The Pacific Triangle Part 11

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT TO CAPTAIN COOK At Botany Bay, Australia]

I made friends with the mate and the chief engineer and gained access to their superb collection of Emperor Penguin skins and an unusual number of photographs. Months afterward they wanted four men to complete the crew necessary for another journey south and I was tempted to join them, but tallow and bladder and a repressed pen were the negatives, while China and j.a.pan were the positives. So I sailed away with the rising sun in the direction of the great West that is the Far East. Crisp and clear in the bright morning air shone the towering peaks of the New Zealand Alps as I sailed toward Australia and to Botany Bay,--not, however, without being nearly wrecked in the fog which had gathered in Foveaux Strait, which separates Steward Island from the South Island in New Zealand. Bluff, the last little town in New Zealand, is said to have the most southerly hotel in the world. I saw it.

2

Four days from Bluff to Melbourne on a sea that seemed on the verge of congealing into ice. It was not cold, yet autumn-like. And the pa.s.sengers seemed the fallen leaves. The stewards maintained the reputation for impudence and unmannerliness of the Union Steamship Company crews, but I had grown used to that, and thanked my stars that this was the last coupon in the ticket I had purchased in Honolulu more than a year before. Of human incidents there was therefore none to relate.

But chill and melancholy as that Southern sea was, there hovered over it a creature whose call upon one's interest was more than compensating.

Swooping with giant wings in careless ease, the albatross followed us day in and day out. Always on the wing, awake or asleep, in sunshine or in storm, the air his home as the water is to fish, and earth to mammal.

Even the ship was no lure for him by way of support. He followed it, accepted whatever was thrown from it, but as for dependence upon it,--no such weakness, you may be sure. His sixteen feet of wing-spread moved like a ship upon the waves, like a combination of a ship and sails.

Swift, huge, glorious, unconsciously majestic, he is indeed a bird of good omen. How he floats with never a sign of effort! How he glides atop the waves, skims them, yet is never reached by their flame-like leapings; simulates their motion without the exhaustion into which they sink incessantly.

The albatross had left us, and now the swarming is his artistry, so refined his "table manners." He does not gorge himself as does the sea-gull, nor is he ever heard to screech that selfish, hungry, insatiable screech. Silent, sadly voiceless, rhythmic and symbolic without being restrained by pride of art, he exemplifies right living.

He is our link between sh.o.r.es, the one dream of reality on an ocean of opiate loveliness wherein there is little of earth's confusion and pain.

For the traveler he keeps the balance between the deadly stability of land life and the dream-like mystery of the sea. But for him it were impossible to come so easily out of an experience of a long voyage. Away down there he is the only reminder of reality. Which explains the reverence sailors have for him and their superst.i.tious dread of killing him. It is like the dread of the physician that his knife may too sharply stir the numbed senses of his patient under anaesthesia.

Land may be said to begin where the albatross is seen to depart. He knows, and off he swoops, ship or no ship to follow and to guide; back over the thousand miles of watery waste, to measure the infinite with his sixteen-foot wings, glide by glide, with the speed of a twin-screw turbine. Only when the female enters the breeding season does she seek out a lost island to rear her young. Independent of the sea, these birds are utterly confined to it, a mystery floating within mystery.

The albatross have left us, and now the swarming gulls abound. Why they are dignified with the Christian name "Sea" when they are such homely land-lubbers, is a question that I cannot answer. Pilots, rather, they come to see us into the harbor, or, with their harsh screeching, to frighten us away.

But something within me would not know Australia, nor any lands, just then. Perhaps it was that my unconscious self was still with the albatross; for strange as it may seem I could not sense any forward direction at all that day, but only one that pointed backward,--toward home. Try as I would to realize myself on my way to Australia, still my mind persisted in pointing toward America. Not until we got the first sight of land ahead was my soul set right. Then it was the Sister Islands, Wilson's Promontory, the Ba.s.s Straits, with Tasmania barely in sight, Cape Liptrap, and finally Port Phillip. And Australia was on all fours, veiled in blue,--a thin rind of earth steeped in summer splendor.

Flag signals were exchanged with the lonely pilot-ship that hung about the entrance. All being well, we pa.s.sed on, crossing that point at the entrance where five strong water-currents meet and vanquish one another, turning into a smooth, gla.s.sy coat of treachery. The _Wimmera_ hugged the right sh.o.r.e of the largest harbor I have ever seen. In places the other sh.o.r.e could not be seen with the naked eye. But it is very shallow and innumerable lights float in double file to guard all ships from being stranded.

