Читать книгу An Australian Ramble; Or, A Summer in Australia онлайн

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Professors of hall and college,

With a great deal of learning and little knowledge.

And, alas! I have known many such. It amuses me more to talk to some of the third-class passengers. ‘Ah, sir,’ said one of them to me, as we steamed out of Naples Bay—‘ah, sir, that is a very wicked city; it allus reminds me of Nineveh.’ I was compelled to admit that I did not know much of the wickedness of either; but that I did happen to know that, excluding Jack the Ripper, there were not a few wicked people left in London. I always like to look at home before I begin censuring other people. There is a good deal of truth in the remark of the old Californian, when Sir Charles Dilke told him ‘Californians in the Empire City were called the scum of the earth.’ ‘Them New Yorkers,’ was the old man’s reply, ‘is a sight too fond of looking after other people’s morals.’

Just as we are nearing the lowlands of Africa, and Port Said—a wretched place, where we stop a few hours to coal—is in sight, a death occurs on board; a tiny babe, weary of the world of which it knows so little, refuses to live any longer. In the drawing-room few of us know of the event, and the gaiety goes on much as usual. I rush on to the deck, and see a dark cloud of passengers at one end, and there is the Bishop standing at a red kind of box or reading-desk, repeating that grand burial service which is nowhere more impressive than when heard in the ocean’s solitude, with nothing but the wide, wide sea below, and the clear, moonlight sky above. The parents are, of course, there to mourn, and the bearing of the little crowd is sympathetic. The poor little corpse, covered by the British flag, is placed on an inclined board, which is tipped over when the sentence ‘we commit this body to the deep’ is reached, and the sea receives its dead. I had only asked the doctor that morning what was the state of health on board the ship, and his reply was that it was as well as could be. Perhaps steerage passengers don’t count, especially when babies. At any rate, the funeral is over, and we are taking our evening tea as if nothing of consequence had occurred—as if no tender mother’s heart had been torn with anguish as she saw her babe fall a victim to the Reaper whose name is Death. Not for a moment did the ship slacken her career, and we press on to Port Said with all our might.