CHAPTER XV
JOURNEY HOME—THE NILE—LORD KITCHENER
Our sojourn in Japan was all too short, and we sailed from Yokohama in a ship of the Empress Line on May 12. Capturing a spare day at 170° longitude, we reached Vancouver on the Queen’s Birthday. Our thirteen days’ voyage was somewhat tedious, as I do not think that we passed a single ship on the whole transit. The weather was dull and grey, and there was a continuous rolling sea, but I must say for our ship that no one suffered from sea-sickness. She lived up to the repute which we had heard concerning these liners; they were broad and steady, and I for one was duly grateful.
THE WELL-FORGED LINK OF EMPIRE
We had some pleasant fellow-passengers, including Orlando Bridgeman (now Lord Bradford) and his cousin Mr. William Bridgeman (now a prominent politician). A voyage otherwise singularly devoid of excitement was agitated by the discovery of one or more cases of small-pox among the Chinese on board. Every effort was made to keep this dark, but when the ukase went forth that every passenger who had not been vaccinated recently must undergo the operation, no doubt remained as to the truth of the rumours current. Fortunately my husband, my daughter, myself, and my maid had all been vaccinated just before leaving Sydney, but we still felt anxious about possible quarantine at Victoria—the port on the Island of Vancouver—the town being on the mainland. Nothing happened, however, and if the ship’s doctor perjured himself, and if the captain did not contradict him, I trust that the Recording Angel did not set it down, as the relief of the passengers was indeed great.
The truth afterwards so forcibly expressed by Rudyard Kipling was brought home to us when landing on Canadian shores:
“Take ’old of the Wings o’ the mornin’,
An’ flop round the earth till you’re dead;
But you won’t get away from the tune that they play
To the bloomin’ old rag over’ead.”
Every morning at Sydney we were aroused by “God Save the Queen” from the men-of-war in the harbour just below Government House, and at Vancouver we found the whole population busy celebrating Queen Victoria’s Birthday. At the hotel nobody was left in charge but a boy of fourteen, a most intelligent youth who somehow lodged and fed us. Next day we were anxious to find him and recognise his kind attentions before leaving, but evidently in his case sport outweighed possible tips, for he had gone to the races without giving us a chance.
Vancouver had a curiously unfinished appearance when we saw it, houses just arising and streets laid out but not completed. I have heard, and fully believe, that it has since become a very fine city, rising as it does just within the Gateway to the Pacific, though it is of Victoria that Rudyard Kipling (to quote him again) sings: