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
mans 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 whom 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 aro too keen after an
Australirn sun ; or because they have come to an
end of their holiday. Even among second and
third-clags 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 ! 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 slumbering forms. 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
out against the glowing colours of the
setting a smooth s
nn;a nsdh ei ent
aof f
ebwl andudeayspurple water, and
later Palma, hiding
the Peak of Teneriffe. We hope in vain to see
Trinidad and 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 ovcrpeopled, 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.

come to the much
On the other hand, the luck is with us when we
dreaded belt of calms, which lies
near the Equator, shifting north and south of it,
according to the time of year,
keep the skylights shut, but always more to
the north than to the south of it. Often are ships
detained there for days, and even weeks, drenched
in tropical rain, which makes
it necessary to
to the great discomfort
of every one,
except the ducks and geese, which are
for the only 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 hens, and I know not what other birds, gave
us hope that our voyage was half over, and that in