The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-29 00:00:00

A VOYAGE TO AUSTRALIA

----
Is thus admirably described by a correspondent
of the Spectator, absurdly signing himself " Wild
Ass" :

Some people who have been to the Antipodes and
back will tell you that a voyage to Australia in a
good sailing ship is a very pleasant way of spend-
ing three months. Seen through the halo of dis-
tance it may seem so ;
certainly it leaves pleasant
and amusing reminiscences behind. But I doubt
if one person in twenty on board our excellent ship
the Mercia, provided as she was with every comfort,
or on board any other ship whatsoever, if cross-
examined during the voyage, would have persisted
that he was thoroughly enjoying it. From the first,
one noticed a resigned, rather than a cheerful look
among the passengers. Even those who at starting
were loudest in their praises of a sea life spoke in
the same breath of finding means, and very slender
means they seem, of relieving its tedium and
monotony.

We left Plymouth in the fag end of a gale. The
second day, just about the place where the London
is supposed to have gone down, a large piece of
timber was floating high out of the water. We
passed within twenty yards of it, and I then saw it
was the keel of a vessel, of three or four hundred
tons, capsised, and drifting bottom upwards. There
was still a good deal of swell, and it would have
been dangerous as well as useless to lower a boat;
so we passed it almost in silence, and in a few
minutes it was out of sight astern.
For a week or so the cuddy, and even the poop,
were almost deserted. By degrees the population
emerged from their cabins like rabbits from their
burrows, to the number of forty or more, so that
there was scarcely room to sit at table. Most of
the passengers are Australians, " old chums," who
who have crossed the Line more than once, and are
going back, either because the east winds of the old
country last too long and are too keen after an
Australian sun; or because they have come to an
end of their holiday. Even among second and
third-class passengers this is so, for the attraction
homewards is still strong, and it is common enough
it seems, for clerks and persons holding mercantile
situations to get a year's leave to go home. One or
two brides there are, not yet Australian, and some
half-dozen English, most of them more or less invalids,
taking the voyage for pure sea air's sake, and hoping
by following the sun across the Line to enjoy
three summers in succession. Six children and a
nurse abide in one stern cabin ; the other has been
fitted up luxuriously and artistically with cushions,
pictures, and loaded book-shelves, by a man who
intends to pass the time in literary retirement in
the bosom of his family. Alas I in the stern there
is motion on the calmest day. Not an hour is it
possible to write or read there without experienc-
ing certain premonitory symptoms necessitating an
adjournment to the fresh air on deck. It is almost
impossible to be alone or to be industrious on board
ship. In the tropics exertion of body or mind is
almost impossible ; your limbs refuse to move, your
eyes to see, and your brains to think. The deck
is strewn all day with slumberingforms. No plank,
no hen-coop redolent of unpleasant odours, is so
hard as to repel sleep. Nor is there often an ex-
citement to arouse us. It is seldom that a sail
is seen, for the course of the homeward is far dis-
tant from that of the outward bound. Twice only
throughout the voyage is land seen, the rough
jagged outline of Madeira and the Desertas, rising
from a smooth sheet of blue and purple water, and
standing out against the glowing colours of the
setting sun ; and in a few days later Palma, hiding
the Peak of Teneriffe. We hope in vain to see
Trinidad oud Tristan de Cunha. There are two
months in which the horizon is straight with a
straightness abhorred on land by nature, such as
even the deserts of Africa do not afford. Can it be
that so much of the globe is always to be a dreary
waste of waters ? Is it all needed to make wind
and rain, and to be a purifier of the land ? or
when earth is overpeopled, until a new creation
spring out of the sea ? At any rate, there is
change of some kind going on. We are unplea-
santly made aware of this by a sudden cessation
of wind, with calms, squalls, and foul wind, off
the Canaries, in what should be the very heart of
the Trade winds—the Trades, whose blast used to
be as steady and uniform as the course of the sun
itself. A great change has occurred, says the
Captain ruefully, even in his time (and he is not
forty), in their regularity. If they go on at this
rate, there may be none at all in a century, and
not Maury himself Can foresee the consequences
of that.

