saloon. The third day there was encouragement for all. The sun rose
warm and bright, and brought the poor sick creatures, creeping out on
to the decks to sun themselves, looking pale and languid. After this we
settled down into the routine of daily life on board ship, a more regular
one than one could ever hope to pursue on shore.
It was really pleasant day after day sitting on the hurricane-deck, under
the thick double awnings, a hot sun with a cool breeze blowing, dreaming
and idling away many a long hour. It was pure enjoyment to look at a
sky of opaque blue, and at water varying from the purest ultramarine
to the fullest and deepest of indigo dyes. We talk and think of the
"Mediterranean blue" as the typical perfection of colour for sky and
sea, but it paled into insignificance by comparison with this perfectly
heavenly Pacific colour.
We never tired of looking "forward" at the path of foam which we cut
cleanly asunder in those dark-blue depths, throwing it up to either side
of us, or of the green feathery bubbles left aft by the revolutions of
the screw. I have seen in the afternoon the most lovely little rainbows,
just reflected for one minute on the foam of the crest of the wave as
it rose up to break away. Then in the evening, after we had entered the
tropical latitudes, there was always the phosphorescence on the water,
looking like a multitude of glow-worms, appearing and disappearing, and
twinkling under the darkness of the ocean. For the first few days out we
were followed by flights of gulls and albatross, wheeling and circling
around us with their powerful wings, which outstretched measure some four
feet across from tip to tip. But after we had come beyond even their
range, we were left with nothing to look upon but that wonderful circular
line, almost imperceptible, where sea touches sky,--left alone on that
vast expanse of water those ten thousand miles of ocean which were to the
right hand and to the left of us, which lay down below us in a straight
line down, down to the depth of three miles. Then we were made to realize
the extraordinary lonely, yet exalted, feeling that comes over you as
you raise your eyes to the only boundary, the only limit to the sea--the
horizon. Lonely, I say, you must feel because you are the one living
thing "that moves upon the face of the Waters," and exalted because you
know you are feeling to your inmost soul God's most wonderful creation.
We were a little family collected together from all parts of the earth,
thrown together very closely for the time, very soon to be separated
and to go each our own way; all travelling on different errands, for
different reasons--some for business, some for pleasure, some in search
of health, some even in search of love, like the three young ladies we
were bringing over to Sydney to be married! We had the American Consul at
Auckland, Mr. Griffin, on board, step-uncle to Miss Mary Anderson, and
who gave us a most interesting account of his adventures at Tutuila, one
of the group of Navigator Islands, when he was left there virtually a
prisoner for ten months, unable during that time to communicate with his
government. We met at meals, and then dispersed about, so much so that
going up on the decks, and finding them nearly deserted, you wondered
where everybody _did_ go to. In the afternoon, and immediately after
luncheon, there was the sort of quiet and lazy cessation from work that
sometimes comes unconsciously even on shore, when I believe many took a
nap, and then by four there would come a gradual awakening and stirring
up, with a sharp turn and brisk walk before the dressing-bell at 5.30,
and once more the re-assembling for dinner.
We had a particularly nice set of officers; and Captain Guest was
most agreeable and well-informed, very solicitous for the comfort and
amusement of his passengers. We sat one on each side of him, with
Mr. Davidson on my other side, and there was always a good deal of
information flying across me between them. We also all had the advantage
of being waited on partly by "Tonga," his Chinese servant, dressed in
national costume.
All the sailors were Chinese, with English quarter-masters. They make
most efficient, hard-working tars, and are allowed to wear their native
dress, rolling up their pigtails under their skull-caps when at work.
_September 4th._--It was beginning to get rather warm, as we had entered
the Tropic of Cancer.
The captain's patent windsail in the saloon was brought into use with
great success, except on one very hot night, when its canvas sails hung
limp and flabby, and there was absolutely not one breath of wind to swell
it to its usually large dimensions.
