The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-04-03

New Hebrides, Banks, Torres, Ellice,
Gilbert and Marshall groups, while
great 12,000-ton steamers of the White
Star line convey on their magnificent
vessels cruisers to London via South
Africa, at this rate, and even less
where several are in the same cabin,
the rate for a deck cabin for the ex-
elusive use of one passenger being about
S145 for the through cruiser from Sgd
ney, half way around Australia, stop
ping at ports, Natal, Cape Town, the
Cape Verde Islands and England,
voyage of nearly fifty days. 1t may
soon be cheaper for a Hawaiian to
travel from Honolulu to London via
the South Sea Islands and Australia to
Europe than via America With the
two dollars and a half a day rate in
vogue the cost via Australia would be,
scarcely more than two hundred dol
lars, while wa the United States it is,
at present, about $3.50 first-class and
little more than two hundred dollaTs
second 1t is only fair to state, how
ever, that the White Star Australian
England vessels carry only one class
of passengers, equal so far as the table
goes to second-elass, while the $3.50
per diem cruising vessels are all COM
paratively small boats, the larger yes
sells sumptuously QUILTED charging five
dollars a day. The Australian govern
ment to induce emigrants to come to-
the country grant rebate even on
these rates, so that for about thirty
dollars man may travel by mag
niieent steamers without any deck
restrictions from London to Sydney.
Verify, so far as the tourist and
stranger is concerned Australia has
made a science of transportation.
If you wish, as a tourist, to travel
inland in Australia, speak to the purser
on your ship and he will give you a
pink strip emitting you to half rate
or Lesson the railways. If you wish
to resume your journey by water with
in the great barrier reef along the
coast of Queensland, stopping off for
day or so at the ports for run
inland YOU may, by combining this with
an island cruise, secure the two dollars
and half day rates. In fact, 1T is
cheaper in Australasia to travel than
not to. In the Antipodes the man with
a vacation on his hands does not ask
himself, "Can ! afford to travel9'
but "Can / afford not TO travelY''
With the result that everywhere in
the Antipodes you meet people on the
go, the Australasians being perhaps the
greatest travellers in the world.
The writer arrived in Sydney expect
ing to make the Solomon Island boat,
missed connection but found there was
another steamer starting within an
hour for a fifty-two day cruise among
the New Hebrides Islands, and at once
boarded her. The longest time between
ports was the three or four days to
Lord Howe Island, where the seeds of
the house palms for the whole world
come 'front.' takes sixty years for
these dwarf palms to come to maturity,
so here is a natural monopoly which
the islanders are not slow to take ad-
OF. Three more days and Nor
folk Island is reached, the old convict
settlement and present home Of the
descendants of the Bounty" mutineers
who were removed from Pitcairn Is
land in the early fifties. Here, too, the
visitor may participate in a whale
hunt From Norfolk Island, it is three
days steaming to the New HebrideS.
Then a dozen landings a, day for more
than a month at mission and trading
stations. Often the natives are seen in
their nudity. troOping down from the
These men are still canni-
balls. On the November trip of the
Tambo when the writer was pas
senger. it was reported that the return
ed Queensland kanakas put ashore on
the island of Oba, were at once kikied
(eaten). Certain 1t is that during the
month three men and two women were
eaten on the island Of Santo, the larg-
est of the group. During this trip Of
the Tambo the New Hebrides came
under joint British and French con-
troll, there were great celebrations at