ACROSS PACIFIC SEAS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 19, 8 May 1902, Page 3

ACROSS PACIFIC SEAS.

By Rev. H. W. Cllwry.

Honolulu, Apiil 9. The bursting of a steam-pipe may temporarily inconvenience an ocean liner as much as the i-evermg ot a femoral artery may a 'human.' The Moana, bound tor Vancouver, lay fettered and gyved to sundry stumps, of iron-bark on Circular Quay, Sydney, on the afternoon of March 2 f, and on the point of speeding away on her long track across the Pacific bean, when the imprisoned bteam, cour.siiig her.- and there through lit r vittN, found— like the influenza nnciobe— 'the weak spot," 111 Ik r sWem ai.d broke thiough tin re. It took jnne hour*' f-hip suig<ry with fire and hammer and ton^H mid the rot of the pan phernnh.i of Mori b I)oc:k playing upon that pipe befure ihe circulation (it the bhip'h blood — her bt>_am — was re-t'btabl -4k d ; and i j the \\<.e Mna hours ayont the twal' on the follow ing un ruing the AUuua ea-t uil and ( otu.ded away dov 11 ' ahr biautilul hahb'r ' under the twinkln>g stars. Our belutid start wan a<<^ra\attd, as to v* lemub, by rhe buezn that comes wandering lrom the bky and btehhn/ down the eastern coai-t of Australia with the consibteruy of a trade wind. r lhe upbhot of the double combination was thin, it h ,ih two hours after uightfall on March 26 when we had done crawling up the long ferpentine nhipchannel in M melon Bay. We ca-t anchor bouie dibtance away from entrance to the river—a red and a while tje marking- the bpU— and the lights of Scinr'gate stretching ilW ay like parallel torchlight processions o\€l the waUrd to the ri^ht. It was a ca-,e of Yarrow unvisited—ihcre was no chance of going ashore for even a brief glimj se of Bri?bune, and griar, accordingly was the ditappoiut-

ment. But such things must befall those who go down to the sea in ships. And roost of ua found conso'ation m an improvißed concert and in the thought that, when stetm-pipes, like other wellpl»nn« d things, will gang agley. it is better that they should leave us aft w farther sunshiny houis among o id friends in Sydney than bumpirg- and wallowing in the trough of the soa where the lon* oi.pes poke out their bald and ro ky forehfads along the eastern shores of New South W .1- s and Queensland. A tup crept down in the drowsy darkness about midnight and pJnng the overland mails and a bevy of assorted passengers on bar-]. At J.'.vn the JI«:a .-naked her toituou b way once more oown the bnoyd «hip-chanm 1. dropped the pilot where she had piukcu Iran up. at Capo MoKtu . li o 'ht, aud away we he..dtd through, the open ocean Towards Fiji. The number of passengers in all clashes was over 150. Eighty* two of these were in the first paloon, among them the following from 1 New Zealand : Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Edinond (Dunedin), Mr. and Mn. J. Cooke (Port Chalmers). Mr. and Mrs. Field (Nelson), Mr ,Mrs and Miss Wilson (Wellington), Mrs. R. Heat on Rhodes C'hnstehurchX Mr. and Mrs. G. Rhodes (Timaru). Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Brett (Auckland), Lady Dougl.e, M;ss Douglaa, and Miss Foster (Wellington), Mr. Clegg (Dv edin), Mr. and Mra. Utting (Auckland), Mr. and Mrs. Menzies (Wellington), and Miss Perston (Auckland) Tnere wa« room enough for all the first-saloon passengpis in the finely-appointed cabins of the Moana, few of which cont .mod more t!i>*n two con pants. One large cabin was reserved for me and my oIJ-time friend, Father Barlow, P P. of Penrith, New South Walts, who in to be my companion in my svaudeiiuKs for many a pWtust month to come. I may here slate orjee for all that nothing could surpass the attention shown to the p ibt* ngers on b> ard, and that the tables are supplied in quite a Javibh way with every delicacy and even luxury that the most exacting palate could desire. 'Old stagers' on board who have travelled many a sea have assured me that in respect to attention and cu/*ine the Canadian-Australian line compares favorably with any they have known. The Union Company seem determined to make this new route to the Old W r orld a popular one with business men and globe-trotters, and present appearances certainly point like an index to the word ' success.' There are Catholics among the passengers in both the first and second saloon, and ' when the Sunday morning smiles ' these— and a particularly ' high ' Ritualist as well— foregather in the screened music room and arc present at the Holy Sacrifice which is celebrated in succession tin re by Father Barlow, myself, and Father Maitler, a priest of the Polish Mission, Paris, who is on a health-trip