We were now within the influence of the trade winds, those hot damp
winds that flow on either side of the Equator within a radius of three
days' steaming. Whilst they lasted we were never dry; we lived in a
perpetual Turkish bath, everything we touched was damp and sticky, the
awning dripped in the early morning or after sundown as if there was a
heavy dew; scissors, razors, knitting-needles, even the very pins in the
pin-cushion became rusted.
_Saturday, September 5th._--A blurred outline against the sky seen since
early morning, growing into the arid island of Molokai, the place of
banishment of six hundred lepers, exiled there to live and die by inches,
was the first island of the Sandwich group which we saw. There are eleven
in all, only six of which are habitable; these are Kauai, Oahu, Molokai,
Lauai, Mani, and Hawaii, which contains the volcano of Kilauea. By the
afternoon we were passing under the lee of the island of Oahu, on which
lies the capital of the group, Honolulu. Oahu has a magnificent outline
of jagged peaks, seared and scored by volcanic action; whose precipices
dark and gloomy run sheer down into the sea, and form at their base a
rocky breakwater against which the sea vainly lashes itself into fury,
rising into the air in a cloud of foam. The promontory called Diamond
Head stands boldly out into the sea, and rising from the centre of the
island is the sharp mountain peak of Pali.
The mouths of extinct craters can be easily traced by the utter
barrenness around, and in sharp contrasts to the lava and scoria are
the rich valleys running up into the interior of the island, where all
grows in tropical luxuriance. There were patches of deep brown on the
mountain sides, alternating with others of yellow-green grass; tall
straggling cocoa-nut palms waving their feathery arms along the shore,
where the intensely blue line of the sea touches the fringe of yellow
sand. In a quiet little cove we distinguished a tall manufacturing
chimney standing in the midst of its sugar-cane plantation, and further
on we passed Waikiki, the favourite watering-place of the Hawaiians, with
its vast cocoa-nut grove growing to the water's edge. Amongst them we
could see a few flat roofs, with the grey palace of the king standing out
prominently. We are going now round the frowning brow of Cape Diamond,
and Honolulu comes in sight. It lies on a very dead level, and is a
long-drawn-out collection of flat-roofed houses, famous for its many
spires.
Mr. McIntyre, the pilot, who for forty years has been bringing ships
along the buoyed course and over the dangers of the coral reef
which surrounds the bay in which Honolulu lies, boarded us from the
flat-bottomed boat, as did all its stalwart native rowers. Inside the
reef we saw an iron tripod that supported a small conical-shaped box;
from this issued forth a troop of little nut-brown native boys, who with
wild whoops plunged into the water and swam towards us, and twisting
about like eels, dived after the dimes we dropped over and brought them
up successfully. Water seems the natural element of the Hawaiians, and
all bathe once if not twice a day, fearless of the sharks who sometimes
penetrate within the reef.
How beautiful are these island coral reefs, bringing forth as they do
and blending within their shallow depths every unsurpassed and heavenly
shade of colour that the ever-varying ocean shows! From the dull purple
line near the shore, and within the bay they pass into a delicate opaque
sea-green, near the coral reef where the line is abruptly broken by
curling circlets of foam, fading away in an indistinct line of sky blue
shaded in the distance to cerulean, and then ultramarine, and dying on
the horizon to the most exquisite sapphire.
Mr. McIntyre having brought us safely into dock, we took a "buggy" to
drive about for the two hours the _Australia_ stayed in port.
Honolulu is a town containing 15,000 inhabitants. With the native
population there is an admixture of Germans and Chinese. The American
element, too, is very strong, and American manners and customs have
strongly influenced the Hawaiians. The roads are of the best macadam,
the town is lighted with gas, there is a public telephone office which
shows how general is the use of that instrument; and fire-plugs testify
to their precautions against fire.
The Parliament House is of stone with handsome colonnades. Before it
stands the gold figure of King Kamehameha I., first king of the Sandwich
Islands, wrapped in the famous "00" mantle. This mantle descended from
generation to generation; it was made from the feathers of a rare black
bird, of the tribe of honey-suckers. Under each wing only two or three
feathers of the required shade were found, so that it took scores of
years to collect the necessary quantity, as the mantle measured some four
feet long and eleven feet wide at the bottom widths when spread out.