Just as we entered, the sun set. A stream of color unconstrained obliterated all detail as it poured over the point of the harbor, filling the s.p.a.cious port. Clots of amber and orange gathered and were dissipated, softened, diffused, till slowly all died down and were gone. Darkness and the blinking lights of the buoys remained.

Two big ships, brilliantly lighted, flinging their manes of smoke to the winds, pa.s.sed, one on its way to Sydney, the other to Tasmania and Adelaide in the south. Far in the distance ahead we could see the string of sh.o.r.e lights at Port Williamson. It took us three hours to overtake them, and we arrived too late to receive pratique. For half an hour the captain and the customs carried on a conversation with blinking lights.

The winches suddenly began their rasping sound, and the anchor dropped to the bottom. We did not debark that night.

3

I spent nearly six months in Melbourne and Sydney, those two eastern eyes of that wild old continent, and for the first time in a twelvemonth the sense of security from the sea obtained. For a fortnight I occupied a little shack on Manly Beach, near Sydney, but oh, how different it was there from the sand-dunes on the sh.o.r.es at Dunedin, in New Zealand! In the Dominion one had to hide within the interior to get away from the sea: on the beach one felt about to slip into Neptune's maw. But at Manly, Bondi, Botany Bay, the sea might hammer away for another eternity without putting a landlubber off his ease.

But we shall return to Australia in another section. The sea is still much in the blood, there is still a vast length that lies close to Asia and marks off another line of our imaginary triangle. Here are no landless reaches, but all the way to j.a.pan one pa.s.ses strip after strip, as though some giant earthquake had shattered part of the main.

Months afterward I took pa.s.sage once more, this time on the _Eastern_, bound for j.a.pan.

There was no mistaking the side of the world I was on and the direction of my journey from the moment I stepped upon the pier to which the _Eastern_ was made fast. Hundreds of Chinese, with thousands of boxes and bundles, scurried to and fro in an ant-like attention to little details. Then as the steamer was about to depart, mobilization for the counting of noses took place, and veritable regiments of emaciated yellow men lined the decks. Here and there a fat, successful-looking Chinese moved round the crowd, an altogether different-looking species, more as one who lives on them than as one who lives with them. On the dock stood several groups waiting to wave farewell to their Oriental kin. One of these groups was composed of a stout white woman with two very pretty Eurasian daughters,--as handsome a pair of girls as I saw in Australia. Their father was a well-to-do Chinese merchant taking one of his regular trips to China. In Australian fashion they were ready for a mild flirtation, spoke Australian English with Australian slang, and, aside from their pater, they were native to all intents and purposes.

And in Australia they remained.

Of those who departed, the major number likewise remained native--though to China--despite years and years of residence in Australia. It is a one-sided argument to maintain that because of that the Chinese are una.s.similable. There is no ground for such a deduction, because they arrived mainly after maturity, and the Chinese could challenge any white man to become one of them after he has fully acquired his habits and prejudices. But we had not been many minutes at sea before it was our misfortune to find that we had among us a Chinese boy who was born and brought up in New Zealand and was just then going to China for the first time. Here I had ample opportunity of observing the a.s.similability of the Oriental. And here I bow before the inevitable.

He had a.s.similated every obnoxious characteristic of our civilization, the pa.s.sion for slang, the impertinence, the false pride, the bluff which is the basis of Western crowd psychology. He was not a Chinese,--that he denied most vehemently,--he was a New Zealander, and by virtue of his birth he a.s.sumed the right to impose his boyish larrikinism upon all the ship's unfortunate pa.s.sengers. He banged the piano morning, noon, and night; he affected long, straight black hair, which was constantly getting in his way and being brushed carefully back over his head; and he took great pains to make himself as generally obnoxious as possible. He was not that serious, struggling Chinese student who comes to America afire with hope for the regeneration of his race. He was a New Zealander, knew no other affiliations, had no aspirations, and lorded it over "those Chinese" who occupied every bit of available s.p.a.ce on the steamer.