and on his return journey to his people. ' Love the sea ?' exclaimed Douglas Jerrold once ; ' I dote npon it— from the beach.' The sentiment— with which I and many of my fellow-voyagers are in more or los emphatic agreement— finds ample expression in The Yachtman's Song which will bear quoting in full in a random account of a sea voyage eciibblui upon my knee jn an upper deck in mid-Pacific :— ' I love the sea — the boundless s^a. Whtsro the waves run tif,'h and the wind blows free ! Where the sea-^ulls iry, »>nd the bieakers roll. And the briiiy biauty encrusts the soul. I Jo\e — I love the sta ' I love the sea — the boundless sea ! The thunder may growl in a deep bass key, The lightning nifty flabh, aud the breeze may howl. And the storm in its fury may shriek and growl. I lo\c — I love the tea. ' I love the sea — the boundless sea ! Hut I'm sorry to say that it doesn't love me. W hen the wind pipes loud, ai d the billows roar, I always consider I'm best on Bhore. I love — I love the sea. 1 I love the Eca — the boundless sea ! (If it didn't bound, we should better agree), And I Fpoke in the abstract, of course, jubt Low When I mentioned the tempest mijjht make a row. 1 love — I love the sea. ' I love the sea — the boundless sea ! But— let thin remark in htrick confidence be — When the ocean is smooth as a duck-pond's breast, And the wind iri hushed — O, 'tis then that best 1 love — I love the sea.' But the 'cross-Pacific voyapre is a smooth-sea ore. In the fix teen daj 8 from Sjdney to Hoi olulu by Fiji the i-ea was only for a portion of three days a bit ' lumpy ' and on no occasion rough, and only the more senbitne and overstrained left their places at the table inglonously va<ant. And the^e are consoled, as occasion arose, by the reflection that even the mighty Nelson, the victor of Trafalgar, uwtd to go under ' when, afu-r a prolonged stay ashore, he found his 'wooden walla ' tosMng and dippimr and bhdii g down the watery hillhideb of the Stiaits of Dcvi r. Even rcyalty cannot protect ittelf a^ainbt the nervous ill that makes the bea for ao many a tea of troubles indeed. The German Emperor is baid to be always ill when in a gale at ben. Ku.g lid ward, with all his oe\o'ion to yachting, ban been almost doubled into a bow -knot v. ith n.a'-de-mer when crobbihg the bumpy Watt rs of the Straits of Dover The present Prince ot Wales 18 also a fn quen, victim, and the Princess a martyr to the inuUdy ; and of all the Biitish Uoyal Fun i y the only one that 1h quite immune from its attacks is the widowed Duchess of Albany. I cannot bay that such considerations dimir i-sh

the bitterness of the pangs of mal-de-mer, but full tables have been the rule on the Moana since she cast off at Sydney, and the gentle breezes and generally placid waters have saved from aud staved off the illness from many overstrung travellers like me who never learns to look placidly from a steamer's deck on ' old ocean's grey and melancholy waste.' Somebody has remarked that when a number of people embark for a voyage of three or four weeks a process of Natural Selection sets up in the matter of acquaiiiLaiiue-uiukiag National or colonin groups come together most spontaneously, but leave room for the further play ot occupation and social rank. It took the camorn fiends, for instance, only about 24 hours to find each other out. Colonials thaw rapidly and fall readily into friendly and helpful intercourse with each other and the world at large and form a strongly-marked and pleasant contrast with the cold aloofness of the average Briton on tour. Acquaintanceships spread sporadically — a number of little groups that have 'found' each other being day by day brought into contact with others through some bond of common membership, and games and the daily sweep on the run, and exchange of books and magazines, and other kinlly courtesies and the thousand and one little interests of the voyage knit all together at last into ti happy family. The old song hath it that ' the sailor sighs as sinks his native Bhore.' The landsman feels a sense of loneliness when the sh ire — be it native or foreign— has dipped beneath the waters and all that is visible from the upper deck is a great flat, sharply defined disc of heaving blue, covered in — as with a great dish-cover — with the fainter-colored amre of the sky and m the midst the ship, leaving a foamy track astern, but never seeming to reach any nearer to the further edge of the ocean's circling rim. To light and left from our ocean track occasional flying fish flutter up above the waters, scurry off on their long, briny, wing-like fins, and, after a flight of