The journey to Melbourne was not nice. We left at five p.m., and reached Spencer Street Station in Melbourne about noon next day. I took passage in a Pullman car. A genuine Yank sat near me, and we entered into conversation. I like Yanks, and if I were eligible I might put up to become a faithful citizen. After the ordinary preliminaries about the weather and the autumnal tints, he made some general remarks about the late President Grant.
‘As a general, Grant just whipped creation,’ I remarked.
‘Dair bet my bottom dollar his name shines like a brilliant constellation in the military history of this planet until it ceases to rotate. Saw him some years ago. Was smoking a big havana. His wife was along. Don’t think she hansoms worth a cent. Good woman though! The way she looked after her family was just remarkable. If every fellow got a wife like that, there’d be less hair flying around. You from Boston?’ he inquired.
‘Sir,’ I replied, ‘you have paid me a compliment never to be forgotten.’
At the next depôt my friend invited me to see the refreshment-room.
The little bit of country that was visible before sundown was so like the rest of the great continental island, that I will not attempt to describe it.
Somewhere about eight o’clock a conductor commenced the removal of the arm-chairs in which we had been sitting, and the erection of the berths in which we were to sleep. During this operation, which lasted one hour and a half (it sometimes lasts two hours), if you are lucky, you get one of the four or six seats in the smoking-room, otherwise you have to stand in a narrow passage. I had to stand.
The arrangement of rods and bars which were put together in building the berths had the complexity of a Chinese puzzle. If the railway company ever lose the services of the unfortunate man whose misery it is to erect these structures, where they will discover a second individual with a sufficiently retentive memory, and ingenuity to carry on the work, it is difficult to conceive. Whilst the operation is going on, the car jerks and swings like a boat upon a choppy sea. Several of the passengers complained of sea-sickness, and I myself certainly had a feeling of nausea. The only advice I can give to the directors of that line is to take their cars and burn them—at least, burn the particular one in which I had the misery to ride. From friends who followed me to Melbourne, I heard that there were several other cars which ought also to be burned.
At about five a.m. we were turned out at a place called Aubury, where we changed carriages and passed the Customs on the Victorian border. All the colonies collect duty from each other, and their mother country. New South Wales alone admires the policy of its alma mater, and adopts free trade. Not only are they at variance in their commercial regulations, but there exists between them the same feelings of jealousy that may be found between different nationalities, and each ‘colonial’ looks upon his own particular colony as superior to its neighbour. One question which you are often asked is, ‘Do you like Sydney or Melbourne best?’ Several Victorians spoke of their Melbourne and its people as being go ahead and smart—quite American you know. They refer to being American with an intonation of regret—it is sad and disgraceful to be like Americans; but, as it is true, we must confess it, and it cannot be helped. Now as Victorians were so fond of pointing out this particular character of themselves, I imagine that they are really rather proud of it, and the intonation of regret is little more than a form of modesty.
So far as I could see, farther than the fact that our Australian cousins have displayed energy in building up great cities in a short period of years, I did not observe a single instance of anything which was American. Australians seem to be intensely conservative and British. One characteristic of Americans is, to do things in new ways and invent. When in the Colonies I looked in all directions for something that was novel, but I must confess that I failed to find it. Perhaps using single tickets, which after the termination of a journey, on being snipped, act as return tickets, may be peculiarly Australian. The hoods to hansoms may be new. Asbestos gas-fires in hotels, the dispensing with conductors on the ’buses, and a few other rarities in English life, are common in America. Possibly in farming and stock-raising operations, Australians may have discovered methods of procedure unknown in other lands. In their mining operations—and I visited many mining districts—I cannot say that I saw much that was new. I certainly saw much that was old, and machines that ought to be relegated to museums were numerous.