near the
On the other hand, the luck is with us when we
the north than
come to the much dreaded belt of calms, which lies
according to the time of year, but always more to
keep the skyligh
Equator, shifting north and south of it,
detained there for days, and even weeks, drenched
in tropical to the south of it. Often are ships
rain, which makes it necessary to
of every one, except the ducks and geese, which are
for the only +i ts shut, to the great discomfort
time during the voyage released from
their narrow coops, and put in possession of un-
limited water and free range of the poop. For two
or three weeks my thermometer stands at from 80 to
84 deg., not varying perceptibly day or night. In
the upper deck cabins there is plenty of ventilation
—you may make them a race-course of draughts—.
but below it is intolerable. It is unsafe to sleep on
deck at night, for the air is charged with moisture.
Portmanteaux, bags, hats, coats, and boots covers
themselves with furry coats of green and blue mould.
It is not unhealthy, but it is enervating and weari-
some, except for five minutes soon after sunrise,
when in the intervals of washing the decks the hose
is turned upon you, as you stand thinking the warm
air clothing
enough. There is not much to look at
but the flying fish,
as they rise in flocks frightened,
from under the ship's bows, and tumble in again
with a splash a hundred yards off ; and at night the
brilliant phosphorescence which shines in the white
foam in the vessel's wake. For two days amongst
the Madeiras turtles floated by asleep, but they were
too wary to be caught. It was a relief when one
day, south of Trinidad, the air grew suddenly cooler,
the flying fish disappeared, and the first Cape
pigeon, and the first albatross, then Cape geese,
Cape liens, and I know not what other birds, gave
us hope that our voyage was half over, and that in

10 days we would be in the longitude of the Cape.
From hence till land was sighted some of these birds
were always in sight of the ship. Sometimes four
or five albatrosses at once were sweeping about
astern, some of them showing marks of having been
struck with shot. It was useless to shoot at them,
for they would have been lost ; but we caught two
with baited hooks, one measuring nine feet from
wing to wing, and, unmindful of the Ancient Mari-
ner, slew and stuffed them. I paid my footing on
the forecastle, in hopes of seeing something of the
crew. But one is apt to be in the way there, and
it is difficult to see much of the sailors. With the
officers it is different. Nothing can exceed their pa-
tience in listening to anything, reasonable or unrea-
sonable, which the passengers have to say
or to complain of, and in answering any questions,
sensible or foolish. It is a hard life for them,
requiring nerve, temper, and power of endurance,
for like most English gentlemen they are ever
ready to work with their hands as well as their
heads—and as a ship often has only two responsible
officers, each has at least half of every night for his
watch on deck (in all weathers, be it remembered),
in addition to the work of the day. Yet for this a
chief officer gets the miserable pittance of £7, and a
second mate and a doctor (as hard-worked a man
as either) £5 a month, sometimes even less, ceasing
immediately at the end of the voyage. One could
wish that the great shipowners, wealthy as they
must be, were a little more liberal in this respect.
The butcher, on the other hand, is a man of capital,
and comes furnished with a crowd of bull-dogs, ca-
nary-birds, thrushes, and other animals, which
bring him in a handsome profit at the end of the
voyage.