In his way he was also a Don Juan, for he hovered over the young half-Australian wife of a middle-aged Chinese merchant who was taking her back to China for her confinement. She was morose, sullen, as unhappy a spirit as I have seen in an Oriental body. Obviously, China held few fine prospects for her. She was seldom seen in her husband's company, for he was generally below playing fan-tan or gambling in some other fashion. And the Australian half of her was longing for home. It seemed to devolve upon our young Don Juan to court this unhappy creature, and court her he did. But she had no resilience, no flash, her Chinese half-self offering him as little reward for his pains as a cow would offer the sun for a brilliant setting.

I expected any hour of the day to see that woman throw herself into the sea, or that husband stick a knife into the bold, bad boy, but nothing happened; the husband and the wife were seemingly oblivious of the love-making, and all went well.

Besides the Chinese crew and pa.s.sengers there were perhaps a dozen white people, including the officers. An old English army captain whose pa.s.sport confirmed his declaration that he was seventy-three years old, was taking a little run up to j.a.pan. His only reason was that j.a.pan was an ally, hence he wanted to see it. Such is the nature of British provincialism. Otherwise, there were but two or three young Australians bound for Townsville, and the stewardess. Somewhere along the coast we picked up a Russian peasant, who with his wife had been induced to emigrate to Australia, but who was now going home to enlist. As though there weren't already enough men in Russia armed with sticks and stones!

At still another port we commandeered a veritable regiment of Australian children, colloquially called larrikins. These were bound for the Philippines, where their father had preceded them some months before.

Their exploits deserve an exclusive paragraph.

Suddenly, out of a clear sky, there would be a shriek like the howl of a dingo on the Australian plains. There would be a rush to the defenses by an excited female,--the mother. There would follow such a slapping as would delight the English Corporal Correction League, except that it wasn't done cold-bloodedly enough. And thereafter for half an hour there was bedlam all around. After exhaustion, a new series of pranks set in.

This time they were playing a "back-blocks" game which entailed a hanging. One of them needs must be hanged, and was rescued just in time by an ever-swooping mother. After hours of hunger-stimulating escapades on deck, the dinner-bell sent them scurrying down into the saloon.

Before any of us had time to be seated all the fruit on the table was divided according to the best principles of individual enterprise.

Beginning with the first thing on the menu, they went down the sheet, leaving nothing untasted; nor did it matter much whether it was breakfast or dinner,--steak enough for a meal in itself comprised the entree. And the littlest kept pace with the biggest. Nor did afternoon and morning tea escape them. Fully stoked up, they were ready for another beating and another hanging on deck.

In contrast were the little Chinese children,--quiet, shy, never spanked; and though they put away enough within their Oriental bread-baskets, one never saw that same wild struggle for existence which told the tale of life on an Australian station better than anything I wot of.

We had now reached Brisbane, 519 miles from Sydney, a distance which took the _Eastern_ from noon of the 8th to sunrise of the 10th of October to negotiate. And from the outer channel to the docks on the Brisbane River we steamed till half-past one in the afternoon. Here we were "beached" in the mud when the tide went out and had to wait twenty-four hours before floating out again. In the meantime we picked up two more gems,--mature larrikin this time. One of them was so drunk he couldn't see straight, the other was sober enough to bring him on board. Unfortunately for me, they were placed in my cabin, and from then on, after the youngsters had turned the day into chaos, these two would come in to sleep, and the cursing, the spitting, the reference to women with which they consoled their souls, would have shocked the most hardened beach-comber, I am sure.

To avoid annoyances I explored every nook and corner of the vessel. At last I discovered a sanctuary on the roof of the unused hospital. It could not be called a model of order and comfort, for various air-tanks and stores of sprouting potatoes belittered it. But it was like the holy of holies to me, for there I might just as well have been on a lone craft of my own. No sound reached me from any living thing,--except an occasional extra-loud shriek from the youngsters. Above and about me there was nothing to obstruct my view, and within, absolute peace.

On the following day we were on the Great Barrier Reef, grayish green in color, languid in temperament, shallow and therefore dangerous in make-up. Numerous islands, neutral in color and sterile of vegetation, seemed to stare at us and at one another in mute indifference. For the first time the storied reality of being stranded on a desolate island came home to me. As I sat watching this filmy show, I became conscious of a familiar something in the world about me, be it warmth or color, a something which immediately brought the picture of Santa Anna Valley in California back to mind. Sometimes we come across a face we feel certain we have seen before: that was the case with the atmosphere along the Great Barrier Reef. The setting is that of the island home of _Paul and Virginia_. Near and far, lowly and majestic, in generous succession on each side, were islands and continent,--an avenue wide, s.p.a.cious, and clear. Occasional peaks along the mainland recalled old-fashioned etchings,--dense clouds, heaven-reaching streaks and shafts of twice-blended astral blue; rain-driven mountain fiords.

