Six Letters From the Colonies By: R. C. (Robert Cooper) Seaton (1853-1915)
First Page: [PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.] SIX LETTERS FROM THE COLONIES. BY R. C. SEATON. HULL: WILDRIDGE & CO. MDCCCLXXXVI. PREFACE. I was absent from England eleven months, from November, 1884, to October, 1885. The first three of these Letters are reprinted, with slight alterations, from the Eastern Morning News . The last three were written after my return to England. As I have not cared to keep up the fiction of having written them from Australia, they may contain some references to events subsequent to my return. It is often objected, and truly enough, that travellers, who spend only so short a time as I have in fresh countries, are not justified in expressing deliberate opinions about them; but this does not apply where a writer gives his impressions as such, and not as matured opinions, or where he expresses the opinions of other people who, by long residence or otherwise in a particular country, have had every opportunity of forming them. I think it will not be found that I have offended in this particular. LONDON, October, 1886. CONTENTS. PAGE I. VOYAGE OF THE HAMPSHIRE 7 II. MELBOURNE 19 III. VICTORIA 33 IV. SOUTH AUSTRALIA 47 V. TASMANIA 60 VI. AUCKLAND AND SYDNEY 75 I. The Voyage of the Hampshire. A Voyage to Australia has in these days become so ordinary an affair that it may seem to require an apology to attempt to describe one, but a voyage in a sailing ship is so different from that in a steamer that it may interest some people. It is, as a rule, only those who go abroad for their health who prefer a sailing ship, on account of the great length of the voyage, in allusion to which steam people call sailing ships "wind jammers," while the sailors retort on steamers by dubbing them "iron tanks" and "old coffins." There is no doubt that the picturesqueness of a sea voyage is quite destroyed by a steamer. There are no, or very few, regular sailors on board; so much of the work is now done by steam. There are no "chanties" or sailors' songs, which help the work to go easily. In a steamer there is no interest in noting the course they go straight on, and the distance covered does not vary, or only slightly, from day to day. The movement of a sailing ship through the water at 12 knots per hour is quite exhilarating; the ship hurries on by "leaps and bounds." Contrast with this the labouring plunges of a screw steamer at the same rate. In short, romance is perishing from the sea with the universal invasion of steam. Could the poet have thus written of the Pirate "O'er the glad waters of the deep blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free," if the Pirate was master of a steamer? I think not. However, I do not deny that a steamer has many and great advantages over a ship. The chief advantage, and the only one to which I need allude, is the prosaic but not unimportant one of better food, and this with many people would decide in favour of a steamer. Perhaps we were exceptionally unfortunate in this respect. The Hampshire is a barque of 1,100 tons, and belonging to Captain Hosack, of Liverpool. She is most commodious; the cabins are much larger than is usual in a vessel of this size. Mine was not a large one, but it measured 8ft. by 10ft. 6in. There is, too, a poop deck 70ft. long, which is scarcely ever touched, even by a heavy sea. When people are constantly in each other's society for so long they gradually throw off many of the artificial restraints of society, and exhibit themselves as they would in their own homes. The result is curious. A constant process of natural selection goes on, by which like seeks like, and the estimation in which a particular person is held by his fellow passengers is often very different at the close of the voyage from what it was at the beginning... Continue reading book >>

Six Letters From the Colonies By: R. C. (Robert Cooper) Seaton (1853-1915)

First Page:

[PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.]

SIX LETTERS FROM THE COLONIES.

BY R. C. SEATON.

HULL: WILDRIDGE & CO.

MDCCCLXXXVI.

PREFACE.

I was absent from England eleven months, from November, 1884, to October, 1885. The first three of these Letters are reprinted, with slight alterations, from the Eastern Morning News . The last three were written after my return to England. As I have not cared to keep up the fiction of having written them from Australia, they may contain some references to events subsequent to my return. It is often objected, and truly enough, that travellers, who spend only so short a time as I have in fresh countries, are not justified in expressing deliberate opinions about them; but this does not apply where a writer gives his impressions as such, and not as matured opinions, or where he expresses the opinions of other people who, by long residence or otherwise in a particular country, have had every opportunity of forming them. I think it will not be found that I have offended in this particular.

LONDON,

October, 1886.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. VOYAGE OF THE HAMPSHIRE 7

II. MELBOURNE 19

III. VICTORIA 33

IV. SOUTH AUSTRALIA 47

V. TASMANIA 60

VI. AUCKLAND AND SYDNEY 75

The Voyage of the Hampshire.

A Voyage to Australia has in these days become so ordinary an affair that it may seem to require an apology to attempt to describe one, but a voyage in a sailing ship is so different from that in a steamer that it may interest some people. It is, as a rule, only those who go abroad for their health who prefer a sailing ship, on account of the great length of the voyage, in allusion to which steam people call sailing ships "wind jammers," while the sailors retort on steamers by dubbing them "iron tanks" and "old coffins." There is no doubt that the picturesqueness of a sea voyage is quite destroyed by a steamer. There are no, or very few, regular sailors on board; so much of the work is now done by steam. There are no "chanties" or sailors' songs, which help the work to go easily. In a steamer there is no interest in noting the course they go straight on, and the distance covered does not vary, or only slightly, from day to day. The movement of a sailing ship through the water at 12 knots per hour is quite exhilarating; the ship hurries on by "leaps and bounds." Contrast with this the labouring plunges of a screw steamer at the same rate. In short, romance is perishing from the sea with the universal invasion of steam. Could the poet have thus written of the Pirate

"O'er the glad waters of the deep blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,"

if the Pirate was master of a steamer? I think not. However, I do not deny that a steamer has many and great advantages over a ship. The chief advantage, and the only one to which I need allude, is the prosaic but not unimportant one of better food, and this with many people would decide in favour of a steamer. Perhaps we were exceptionally unfortunate in this respect. The Hampshire is a barque of 1,100 tons, and belonging to Captain Hosack, of Liverpool. She is most commodious; the cabins are much larger than is usual in a vessel of this size. Mine was not a large one, but it measured 8ft. by 10ft. 6in. There is, too, a poop deck 70ft. long, which is scarcely ever touched, even by a heavy sea. When people are constantly in each other's society for so long they gradually throw off many of the artificial restraints of society, and exhibit themselves as they would in their own homes. The result is curious. A constant process of natural selection goes on, by which like seeks like, and the estimation in which a particular person is held by his fellow passengers is often very different at the close of the voyage from what it was at the beginning... Continue reading book >>

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Travel

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