It is well if a voyage passes without quarrels. In
such close quarters, one must be inoffensive indeed
to offend nobody. If you are cordial friends with
the fat unwashed man who has sat next you at three
meals every day for three months, and with a loud
voice insisted on being helped first to everything,
your disposition must be amiable indeed. Except
the relation between the two Lord Justices of the
Court of Chancery, compared with which the bond
of matrimony itself is a trifle, I know none so try-
ing as close juxtaposition on board ship. You are
at the mercy of the noisiest, the least scrupulous,
and the most officious. If a man drinks, he will
drink twice as much at sea, where he has nothing
to do. However, eating, sleeping, or talking, we
are always going ; that is the great satisfaction.
The average daily run increases as we get south.
Between 40 deg. and 45 deg. south latitude
there are no more light or foul winds for a ship
sailing east, and the course is straight, at the
rate of 250 knots a day. But it gets colder and
colder, till one day the wind changes from north to
south, and we experience what it is to have a tem-
perature of 40 deg., or lower. Snow and hail fall-
ing, draughts as usual, and no possibility of a fire.
Often it blows half a gale ; you cannot walk the
deck to warm your feet, but must hold on fast, and
take your chance of a drenching from one of the
heav seas, which from time to time strike the ship
abeam or on the quarter, with a noise like a ten-
pound shot out of a gun. The air gets drier ; we
are getting into the Austrian climate. At last the
day comes for sighting land. For an hour or more
it is doubtful, then certain, that land is in sight. I
put the day down as a red-letter day in my life, as
We pass within a mile or two of Cape 0 tway, and
see the red sandy cliffs, the pale green grass close to
the water's edge, the lighthouse and telegraph sta-
tion above, and behind, the ranges of thick impene-
trable bush, huge forest trees, with their dark foliage
standing out against the sky, a landscape as wild
and unsullied by the hand of man as though it were
a thousand miles from a settlement. One longs to
be landed there and then, but the breeze is fair and
strong, and though at sunset we take in all sail but
two topsails, we rush on, and are forced to heave to
before midnight, pitching and rolling in the swell,
lest we get beyond Port Philip Heads in the night.
Soon after midnight all are astir, for thoro Is a
rumour that the pilot is coming. From the deck a
I.irge star near the horizon is to be seen, and an in-
distinct dark object underneath it. It moves, gets
larger, the moon's rays fall upon it, and shining
white as silver, a little schooner with a light at her
mast-head shoots under the stern. The pilot climbs
on board. Three more hours pitching, and the long
low Heads are left astern of us, and we are in smooth
water. As the Melbourne folk tre sitting down to
their Sunday's breakfast, and you in England are
going to bed for your Saturday's night rest, our
anchor drops in Hobson's Bay, a quarter of a mile
from the long, low, sandy coast. Fronting us is
Sandridge, the port of Melbourne ; to the right, as
far as the eye can see, dark green foliage, broken
by clusters of houses and bare spaces of sand ; and
to the left, a marshy, sandy plain, bounded by the
distant ranges, purple as the hills of Gascony or the
Campagna.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

" THE SATURDAY REVIEW" ON TILE GOVERN-
MENT AND TILE OPPOSITION.—The report that the
Government has determined to meet Parliament
without a project of Reform has acquired consfs-
tency 'and general credence. The supposed alter-
native of an appeal to the House of Commons to
assume the initiative is altogether absurd. Minis-
ters in a Constitutional Government are placed in
power to lead, and not to follow ; and to an in-
quiry whether Parliament desired Reform, the only
suitable answer would be that Parliament desired to
have a Cabinet with an opinion of its own. As Fal-
staff told the Chief Justice's attendant, though it be
a shame to be on any side but the right, it is worse
shame to beg than to be on the worse side. Mr.
Disraeli has at least an intellectual conscience, and
some of his colleagues must be too proud to abdi-
cate the functions of a rank which they retain.
Failure to propose a Reform Bill can only be jus-
tified by a belief that changes in the representation
are neither necessary nor desirable. If Mr. Disraeli
differs on so vital a point from the majority of the
Ministers, he would have consulted his reputation
by declining to share in a policy which he must
consider unsound. Nearly all his party have said,
and many of them believe, that a considerable ex-
tension of the franchise is expedient in itself, as
well as for the purpose of escaping from agitation.
So-called practical measures come in natural suc-
cession after the repair of the machinery by which
they are to be effected. It is barely possible that
Mr. Disraeli may have preferred to immediate legis-
lation the scheme of a Parliamentary Commission to
inquire into the state of the representation. With
all his acuteness and versatility, Mr. Disraeli is
sometimes wanting in the instinct of political fitness
and practicability ; and, as he has given much
thought to the details of electoral machinery, he
may perhaps overrate the importance of minute
statistical accuracy. But he ought to understand
that a bill for Commission is liable to the prelimi-
nary objections, that it will never be passed by the
House of Commons. A Commission can never
furnish a suitable tribunal for the determi-
nation of great constitutional tribunals. After
the discussions of the past year, every politi-
cian in and out of Parliament is in possession
of the necessary materials for forming a final
opinion of Reform ; and it is clear that changes
ought to be made at once, or to be immediately de-
ferred. While a commission was taking evidence,
and framing draft reports, the country would be 1
incessantly disturbed by agitation. The position of
the two great parties cannot be clearly defined until