The palace, surrounded by high walls, stands in beautiful gardens, as
does also the Palace of Queen Emma. There is a college, and a native
cathedral, built twenty-five years only after the introduction of
Christianity; the English church, as yet only four bare walls, the Queen
Emma Hospital, the prison, the theatre, and a comfortable hotel. But the
gardens, how beautiful they seemed to us--a fairy vision almost--as our
first sight of tropical vegetation--I longed to know the name of each and
every strange bright blossom I saw.
There was the straight broad leaf of the palm, the jagged one of the
banana, the cocoa-nut palm with its straggling arms and brown nuts, the
feathery algeroba, and glossy-leaved mango and monkey pod, the dark-green
koa, and very many others I had never heard of. And these formed the
dark-green background for scarlet bunches of ohias, and the vivid crimson
blossom of the hibiscus, for magnolias, and orange trees, and gardenias,
heliotrope, roses, and honeysuckle, for thickets of mimosa, trailing
passion-flowers and tropical parasites of all kinds.
Women in their native garment, the long, loose flowing skirt, gathered
into a yoke at the shoulders, but unconfined at the waist, bestriding
their horses, floated by, bright with many hues and garlanded with
flowers. Sailor hats were perched on the erection of jet black hair,
shining from the plentiful use of cocoa-nut oil, and their stockingless
feet were encased in elaborately embroidered slippers. It is considered a
beauty for the women to be inordinately fat, and their figures are shown
off to advantage by the loose garment which they wear, and the bright
masses of blue, orange, purple, and green, which are the colours they
particularly affect. The men vie in brightness of colouring by their
neckcloths, and by the garlands of flowers strung together, twisted round
their hats, or worn as a necklace. Some gave us the native salutation as
we passed the soft "aloha," which, literally translated, means "My love
to you." We found the post-office, where we went to mail some letters,
crowded with an eager throng, waiting for the distribution of the post
which we had just brought with us in the _Australia_.
We glanced in at the market, and noticed the pretty custom that they have
of wrapping up the provisions in fresh leaves to be carried away.
I was very anxious to taste the native dish of poi, and our driver said
he would take us to a place where we could get some. He stopped at a
backway leading into a narrow yard, opposite the Chinese quarter, and,
leaving us, he returned in a few minutes asking us into his own house.
There we found spread out on a clean cloth on the floor, a large bowl,
full of a thick pink paste. His woman-folk stood round, and watched us
delightedly as we plunged one finger into the bowl, and after a dexterous
turn of the same, to disconnect the hanging fibres, conveyed it to our
mouths. It seemed to me to have no particular taste. This poi is made
from the root of the taro, which grows in large beds under water, and
only requires boiling to be ready for eating. It is carried about the
streets in calabashes, ready for sale, and is the great national dish,
the chief support of the lower classes, who eat it with tiny raw fish,
easily caught inside the reef.
Kava is another favourite native refreshment which it is customary to
offer to all who cross the threshold, with, alas! but too often evil
results, as it contains very intoxicating properties. It is made from the
root of a shrub which grows to a height of from six to seven feet. After
being cleaned it is well pounded, by the curious means of mastication,
young girls with the whitest teeth being chosen to chew it to a fine
pulp. It is thus prepared for eating, and tastes like a combination of
weak tea with soap-suds.
Our two hours were over, and we returned to the wharf, where we found the
native band playing, consisting of thirty men in white uniform, in honour
of some musical guests who were coming away in the _Australia_. Many
friends came down to see them off, and Herr Remini, the great Hungarian
violinist, came on board, garlanded with wreaths of flowers. They played
a sad plaintive native air, singing alternate verses, with "God save the
Queen," as a compliment to the English, as we drew away from the wharf.
The last notes died away as we crossed the reef and went out to the open
sea.
Our last view of Honolulu was under the soft afternoon light, with the
Punch Bowl towering above and enveloped in a thick cloud of mist, with a
rainbow playing over the gentle darkness of the summit and spanning the
intermediate valley.
