Separation, we may then conclude, though infinitely better than a continuance of the existing one-sided tie, would, in a healthier state of our relations, not be to the interest of Britain, although it would perhaps be morally beneficial to Australia. Any relation, however, would be preferable to the existing one of mutual indifference and distrust. Recognizing the fact that Australia has come of age, and calling on her, too, to recognize it, we should say to the Australian colonists: “Our present system cannot continue; will you amend it, or separate?” The worst thing that can happen to us is that we should “drift” blindly into separation.
After all, the strongest of the arguments in favor of separation is the somewhat paradoxical one that it would bring us a step nearer to the virtual confederation of the English race.
PART IV.
INDIA.
A regular and uniform system of spelling of native names and other words has lately been brought into common use in India, and adopted by the government. Not without hesitation, I have decided upon ignoring this improvement, and confining myself to spellings known to and used by the English in England, for whom especially I am writing.
I am aware that there is no system in the spelling, and that it is scientifically absurd; nevertheless, the new government spelling is not yet sufficiently well understood in England to warrant its use in a book intended for general circulation. The scientific spelling is not always an improvement to the eye, moreover: Talookdars of Oude may not be right, but it is a neater phrase than “Taâlukhdars of Awdh;” and it will probably be long before we in England write “kuli” for coolie, or adopt the spelling “Tátá hordes.”
CHAPTER I.
MARITIME CEYLON.
WE failed to sight the Island of Cocoas, a territory where John Ross is king—a worthy Scotchman, who having settled down in mid-ocean, some hundreds of miles from any port, proceeded to annex himself to Java and the Dutch. On being remonstrated with, he was made to see his error; and, being appointed governor of and consul to himself and laborers, now hoists the union-jack, while his island has a red line drawn under its name upon the map. Two days after quitting John Ross‘s latitudes, we crossed the line in the heavy noonday of the equatorial belt of calms. The sun itself passed the equator the same day; so, after having left Australia at the end of autumn, I suddenly found myself in Asia in the early spring. Mist obscured the skies except at dawn and sunset, when there was a clear air, in which floated cirrocumuli with flat bases—clouds cut in half, as it seemed—and we were all convinced that Homer must have seen the Indian Ocean, so completely did the sea in the equatorial belt realize his epithet “purple” or “wine-dark.” All day long the flying-fish—“those good and excellent creatures of God,” as Drake styled them—were skimming over the water on every side. The Elizabethan captain, who knew their delicacy of taste, attributed their freedom from the usual slime of fish, and their wholesome nature, to “their continued exercise in both air and water.” The heat was great, and I made the discovery that Australians as well as Americans can put their feet above their heads. It may be asserted that the height above the deck of the feet of passengers on board ocean steamers varies directly as the heat, and inversely as the number of hours before dinner.
In the afternoon of the day we crossed the line, we sighted a large East Indiaman lying right in our course, and so little way was she making that, on coming up with her, we had to port our helm, in order not to run her down. She hailed us, and we lay-to while she sent a boat aboard us with her mail; for although she was already a month out from Calcutta and bound for London, our letters would reach home before she was round the Cape—a singular commentary upon the use of sailing ships in the Indian seas. Before the boat had left our side, the ships had floated so close together, through attraction, that we had to make several revolutions with the screw in order to prevent collision.
When we, who were all sleeping upon deck, were aroused by the customary growl from the European quartermaster of “Four o‘clock, sir! Going to swab decks, sir! Get up, sir!” given with the flare of the lantern in our eyes, we were still over a hundred miles from Galle; but before the sun had risen, we caught sight of Adam‘s Peak, a purple mass upon the northern sky, and soon we were racing with a French steamer from Saigon, and with a number of white-sailed native craft from the Maldives. Within a few hours, we were at anchor in a small bay, surrounded with lofty cocoa-palms, in which were lying, tossed by a rolling swell, some dozen huge steamers, yard-arm to yard-arm—the harbor of Point de Galle. Every ship was flying her ensign, and in the damp hot air the old tattered union-jacks seemed brilliant crimson, and the dull green of the cocoa-palms became a dazzling emerald. The scene wanted but the bright plumage of the Panama macaws.