the intentions of the Government are disclosed. The
Liber,ds have abstained during the entire recess

from any language which could limit their future
discretion ; and Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone
still linger on the continent, as if for the express
purpose of rendering concerted plans of action im-
possible. No Catinet Ind ever so fair a chance of
neutralising a nominally hostile majority, for atleazt
a third of the Opposition would prefer a Reform
Bill proposed by Mr. Disraeli to a change of Go-
vernment at the present moment. The House of
Commons professedly distrusts Lord Derby, but it
really objects far more strongly to Mr. Bright.
Common enmities might have sufficed to produce a
provisional friendship, and tolerance might have
expanded into goodwill. Mob meetings and sedi-
tious language incline moderate men to combine,
but those who have most to gain by co-operation

must be prepared to make some sacrifice of internal
consistency.. The Government has only to disclaim
all intention of Reform, and the Liberal phalanx is
re-united. It is seldom easy to disintegrate a party,
but a Ministerial Reform Bill would probably either
separate Mr. Gladstone from his more moderate
followers, or compel him to break with Mr. Bright.
It will be difficult for any Liberal member, unless he
agrees with Mr. Lowe, to refuse his concurrence in
a resolution affirming the urgency of Reform. The
Conservatives, aided by the seceders, were never
strong enough in the last session to defeat the Go-
vernment on the main issues raised by the bill; and
although Mr. Gladstone experienced many checks,
there was always some special reason or excuse for
supporting the various amendments as they were
successively proposed. The events of the autumn
and winter have assuredly not diminished the rea-
sons for introducing a bill ; and the inaction of the
Government would enable the Opposition to raise
the question in the most advantageous form. Mr.
Gladstone is not known to have spent any part of
t he winter at Capua ; and unless his vigour and rest-
lessness have been unaccountably exchanged for
Epicurean indifference, he will not allow many days
to pass before he gives notice of a decisive motion
or resolution. Many of his party are content to
postpone their return to power until Lord Russell
has retired, and perhaps until Mr. Gladstone has
become quieter ; but they will nevertheless answer
Mr. Brand's familiar call, and on a vote implying
want of confidence the mildest Reformers must lie
down with Mr. Bright. If the Ministers survive the
session, their policy, whatever may be its character,
will have been in some degree justified by success.
Compulsory resignation before Easter would be
little less than ignominious. To have held office for
six months when it was impossible to lose it, to
have enjoyed power and distributed patronage on the
faith of a policy which would not bear the inspection
of Parliament, would be scarcely more creditable than
to dine ata tavern and fail to pay the bill. Lord Derby
and his colleagues ought not to have taken office un-
less there was a reasonable prospect of satisfying the
House of Commons, with or without Reform. The
proposal of a writer in the Edinburgh Review to
depose Mr. Gladstone from the place of leader is
slightly ungenerous and wholly impracticable. It
is a minor objection to the change that there is no
one to take Mr. Gladstone's place. Like Jupiter in
the Iliad, the late leader of the House of Com-
mons might safely defy his colleagues and followers
to try their collected strength against him, while he
singly held the golden chain which binds the party
together. Fifty years ago the Whigs tried the expe-
riment of importing Mr. Ponsonby from Ireland as
a safe and harmless leader; and the result is com-
memorated in " the trial of Henry Brougham," as
reported by Mr. Peel in the Nrew IVhig Guide. The
real leader was supposed to have called the sham
leader an old woman, and Mr. Gladstone would
probably behave with similar disrespect to any
usurper who might be substituted in his place. The
more advanced Liberals would unanimously refuse
to recognise any other chief, and mane malcontents
would shrink from avowing the distrust and irrita-
tion which they express freely in private. Mr.
Disraeli has survived many attempts to substitute
respectable mediocrity for unsafe genius. Mr.
Gladstone has as strong a claim of personal supe-
riority, although Mr. Lowe, if he had retained his
party orthodoxy, might have proved himself a for-
midable competitor. Although political suicide is
not beyond the range of possibility, Mr. Gladstone
has no reason to fear party assassination. The pro-
fession of extreme opinions would amount to abdi-
cation ; and it would belt' the highest degree inju-
dicious to precipitate the schism. At present Mr.
Gladstone is under no temptation to offer impru-
dent pledges. His latest political professions after
the end of the session were conciliatory and mode-
rate, and a justifiable desire to resume office would
not be furthered by displays of extravagance or of
passion. If Mr. Gladstone were to rely exclusively
on itadical support, he would be loelang the door
in his own face for the sake of showing his agility
in climbing in through the window. Except
in the prosecution of common hostilities against
the Government, Mr. Bright and his little lot
of adherents will be more sharply isolated
than in former sessions. Having deliberately
and repeatedly excited the mob against the House
of Commons, Mr. Bright has elected to rely on
intimidation rather than on persuasion. Mr. Seymour
lately took a singularly awkward opportunity of ex-
pressing a feeling which is more general than his
liability to blunder. Liberal members of the purest
strain hold that, if they venture, like Mr. Neate, to
depart from Mr. Bright's opinions, they are at-
tacked with reckless abuse by papers like the
Morning Star, and by agitators of the rank of
Mr. Beales. There are prObably not twenty
members in the house who are associated with Mr.
Bright by any stronger bond than terror. If any of
his supposed adherents attempt to assert their inde-
pendence,they are denounced to their constituents and
the country as traitors to the popular cause. It
is highly to the credit of the metropolitan mem-
bers that, with the exception of Mr. Mill, they
have given no countenance to the mob meetings
which have been held in London. Unless either
Mr. Gladstone or the Liberal party commit some
extraordinary blunder, Mr. Bright's influence in
the house is not likely to increase. On the whole,
the omens are favourable to the Opposition, al-
though the manipulation of the entrails has been
in the hands of the Government. Any successful
contrivance for avoiding Ministerial defeat would
even now be not unwelcome to the expectant vic-
It is unfortunate that a common interest
cannot unite the House of Commons in the pur-
suit of a common object.