After such an unusual excitement on board, it seemed a relief to have the
ship to ourselves again, for the natives had crowded in whilst we were
in harbour, and to go down immediately to dinner as usual.
_Sunday, September 6th._--There was a parade of all the officers and
crew on deck at 10 a.m., the sailors in their clean white suits, and the
officers in blue frock coats; after which we had morning service, the
captain reading the prayers, and the doctor the lessons.
We were able to see the Southern Cross for the first time, with the tail
of the Great Bear above the horizon. The stars have been very beautiful
on some of these still clear nights, but we have lost the moon that we
had at first.
_Thursday, September 12th._--A man in the steerage died yesterday
afternoon of acute rheumatism, aggravated by the damp of the trade winds
during the last few days. He suffered terribly.
I awoke with the tolling of the bell at seven this morning. The body,
sewn up in canvas, and covered with a Union Jack, lay on the deck, and in
the grey of the early dawn a reverend little crowd was collected round
it; the captain, in the centre, reading the service, and the officers
and a few of the passengers standing round. At the words, "We therefore
commit his body to the deep," the sailors, in their white Sunday suits,
lifted the heavily-weighted plank on which the body lay, and it slid over
the side of the ship, falling with a dull thud and splash into the waters.
_Friday, September 13th._--All this time we have been in the Tropic of
Cancer, and now that we are going through that much-dreaded three or
four days of crossing the Equator, we learn that it is not absolutely
necessary to suffer so terribly from the heat. Our deck-cabins being on
the port side, we have always had a pleasant breeze flowing in, night and
day. Having accomplished that great feat of the traveller, "the crossing
of the line," we can never again be troubled with any nonsense about
"Neptune coming on board." We are now entering the Tropic of Capricorn.
There is a sound on board ship which it is always pleasant to hear,--the
bell tolling the hour of the "watches." The day is divided into three
watches of four hours each. The last watch of from 4 to 8 p.m. is divided
into two, and is called the dog watch; it prevents the necessity of one
officer always coming on duty at the same hour every day.
The ship was supposed not to be making satisfactory progress, only
running from 280 to 300 miles a day, notwithstanding a daily consumption
of fifty tons of coal. The officers think her bottom must be foul.
_Sunday, September 14th._--On the 15th day out we again sighted land in
the Navigator or Samoan group, and we passed within a mile of one of the
islands to receive and send off a mail.
This Island looked of unsurpassed beauty. It has an undulating sky-line
with a shore deeply indented by many inland creeks. A curious needle
projection of rocks finishes the land on one side. The brightest tropical
vegetation covered the entire island, finding its foothold on the
shelving rocks that dipped into the sea, marking a brilliant line of foam
along the dark ridge. On a shining white beach in a small bay, a few
extinguisher-topped huts form Tutuila, while a palm grove, and a white
road running through it, can be seen behind.
The greatest excitement prevailed on board, as a large flat-bottomed
boat, impelled by paddles, filled with natives, put off, and came
alongside of us. What magnificent men these Samoans were, with skins
not dusky but a light brown, the lower part of their bodies wonderfully
tattooed in patterns of blue! The Samoans consider it a sign of manhood,
and endure the agony of tatooing unflinchingly whilst still boys. Their
hair was stiffened and wiry, dyed with a preparation of lime to a bright
yellow ochre, that somehow seems quite in keeping with the fresh oily
colour of their skins. Some wore the tail of a bird stuck through it.
Whilst the mails were being delivered over the side to the rowing
boat that came off from a schooner flying the stars and stripes, they
swarmed up the rope ladder, pushing each other off into the water,
vociferating and gesticulating, wildly offering for sale shells, coloured
bead-baskets, battle-axes, and spear-heads of their own manufacture. The
transactions were made under difficult circumstances, they in their boat
bobbing up and down, and we hanging over the side of the ship, or putting
our heads out of the port-holes; but we found that they had a very full
understanding of the "dollar," knew the value of their own articles,
refused to take less, or to resign the object on board till the money
had been handed over. We bought a very cunningly inlaid battle-axe for
"hal-a-dollar."