three to thirty yards, drop with a splash into the ocean. The Pacific is not teeming with these interesting creatures, as the Indian oc?an is, but we ' flushed ' a few of them almost every day of our long journey from Brisbane to Honolulu. To one acquainted with the New Zealand coasts, and with the southern thores of Australia, the almost complete lack of bird-life adds a strange feeling of loneliness to the Pacific. From Brisbane to Honolulu less than a dozen sea-birds met my gaze — all or almost all of them dark, solitary rangers hunting over the fields of ocean hundreds of miles from the nearest shore, and on motionless pinion skimming 'Up and down I Up and down ! From the base of the wave to the billow's crown.' For this dark wanderer 1 Lives on the wide, wide sea, On the craggy ice, in the frozen air, And only seeketh her rocky lair To warm her young and to teach them spring At once o'er the waves on theit stormy wing.' On March 2 c .i we ■ picked up ' the Isle of Pines. It is the Norfolk Inland or 'hell' of the adjoining French penal settlemen of New Caledonia — the inland-prison of the most troublesome and refractory of the criminal population of the group. But it wa« land, for all that and for hours it attracted the eagrer a'tention of every binocular on board, although it never showed more than two dun conj 'ined gny hill- twenty -five miles away on the rim of the -ea T\io d >y- lat. i (Rwnr Mund,-.} ) tne Fiji group appeared— dun grty peaks an 1 l-let-hills and '-to p detached rocks that cut ihe hon/ m line like the teeth of a -te.eltrap. The Hea. as we approached the Fiji-, w a-, so to -peak, planed and sand-pqiertd, wnhout d pulv or ripple to bteik us level -urfdce. While the afternoon was still bright we pastel \\uhin eight or ten miles of th» fertile island of M fenya. the land when-, on a great annual festal day, natives walk through a pit ot nte-heiud stones. It appears th.it none hut the initialed me permitted to witness the ceremonies with which the oopp. r-skiuiied old wi/irds of Mbenga prepare their men for thi- new form ot ordeal by fne. but I should not he supn-t-d it they •■übmit the h 'idiot v -oh'-i ol die' chosen i-landers to sume piep.irtiou akin to th.it w hit h etiaM .s the white schoolboy to do cun.-in feats with lighted candle- and h< t irons atter his hands and mouth have bi en v. ci i anomtt ri with liquid storax. Yiti l,c\u, the- Lirgest island of the 1 iji greiup. 'tails ' fioin Mbenga — its j.u'gul outline of '•harp, clo-e-i row ded peaks being closely suggestive, in the fading light, of the knubb} spinal column of a great alligator. Suva, the capital, stands on Viti Levu. Its fine harbor is surrounded by a natural break watt i built after a/es ot t ill by U at uoihk rtul submarine engineer the eoial in ect, rind circles luund abuat, like a great set ot lower teeth that rnme ,ilmo-i 11 i-th wiih Ihe surface at low water. The enhance l- thn u>>h a break, v- though the incisors hud been pulled out i f Ihe circling iii nial row. As we were being piloted through it thi' p lot's oir-men in tueir bo it alo; gwule sang (with a keen tye for fa lim» cum- (1 n uiit native ditt c" ma im ilow, vowelly tongue st range's su/u'estive ot thai, of tiit v i litan xaik r«, beating time w ah their hand- tin lr b ire bion/.t; -houhieTh to and fro, and displaying an aptitude tut iiaiiiuii.y mv h us one hears m a Lombard v m._>anl vi i Giiman camp. \s vs c pieeeuii-d to our ancho atre shovvers ot luokets v\e.ie sri't up in welcome', and the colored hi,'ht- and tne 1 nil))-" ot 111«1 11«1 1 «- Ipuh cit 1 >ng letiict.ng beams upon the -month aud nnw rmkli el (ate- vi. theh.ub/i Tne suu had set behind Mi>e >^a liemnd the rigirtel peaks the sky was for a brief sp..<;e like a -In < t ■( • onpi-r i liai 1 a 1 he. n pa-s. .1 thi ou^h the tire The hla/ing colors t aele d fast an 1 d.nkness ] L )l \ |^ c llle silent rolling uiuid,iniii,in. hi ill" tiop cs th-ie h none 1 of the po.tiy e>t ilii -1 >>w v ii i:n^ r i f r/)u\' ac or du-k ot Ougo or the Bntioh 1-ler uh> i