:ors.

THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE ON FRENCH NOVELS.
—lt is an undoubted fact that the majority of
Englishmen, even among the better informed
cla:sses, look upon everything French with a cer-
tain feeling of contempt. This is probably due in
part to the tenacity with which our countrymen
cling to the traditions of times of war and hatred,
and still more, to their intense absorption in
pursuits which leave but little time for inquir-
ing into the habits and modes of thought of their
neighbours. And this is more true, and will re-
main true longer, of French literature than of
anything else connected with France; because
literature requires a more careful study and a
more educated mind to undertake that study than,
perhaps, any other of the numberless branches
into which the subjects of difference between the
two countries may be divided. And yet the fault
is, not that Englishman do not read French
books, but that •when they do read them, they
only look at them from an English point of view,
and thus they lose, as it were, the true key to
their meaning. This is particularly the case in
fiction, where, perhaps, the divergence of the two
modes of writing shows itself most strongly. The
general complaint made by English readers against
French novels is, that they have little or no story.
In the home-made productions to which they are
accustomed, the plot generally extends from the
cradle to the grave of one or two persons, with,
perhaps, a short biographical sketch of their
parents and grand-parents to begin with. All
the details of their lives are carefully described ;
and the great thing to do is to place them in the
most peculiar circumstances, and make them per-
form the most extraordinary actions that the writer
can possibly conceive. This idea has reached its
fullest development in our own day, in the con-
struction of what is called "sensation" writing.
Its aim is to create interest in incident rather than
in individual characters, and its origin may be
clearly traced to the fact that the majority of
our novelists have so long sacrificed character to
"plot" that they finished by almost entirely disre-
garding it. A French novel is, on the other
hand, almost invariable a psychological study,
per et simple. Incident there only occupies
a secondary place—its object is to show its effect
upon the characters of individuals. The French
novelist makes the mind of man—the impressions
it receives from external circumstances, and the
result of those impressions in forming and modify
ing it—his principal subjects of study. Perhaps
Balzac is the most perfect example of this mode
of writing. In his works almost every variety,
every phase of human nature iu to be fuall.l. por-
trayed ; and though his incident is never inartis-