A line of black shiny rocks at the furthermost point of the island joins
the great conical-shaped Bass Rock to the mainland, through which you
get a peep of the blue ocean, fretted by rocks and narrow channels. One
solitary palm-tree rears a graceful head on one of these rocks. The great
"Bass" is simply covered with a mass of tropical vegetation, with a grove
of palm-trees fringing the top. The parasites and creepers hang over a
dark cave hollowed out under the cliff, through which the waves dash in
and out with a rushing swirl. Some conical-shaped red rocks, standing
out solitary in the ocean, reminded me of those in "Anstey's Cove," at
Torquay. The water round about the shore takes a beautiful aquamarine,
mingling imperceptibly with the darker blue of the sea, so that you
cannot see where it begins or ends.
Coming round the Bass Rock, the view of the other side of the island
opened out, and looking in the distance from the dotted clumps, like one
vast banana plantation, tapering at the far end to a rocky cape. Through
glasses I could see at regular intervals a column of spray shot up high
into the air, through what may have been a "blow-hole," or an opening at
the end of a cave, through which, when the water rushes in, it spouts
with tremendous force; or it may have been only a mighty rock against
which the powerful swell of the Pacific sent up a column of spray.
It is one of the charms of touching at these islands, they leave such an
impression of dim wonderland, such a vision of tropical forests which we
people in imagination with the descriptive pages in books of travel.
Beautiful Tutuila fading already on the horizon as I write. How we longed
to linger on her shores for a time!
_Monday, September 15th._--During the night we have been passing near the
scattered group of the Society Islands. From the course mapped out on the
chart in the companion-way you would think we threaded our way amongst
them, but we did not sight land.
We have a sudden change in the temperature to-day; the thermometer has
fallen from 85° to 74°, the warm breeze is replaced by a cold wind, and
the blue sky by drifting clouds. The sullen rolling waves are again
tipped with white horses. We have left behind us the balmy atmosphere,
and the bright colour of sea and sky on leaving the tropics.
Before night we were having a good tossing, and we held a concert in the
saloon, with the wind playing an accompaniment in the rigging overhead.
Ten pounds were collected for the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society of
Australia.
Some athletic sports had been organized on board, some sack-racing and
ring-tilting for the gentlemen, and quoits and an egg-race (running with
an egg in a spoon) for the ladies. The captain promised a bouquet to the
winner of the latter race, which turned out to be myself, and it was
to be presented on this occasion. There had been great speculation on
board about the production of flowers after being at sea ten days; the
captain would only say it "was growing." The purser brought it in with
some ceremony, a flat bouquet, of a beautiful pale green colour, with a
delicate suspicion of pink stripes. There was a low murmur of admiration
and surprise, and it turned out to be--only a cabbage! A young man of
artistic tastes in the steerage had originated the idea, and coloured it
slightly with cochineal.
_Tuesday, September 16th._--A dull leaden sky, with a heavy swell, the
remains of the gale of yesterday. There is nothing more solemn than to
lie awake on a rough night like last night, feeling the reverberation
of the heavy seas striking the ship broadside. Hearing the creaking and
straining of every plank, feeling the bound the ship gives as she leaps
into the trough of the sea, and is raised again on the breaker. It makes
us think how slight is the framework sustaining some 250 people on an
angry sea, how a leak the size of the little finger would be enough to
sink every one of us on board. We have had another short run, and are
doing no better with a head wind and sea to-day.
_Wednesday, September 17th._--I saw the sun rise this morning, with the
most delicate rose-colour tints, but this was not the most beautiful
part of the sky; it was the lovely form of the clouds, billowy masses,
delicately delineated with pink, shading into the palest salmon colour.
_Thursday, September 18th_, was not for us, as we were crossing the 180th
meridian, that curious phenomenal feature which you meet with in going
round the world. Difficult to understand, well-nigh impossible for the
unscientific to put into words.
