It seemed good to be on a large vessel like the Makambo after being so long on the Snark. She seemed as steady as a house, and I couldn't understand why only a few persons came to meals. Had they p332 been on the tiny Snark, doing a corkscrew twist out in the sea, I could have understood readily. The Makambo seemed like a very big ship to me after our own boat; but the truth is, she was one of the smallest ships in the South Sea trade. I had a deck-cabin with a fine room-mate—a doctor from New Guinea. Only one thing about him was unpleasant—his delirium tremens. He had them two days. All night he caught snakes and cockroaches; and whenever he missed a large snake, he woke me up to catch it for him. Oh, it was lovely for a sick man! Jack and Mrs. London had the captain's room on the bridge, so that they could keep up with their work.
On Tuesday, November 10, we sighted land, and for the rest of the day steamed off shore. How good it seemed to see real land again—not cocoanut trees that just lifted out of the water, but real land! I felt so good that I had to practise a new profession of mine upon some of the passengers. While at Penduffryn, I had learned much. One day Mr. Harding told us of a black boy of his that could make fire. We asked for a demonstration. The black came up with two pieces of dry driftwood, and in less than one minute had made fire, sufficient to start up a cook-stove. Well, it looked so easy that I bet Jack that I could do it inside half an hour; but when the bet was made, they all told me that it was impossible for a white man to do it. Jack said he had never seen a black do it before, and that he had always regarded p333 it as a myth in story-books. Anyway, I set to work, and at the end of the half-hour I did not even have a smoke started; so I lost the bet. But I was not discouraged. I kept at it, and went among the blacks. They taught me the trick, and still I could not do it; but after working at it for several days, I learned to do it quicker than even the blacks could do it. After that, it was so easy! I brought two pieces of wood along, and on the day we sighted land, I made a bet with one of the passengers that I could make fire, and I won in a walk. Then I bet him ten shillings that he could not do it in half an hour—and of course, I won.
It was on Sunday, November 15, 1908, that we approached Sydney. We got off the heads at ten in the morning, and for two hours steamed up what is supposed to be the finest harbour in the world. Certainly, I saw more big steamers and large full-rigged ships at anchor and in the docks than I ever saw in the New York or the San Francisco harbours. It all seemed American, what of the great sign-boards on every side, and it got more American as we went along. I could hardly restrain my impatience to get ashore.
Australia at last! Not under the exact circumstances we had planned, but Australia at last. Our hearts were very light as the Makambo's anchor rumbled down in Sydney Harbor, and we found ourselves once more in civilisation. p334
CHAPTER XIV
THE END OF THE VOYAGE
At the dock, I got my luggage and Jack's ashore and into a van, while Jack and Mrs. London went on up to the Metropole Hotel. After the luggage had passed the customs, I left it with Nakata, and got in a cab which took me to my rooms in Elizabeth Street. As I passed through the streets of Sydney, I could almost imagine I was in Chicago, with its traffic and hurry, its bustling and crowding. The Sydney street railways seemed to give excellent service. The stores are on the American plan, not the little shops so common in England. I had expected to see a city very much English, but my sober judgment is that Sydney is much more American than otherwise. In my Kansas home, I had always supposed Australia to be a bush country; so it was an agreeable surprise to find it as civilised as the States.
Sydney has nearly three quarters of a million people, and they dress and talk like Americans. There are dozens of good theatres, wherein are often enacted American plays. ("The Girl from the Golden West," and "The Merry Widow," were on at that very time.) About the only thing I could find fault with at first glance was the excessive amount of jewellery worn p335 by the women, and, as it seemed to me, very old-fashioned jewellery—the kind we had sold over our counters in Independence a dozen years before. But anyway, I had a special grudge against all jewellery, after seeing the South Sea Islanders with their shell finger-rings, their big nose-and ear-rings, and uncouth anklets and bracelets, for, after all, was it not the same instinct for barbaric adornment that actuated the rude natives and the highly decorated women of Australia? or that actuates jewellery-wearing people the world round?
The manager of the moving picture expedition at Penduffryn had given me a letter to his agents, asking that they secure these rooms in Elizabeth Street for me. It was a suite of three well-furnished rooms, cool and comfortable, and heavenly after the weary months at sea, where I had slept in a bunk some inches too short for me. It had been six months since I had slept ashore—at Vila, New Hebrides, was the last place—and it was with difficulty I could persuade the rooms to stand still. I caught myself propping things up so they wouldn't roll off the table or the dresser; and it seemed strange that my bed did not buck and try to pitch me out on the floor.
That evening I dined with the Londons, and then we went to the theatre. Mrs. London still had attacks of island fever. Jack had had the fever in its worst form. But none the less, we enjoyed this evening, which, for all we knew, might be the last we could p336 spend together for a long time; for on the morrow, the Londons were to go into hospital.