' The lengthening shadows wait The first pale stars of twilight.' The plague in Sydney prevented us going ashore in Suva The more knowing New Zealanders sailed thither by the Taviuni from Auckland— a course which I cordially commend, for it shortens the sea-journey to Vancouver by about a week, and enables the traveller to see this Pacific paradise in a leisured way. As for us, while the ship loaded fruit and water, we swep^, town and country with glasses, and feasted our eyes on the rampant tropical vegetation that swarmed over everything, crowned the tall peaks and framed the bungalow of the white man, aud the thatched huts of the coolies. Convicts and policemen were the only natives who were permitted to come alemg the wharf near which we were moored. They were splendid specimens of manhood, of the type of their kinsmen the Maori, the police in blue jacket and scalloped loin-cloth, the convicts in white loin-cloth only (stamped with the broad arrow), all their skins the color of new copper ; thick, matted, erect hair dyed a golden color with the aid of lime (according to native custom) ; and, but for their Polynesian head-pieces, looking as if they had just stepped out from those studies of anatomy, the cartoons of Raphael A merry crew of convicts, too — for they sanp their native melodies to the ship-folk, and dived for coins and performed mekaa (or dances) and posed for amateur photographs the live-long day, and gained much cash thereby, and were more like over-grown schoolboys out for a holiday than criminals serving out a term of hard labor. We were naturally greatly interested in the New Catholic Cathedral of Suva, which ia fast approaching completion. It is the most massive structure in the, place and stands within a stone's throw of the wharves, in full view of where the Moana was moored. It is a large edifice, built (I think) of stone imported from Sydney, and its fdcade crowned with a great statue. A flanking tower is in course of erection. The building is roofed, and during our stay there a bazaar in aid of the building fund was being held within its walls. The sacred edifice is to be solemnly opened in August by his Grace Archbishop Redwood, and a large number of other members of the hierarchy of Australasia are expected to be present on what will be for the Church in Fiji a historic occasion. There are some 12,000 Catholics among the ten score or thereabouts of inhabited islands of the Fiji group. The remainder of the population are for the most part adherents of some form or other of We-4eyanism. As in the Hawaiian Islands, the native population is rapidly melting away. The current issue of the Fiji Times during our brief stay at Suva (that of March 2!>) published official statistics which tell A Melancholy Tale. In 1S!)1 the population was 10.5.794. Last year's census returns (now complete) show a population of only SH 3!)7— a decrease of 11.31)7, or about 121 per thousand. The census of 18SH showed a drop of 77 per thousand on that of 1881, and the tale of a vanishing race that is told in the recently-published figures is well described by the Commissioner as 'appalling.' Even the Maori is vanishing too, though, happily, not at such a raging pace. The last Tasmanian aboriginal died in 1872. In Victoria the black man is almost extinct, aud in the other states of the Commonwealth he is just as sutely doomed. The North American Indian is going, too. in the wake of the vanished races that have melted m contact with English-speaking civilisation. Spain and Portugal alone of colonismjr peoples he. em to be about the only ones that were capable of elevating and preserving the aboriginal tribes with whom they came in contact. In his recent work. The Spanish Punui /•■>, Mr F. Lummis ('in A'i erican non-Catholic writtr) say*, tor instance, that • ihe legislation ot Spam in behalf of the Indians everywhere was incomparably more extensive, more comprehensive, more systematic, nmre humane, than that of Great Britain, the colonies, and the pn sent United States all rombined. Thosei first teachers gave the Spa-ush language and Christian f-.ith to a thousand aborigines where we gave a new language and re ligion to one. There have bteu Spanish schools for ludian* in Am» rica since 1.">24 By 157.) — ne.uly a century before there was a printing press in English A\i. erica — many boeiKs in twelve different Indian languages had be 'ii pmteel in the city of Mexico, where m our hi-tory John Una's Indian Bible stands alone; and three Spanish universities in America were nearly rounding out their century when Harvard was foundid. A surprisingly large proportion of the pioueers of America were college men; and intelligence went hand in hand with heroism in the early settlement of the New World.' And the result of the Spanish method of colonisation is this • that the pureblood Indians of Mexico are )5S per cent, of the total population, and people ot mixed races I i per cent., while in Peru ~>7 per cent. of the p ipulation are unoriginal-, and 23 per cent, of mixed race ; and the Philippine-, with their C 000, nOO native Catholics, are a monument ruoie lasting than bronze tv Spanish interpnse and piety and vale r. We left Suva on Eister Tuesday, April 1, amidst