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

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For a real Lotus-land, where it is always afternoon, commend me to the Suez Canal. It is a busy spot. No spot is busier. Steamers, especially English ones, are always passing up and down. It is an expensive spot. You are fortunate if your steamer has not to pay a thousand or two for the trip. The Orizaba has to pay £1,700 for going through; but that does not concern you, if you have taken your passage to Ismailia or Colombo, or one or other of the great Australian ports. All that you have to do is to sit still and enjoy yourself. There the good sailor and the bad one are equal. There you fear no north or south simoom, no seas mountains high (I have never yet seen them, and begin to believe in them only as I do in stories of mermaids and mermen, or in legends of the sea-serpent ever turning up at unexpected times and in unexpected quarters), no rough blasts of the winter winds, no equinoctial gales. The captain comes down from his bridge, the officers take it easy, and you really need not to drive dull care away. On that calm water, under that bright sky, you have no thought of time. All around you is still life—the boundless sands, the distant hills, the camels, and the Arabs encamped far away. All is repose, in the heavens above, as well as in the earth beneath. It is true the beggars here and there on the banks are a nuisance, but where are they not, either in the Old World or the New? For eighteen or twenty hours you are at peace—to read the last novel, to flirt with the last fancy of the hour; to dream, if you like, in the broad daylight of other days and other times. The big ship moves, but so slowly that you can scarce tell that you are moving at all. The stewards bring your meals as usual; your sleep is undisturbed. There is your morning bath, your accustomed cigar, your game of chess, or your rubber of whist. Ah, you are much to be envied! The pity of it is that the trip is so soon over; that the dream is soon dispelled; that the curtain so soon falls on the scene; that you have to get back again to the cares, and troubles, and struggles of real life.