Early one day, an hour before dawn, the _Eastern_ moored before Magneta Isle with her stern toward Townsville, as though ready for instant flight, if necessary. With an early-morning shower of filthy words, one of my cabin-mates pulled himself together and dressed. Shortly afterward he slipped over the side of the ship into a tossing and pitching launch and was rushed to Townsville. His rousing me at that hour was the only thing I had reason to be grateful to him for in our short acquaintance.

For the world was exquisitely beautiful in its delicate gown of night.

Dawn was but waking. Four-o'clock stupor superintended the easy activities. A few lights in a corner, a bolder and more purposeful flash from a search-light, and all set in twilight. A ring of islands--the Palm Isles--stones set in a placid bay. That was all I saw of Townsville.

And perhaps it is just as well. It may have been "ordained" that my ignorance obtain, be the city's virtues and its right to fame what they may. What if I had gathered closer impressions, added meaningless statistics or announced the prevalence of diphtheria throughout Queensland, or discovered the leading citizen of Townsville to an apathetic world? But it may be of interest to hear that Townsville claims one distinction. It is the Episcopal See of Australia and the seat of the Anglican Bishop and possesses a cathedral.

4

On the afternoon of the following day a heavy wind or squall came up.

This time the ship did not defy it. No foolhardy resistance here. The reefs are too near and they stretch for thirty miles seaward. Again we anch.o.r.ed. The horizon contracted like a noose of mist; it stifled one.

The ship seemed to crouch beneath the winds. An hour, and the anchor was heard being lifted and the propellers were slowly revived to action. A little later we anch.o.r.ed again. A light was hoisted to the stern mast and twilight lowered on a calm gray sea. Distant little flat islands loomed through the mist. Two sailing-vessels at anchor, moored in companionship, rested within an inlet. A gentle swish, a murmur of human voices, and our little world was swaying gently upon a curious world.

And there we remained all night.

As the sun gave notice of day, we moved off, and all day the sea was so still that but for the vibration of the screws it would have been hard to realize that the ship was in motion. Here we came to where the jagged coastline has run down. Tiny islets, flat and low, most of them but a landing-place for a few tropical trees. Summer calm, with barely a ripple of the sea. That night we anch.o.r.ed again, having come, it was said, to the most dangerous pa.s.s on the reefs.

Ten days after having left Sydney we arrived at the last port in Australia, Thursday Island. A cloudy morning had turned clear for us, but on ahead to the northwest hung heavy mists. Because of these, I was later told by two soldiers on guard atop the mountain fortification, they could not see us coming. They saw our smoke, but the steamer was hidden from them by mist. Then suddenly we shot into view. All the while we had been in the clearest sunshine, the sea gla.s.sy and the flying-fish darting about. It was no place for speed. We moved just fast enough to leave the scene undisturbed. And thus we stole into Torres Straits.

Of all the numerous harbors I have entered in the Pacific, none, with the exception of the Inland Sea in j.a.pan, is more picturesque than that at Thursday Island. Shelter, s.p.a.ce, and depth, and stillness! One's eyes sweep round this pearly promise with greed for its beauty. Seventy-five sail-boats, their sailless masts swaying with the swells, are anch.o.r.ed on the reefs. It is Sunday and they are at rest, but what enchantment lies hid in those folded sails! I wish for the power to utter some word which could put them to flight; but that remains for Monday, when "the word" is spoken.

And on Monday, too, immediately upon leaving port at ten o'clock, the ship's time was returned to standard time, leaving Australia and its "bunk.u.m" daylight-saving time behind. Thence we lived again by "d.i.n.k.u.m"

time. The ship about-faced and left the channel the same way it had entered, and shortly afterward we struck across the Arafua Sea.

5

From that day until I reached j.a.pan it was all I could do to keep track of the seas we pa.s.sed through,--Arafua, Banda, Molucca, Celebes, Sulu, China, and the Inland Sea.

As we neared the equator again, there was nothing to disturb the peaceful splendor of life, except the little hoodlums on board. About sixty miles south of it a tiny creature, like a turtle, sailed along the still surface; the flying-fish blistered the water, the scars broadened and healed again just as the sportive amphibians pierced it and disappeared. What a contrast to the albatross!