"Forty-six dollars!" exclaimed Frank; "and for a voyage of forty-eight hours!"
"And it is only five hundred miles from Singapore to Batavia," Fred responded. "How much does it cost to go from New York to England, and what is the distance?"
The Doctor informed him that it was about three thousand miles from New York to Liverpool, and the passage was usually a hundred dollars for the best places on the best steamers.
"At the rate from here to Batavia," said Fred, "we should have to pay two hundred and seventy-five dollars for the transatlantic voyage where we now pay one hundred dollars. Why does it cost so much more here than on the Atlantic?"
"In the first place," the Doctor explained, "there are comparatively few people travelling here, and the companies are compelled to ask high prices in order to keep up their ships. Where a steamer between New York and Liverpool would have a hundred passengers and more, and consider it only an ordinary business, you will rarely find more than twenty or thirty passengers on a steamer in the Far East. Coal is much more expensive here than in the North Atlantic ports, and so is nearly everything else that is used on a ship. In these hot regions the passengers need more room than on a transatlantic steamer, and more personal comforts generally."
"But don't they ever crowd the passengers rather uncomfortably?" Frank asked. "It seems to me that I have heard you speak of a very disagreeable voyage you once had on account of the unusual number of people on the steamer you travelled on."
"You are quite right," the Doctor replied; "and it was on this very route, from Singapore to Batavia. I was on the French steamer; and the agents told me there would be plenty of room, as only a few passengers were engaged. She had eight rooms, with two berths to a room, so that her complement of passengers was sixteen. But when we came to start we found that we numbered fifty-two; and you can easily understand that we had a hard time of it. We were packed something like sardines in a can, and all were heartily glad when the voyage was over. If we could have laid hold of the Singapore agent of the company we should have treated him as roughly as the laws of the ocean permit; but he had the advantage of being on shore, and quite out of our reach."