a pelting downpour of eoohng tropical ram that smote the awning and bides o r the ship like quail-shot. That night, while the moonbeams tipped the ripples with a, path of dancing light, we crotsed the lMiih inoiidiau east from Greenwich, and the captain gave us Another Day. We went to bed, on that Tuesday night, April 1, and arose on Tuesd>y morning, April 1. ' Time anil its tenses,' says Froude in his (), I'diia, ■ are i-trange things, arid at their strangest when one is travelling round the globe. The question is not only what season is v but what day in it, and what o'clock is it. The captain makes ir, twe.lve u'clock when he tells us th it it is noon ; and it seemed as if a, supply of time was amo.ig the ship's Etores, for when we reached 180 E. long, he pn sentt d u.s with an exira day, and we had two Tuesdays 1 , two eLghtds of April in one week. As our course

was eastward, we met the sun each morning before it would rise at the point where we had been on the morning before, and the day was, therefore, shorter than the complete period of the globe's revolution. Each degree of longitude represented a loss of four minutes, and the total loss in a complete circuit would be an entire day of 24 hours. We had gone through half of it, and the captain owed u» 12 hours. He paid us these and he advanced us 12 more, which we aho'ild have Bpent or paid back to him by the time that we reached Liverpool.' That's the story pat of the gift of a day which is even still — close to Honolulu— puzzling many a one on board the good ship Moana, and oaco in a while reviving the °torm of ' Hows ? ' and 'Whys?' that danced around main and upper decks on that double first of April near where the feathery pilm*< of Vanua Levu lisped and bowed to the whispering waves of the Koro Sea. We Crossed the Equator at 7.45 p.m. on April 4. The lateness of the hour prevented the wags on board showing ' the line ' to too trusting maids and matrons — said "line' consisting of a hair deftly fastened to the objective of telescope or binocular. A brief blast of the ship's steam-whistle indicated the psychological moment of the crossing. In the northern sky the Great Bear was visible and in the far Antipodes the Southern Cross was reeling over and preparing to plunge its right arm in the ocean. The following night (April 5) we passed under the sun's track, and on Low Sunday, for the first time in 14 years, I stood north of the shining sun. We were still slicing with prow and pounding with screw the waters of the tropics, and a hot spell and languishing forces were due. But we have passed all through the sun-scorched belt of Capricorn and close to the outer fringe of Cancer with comparatively little discomfort from mere heat. For a friendly trade wind has been constantly playing upon one or the other of our vessels bows ever since we headed off from Brisbane on our long diagonal line from the southwest to the north-east Pacific. It has been a spray-bath, a cooling draught, and all manner of things pleasant and refreshing to every bundle of humanity on board, and people sit far into the nights on our spacious main and upper decks to bask in this blessing from the realms of Boreas. Cooling rains fell frequently, too, especially at Fiji and during the first two days after we had crossed the equator. The usually tranquil seas, too, allowed us to keep ull ports open throughout, except on a few nights, when the closed discs of brasß and glass cut off from the lower cabins the circulating coolness that made life on deck so pleasant in the daytime. But three days ago— the night after we had passed under the sun's track — the closed weather-ports caused us little inconvenience below, and the industrious fanning of the trade- wind seems to have about completed its work and stolen the heat out of the vessel's sides and timbers as it would entice the moisture out of a line of flapping napery. Our coolest night in the tropics thus far has just been passed — one that might have fallen at this season on Dunedin. The THUMP-THUMP-thump of the propeller is silent, and when I come upon deck at 5 30 a.m. my eye rests upon the long circular sweeping shore in the midst of which Honolulu stands, while behind it rise steep ranges of rugged, ragged hills up the tops of which the grey mists of morning are scaling their way to the skies. The health officer's launch is cutting the blue waters towards our ship, an early breakfast is to follow his inspection, and then, ho I for a welcome day on mother earth among the pleasant scenes of Honolulu. Another week will see us at Vancouver and at the end of our voyage among Pacific seas.