"This is _Friday, September 19th_," said a notice on the companion-way,
on what should have been Thursday. We may be in to-morrow, or at latest
the day after. We are nearing our journey's end, and already beginning
to think with dread of the packing and early starts, the constant "move
on," from which we have had such a complete rest. What an interminable
time those three weeks seemed when we left "'Frisco,"--how short they
have really been!
I have been writing for many hours every day, putting into shape and
form all the rough notes and journal of our travels across America, and
I look round with regretful happiness at my little cabin, where I have
spent so many happy hours, sitting before the table (improvised out of
the washing-stand), lurching about on a camp-stool, trying to be steady
enough to write. It is nearly over now, and we are very sorry.
A squall came up very suddenly in the afternoon, and we had a grand storm
for an hour, which still further delayed our progress.
_Saturday, September 20th._--Endless speculations were going on all day
as to what time we should get into Auckland. We were still battling
against a head wind, and the "nine o'clock at night" was changed to
ten, and the ten to a dubious eleven. It seemed impossible to settle to
anything, and we wandered aimlessly about, after packing all in readiness
to land.
At about 4 p.m. land was sighted long before there was any tangible line
on the horizon for the unpractised to see, which grew and grew till there
"was" an outline visible. By dinner-time we were passing under the lee of
a rocky coast, of what we supposed was part of the island of New Zealand,
but which was really the Great outer Barrier, a succession of rocky
islands which protect the coast and harbour.
In the dusk we saw the revolving spark of the lighthouse on Tiri-tiri
Point, some twenty miles away from Auckland, and the blue light of the
pilot's boat quivered on the water in the distance. Soon after we took
him on board. The mails were piled up and crowded the decks ready for
landing.
We became more and more miserable waiting about in uncertainty whether
we were to land that night or not. The great advantage of these mail
steamers is that you know you are going as fast as steam can carry you,
with the bonus awaiting them of 10_l._ for every hour the mails arrive
before contract time; but then, on the other hand, at whatever time of
the day or night the ship arrives in port they only wait to unload cargo,
and then steam off. The general opinion at 11 p.m. seemed to be that
we need _not_ land, as they would unload all night and not leave till
six the next morning. So we went to bed, but not to sleep. There was
a pandemonium of stamping children overhead, a general meeting in the
companion-way outside, a rocket fizzing up into the air, and the cannon
being let off as we entered the harbour. Then as we drew alongside of the
wharf there was the shouting of the flymen, mingling with the general din.
The purser came to tell us we must land. We dressed and put our things
together in the dark, for the lamps had been put out, and then we stood
on the deck and looked despairingly around.
We were landing in a strange country, in an unknown town, we knew not
where to go at this midnight hour, when we heard a voice asking for us,
and Captain Daveney, secretary of the Northern Club, appeared, having
very kindly come down at that late hour on learning the steamer was
signalled. The hotels in Auckland are impossibly bad, and at the instance
of a friend in England he had secured good rooms for us.
What a warm welcome to New Zealand we had after all! The very cabmen
seemed to be expecting us, and whilst one drove to the rooms to give
warning of our arrival, two more conveyed our luggage and ourselves from
the wharf, and the custom-house officials passed us without demur.
There was no time for any good-byes on the steamer, all was darkness
and confusion there, and we were off in a few minutes from the shouting
and struggling on the wharf. Very strange it seemed to be immediately
afterwards driving swiftly through the quiet streets of Auckland by
moonlight, at one o'clock in the morning.
Captain Daveney and I had driven on, leaving C. to follow, and after we
had obtained entrance, at the cost of a broken bell, to one of the low
white houses, I was left to myself in the midst of a midnight stillness.
It gave me quite an "eerie" feeling to see on the tables around in this
far-off land of the Maoris the catalogue of this year's Academy, a photo
of Mary Anderson, and the last new valse. I took up Black's Handbook to
Killarney, and began reading without understanding about the beauties
of Bantry and Glengariff, till the sound of approaching wheels told me
of C.'s arrival. I went out on the steps to meet him, and with the
help of the flyman he brought in the luggage. As we bolted the door the
_Australia_ gave us a parting screech, letting off steam in the wharf far
below us.