Now I go to Sydney, the Queen of the South. I have not said all I could say by a great deal, for there are some subjects too thorny to touch in print, but I hope all Melbourne folks will recognise how much I love their beautiful city, and how deeply I wish it well.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] When this paragraph reached Melbourne, some reporter interviewed Mr. Deakin on the subject and endeavoured to make a grievance out of it against the writer. But the Right Honourable gentleman refused to see the matter in that light, and behaved with his usual kindly courtesy; otherwise the passage should have been deleted, much as I feel its importance.
VIII ON THE OLD TRACK
Fortunately for me one of the fine ships of the Orient-Royal Mail Company was available at the time that I wished to leave for Sydney, so that I was able to travel in the pleasantest possible way according to my ideas, long train journeys having no charms for me. The Ortona was due to leave Port Melbourne railway pier at 8 in the evening, but owing to various hindrances of the usual character she did not get away until nearly midnight. But I looked my last upon the brilliant city at the time appointed, and having made myself comfortable on board did not care to go back again. Besides, I knew that I should have an opportunity of bidding a final farewell on my return journey, as it is inevitable that I pass this way, and there is always a day to spare. So that whatever points about it I have missed I shall be able to pick up in a later chapter.
At last the whole of the outward cargo is out, the last slingful has been lowered into the railway truck alongside, and immediately the clang of the engine-room gong "Stand by!" is heard. No matter what the size of the ship or the distance she may be going, her departure has no more of fuss in it than a man makes leaving his own front door for work in the morning. And in our service at any rate the tendency is to work ever more quietly, so that you shall see the whole vast fabric glide away seaward, and hear nothing save an occasional whistle or the clang of a telegraph gong. To-night, for instance; the Ortona is 9,000 tons, a huge monster lying stern to seaward, and secured to the wharf, alongside of which she towers, by sundry steel hawsers. One whistle and those hawsers are cast off, men on the wharf slipping their bights off the mooring-posts. A responsive whistle informs the bridge that she is free. There is a clang in the engine-room, and the great shadowy mass glides astern until clear of the pier. Then another clang orders the port propeller to go ahead, and the ship revolves almost upon her axis in ghostly fashion without the aid of the rudder. As soon as she is round far enough another message is sounded in the engine-room, "Ahead starboard!" and with both propellers revolving the same way and the helm over to starboard she comes round to her course and is away in more than stately wise, but just as easily as a motor-car leaving a garage.
The superb management of the modern mail and passenger ocean steamers in all departments renders it possible for even the least experienced voyager to feel completely at home within an hour of the vessel's leaving the pier, even when she goes straight out to sea at once (sea-sickness, of course, always excepted); but your Australasian passenger around the coast is seldom inexperienced. The distances are great between the principal cities, but the fares are quite moderate, and the vessels are so comfortable that there is an immense and incessant passenger traffic, the percentage of travellers coastwise being at least twenty times what it is at home. And I do not see that the connecting up of the cities by railway, with its great saving of time, has lessened that percentage much—it has merely increased the numbers of those who desired to travel, but dreaded the sea journey. So, as usual, we had a large number of short-distance passengers; in fact the Ortona's huge accommodation was rather severely taxed, and yet within, as I say, one hour from Port Melbourne nearly all of them were snugly in bed and asleep, while the captain and pilot on the lofty bridge guided the big vessel through the mirk along the tortuous deep-water channel leading from Port Melbourne to Queenscliff, the Heads of Hobson's Bay, some fifty miles distant.