tic it is always strictly subordinated to the higher
task—the description of character. To illustrate
our meaning, take that exquisite work La Recherche
de l' Absolu. It has positively no plot, properly so
called. The whole story may be summed up in
half d'llozen words ; the entire interest of the
work is made to turn upon the mental condi-
tion of some two or three persons. First, there is
the head of the family, buried in his laboratory,
without a thought beyond the contents of his

crucibles, with that awful furnace always before
him steadily burning away his heart, his life,
his home affections, the ties that bind him to 111.
wife and children. Stick by stick his home, his
fortune, all his hopes in this world and the next,
all go to feed that ever-smouldering fire before
which he watches day and night. And still lie
hopes on—and still lie finds a little more fuel to
feed his loved furnace with, until all—even hope--
has at last disappeared. Then there is his wife,
the most charming woman that even Balzac, the
portrayer of women par excellence,
No one who has ever read the book can forget
that lame woman, so beautiful in her deformity,
so patient, so gentle, so loving, even when she
sees. her husband dragging her ad her children 1°
inevitable ruin. This is, for all practical purpose)
the whole of the book ; but what a book it is;
We know of nothing among the compositioi.is of
ever sketched:
our own countrymen which can compare with it
for a moment. But it is, above all in the de-
lineation ,
of women that the French mode °I
novel-writing allows most room for successful
.treatment. It is always difficult for a man to (.11':
scribe a woman, and some of the greatest Engli.ss
writers have signally failed in the attempt. chap'
speare's weak point lies decidedly in his female
characters. Juliet is too sensual, Desdernona tpo
weak, Beatrice is a hoyden. If we want genuine
conceptions of female character, full of force
and
yet of nature, we must certainly seek them, with
very few exceptions, in the works of Frenchnl.ell•
It is true that the means too often used to bring
out their characters are offensive to good taste:
It is considered that female nature is never por-
trayed to such advantage as under the influence
of trial and sorrow ; and so the greatest sorrols,
a woman can endure—the sorrow of a sin which .s
irreparable, so far as this world goes—is too
quently made the medium of delineations which
in
themselves are elegant and artistic to the laste
degree. Of course, we put on one side such coars
.
and disgusting creations as M. About's Made/0/1,
the Dames aux Camelias of M. Dumas, Fils. Thank
heaven ! we have no parallel for these, except 13
the very lowest classes of our sensational liters,:
ture. Our remarks would rather apply to Sile'4
fre.
works as Les Fourche Caudines and Maxeme Hunt'
bert, by M. Achard, in both of which works thet
lesson taught is round and the artistic treatole,ll.,
from. .a psychological point of view perfect;
.tlit's
principal incident is one which English novells.a
have fortunately been generally careful to a.vi3.l,
touching. upon. It appears to be a prevaiiii%
idea with modern writers of fiction that 00
turning point of a novel must be a sin of sonind or another ; and we trust we shall not be CO"113
sidered cynical if we say that, if fiction is to be 0
representation of actual life, this must be to sellici
extent the case. After all, when we get beY°ll/
the province of the hagiologist into which, ,30
course, the novelist cannot enter, we shall find ,1130
lives of good people much too monotonous for
purposes of fiction. The placid existences of t t
" men whose lives glided on like the rivers til,3d
water the woodlands" would not have afforded
.much interest if sin and sorrow had not penetra'n-o,
into Arcadie, and if Evangeline had gone •-0,
watching her father and his neighbour p1a37111,7.
chess until the time came for her to marry 1,3 t
rural swain and " live happily ever after." ljec,
that we believe much good comes of portrayl%
crime ; nor for the matter of that do we belies",
much good ever came to anyone from resdl7r
novels. It is to some extent a necessity of °or
artificial state of existence, like smoking,
es.
making morning calls, or putting on dress el°114;
but those who have strength of mind to do wi'd
it
out are probably the best off in the ell
Nevertheless it is as well, on a subject in which
there is somuch difference between ourselves
and our neighbours across the Channel, that. o
,
should have a distinct appreciation of that cbeetrs
ence, and be able to discern their strong P3lll
as well as our own.