Everything, even quarantine, comes to an end in time; and so on the morning of the eighth day at anchor, and the thirteenth out from Pam, the sanitary1 policeman who formed our sole connection with the outside world brought with our morning letters and newspapers the joyful2 news that our imprisonment3 was to end at noon that day. Never did convicts hail the hour of their release more gladly than the passengers on board the Ballande liner St. Louis.
We had managed to make our durance vile4 tolerable by means of yarning5 by day, and cribbage by night. In the after saloon, an apartment measuring about sixteen feet by eight, there were four of us—three men and the wife of a mining superintendent6 in Pam. The miner was one of the good old colonial hard-shell type, a man of vast and varied7 experience, and the possessor of one of the[280] most luxuriant vocabularies I have ever had reason to admire in the course of many wanderings. One night, I remember, we all woke up wondering whether the ship had broken from her moorings and gone ashore8 or whether the Kanaka crew had mutinied. It turned out that our shipmate had discovered a rat in his bunk10, and was giving his opinion as to the chances of our all dying of plague before the quarantine was over. He knew that there had been fourteen deaths from plague only a month before on the miserable11 old hooker, and he was considerably12 scared. When he told us that the rat was alive I began to laugh, whereupon he turned the stream of his eloquence13 upon me. He literally14 coruscated15 with profanity, and the more his adjectives multiplied the louder I laughed, and only the influence of my stable companion, a pearl-sheller and diver from Thursday Island, who had been exploring the ocean floor round New Caledonia, prevented a breach16 of our harmonious17 relations.
When I got my breath and the miner lost his, I explained that the fact of the rat being alive proved it to be absolutely harmless. It was indeed a guarantee that there was no plague on the ship.[281] If it had been dead and the sanitary authorities had got to know of it, it might have got us another twenty days’ quarantine. Finally, it came out that the rat had bitten the miner’s toe, and, as he believed, inoculated18 him with the plague. I suggested that whiskey was the best antidote19 for anything of that sort and so the proceedings20 terminated amicably21.
My friend the diver was also a man who could tell you tales of land and sea and under-sea in language which was unhappily sometimes too picturesque22 to be printable. We had travelled together all the way from Noumea, and made friends before the St. Antoine had left the wharf23. We had both been rope-haulers and climbers before the mast, and the freemasonry of the sea made us chums at once. I never travelled with a better shipmate, and if this book ever reaches him across the world I hope that it will remind him of many hours that he made pleasant during that evil time.
I have brought two somewhat curious memories out of our brief friendship.
I had not been talking to him for an hour before twenty years of hard-won education and culture of a sort disappeared, and I found myself[282] thinking the thoughts and speaking the speech of the forecastle and the sailors’ boarding-house: thoughts direct and absolutely honest; and speech terse24, blunt, and equally honest, for among the toilers of the sea it is not permitted to use language to conceal25 one’s thoughts. The man who is found out doing that hears himself dissected26 and discussed with blistering27 irony28 garnished29 with epithets30 which stick like barbed arrows, and of such was our conversation on the St. Antoine and the St. Louis; not exactly drawing-room-talk, but of marvellous adaptability31 to the true description of men and things.
On the morning of our release as we were taking our after-breakfast walk and looking for the last time on that hatefully beautiful little cove9 at North Head, I said to him:
“Well, I’ll have to stop being a shell-back to-night, and get into civilisation32 again.”
“I suppose you will,” he said; and then he proceeded to describe civilisation generally in a way that would have healthily shocked many most excellent persons. I thoroughly33 agreed with him, and, curiously34 enough, although our experiences had been none of the most pleasant, and I had[283] had anything but a succession of picnics during my stay in New Caledonia, I was already beginning to feel sorry that I had to go back to civilisation and dine in dress-clothes and a hard-boiled shirt—which brings me to my second memory.
The Quarantine Station, North Head, Sydney.
For nearly a month we had been living on food that a Kaffir in the Kimberley compounds would turn his nose up at, and for fourteen days on board the St. Louis we had eaten dirt of many French descriptions. Everything was dirty. Not even the insides of the loaves were clean. The galley35, where the disguised abominations were cooked, was so foul36 that a whiff of its atmosphere on passing was enough to spoil the appetite of a starving man. The cook was to match. The steward37 who waited on us was willing and obliging, but remiss38 in the matter of washing both himself and his crockery. The chief steward on French ships is called ma?tre d’h?tel, and by this title we addressed him. On shore we should have said “here, you,” or something of that sort, but on the St. Louis he was a person of importance, for he had the key of the store-room and was open to judicious39 bribery40.
[284]
We had worried through our last dirty déje?ner on board, and preparations were being made for getting the anchors up. The captain and the mate had each put on a clean collar, and the chief engineer was wringing41 his hands and dancing about the forecastle because the donkey-engine had gone wrong and only fizzed feebly when it should have been getting the cable in.
“Well, thank God,” I said to my diver friend, “we shall have a decent dinner to-night! You are going to dine with me at the Australia. We’ll have a real cocktail42 at the bar, only one, for it won’t do to spoil a precious appetite, then we’ll eat our way through the menu and drink champagne43. Looks like heaven, doesn’t it?”
This is of course only an expurgated version of what I really said. His reply consisted of a finely embroidered44 comparison between the Australia Hotel and the St. Louis, calculated to start every rivet45 in her hull46.
Well, we got away from our anchorage and were towed up to Sydney. We took two of the finest appetites on the Australian continent up with us. We had that cocktail. We sat down in the dining-room of the Australia at a[285] table covered with the first clean table-cloth we had seen for a month and glittering with polished glass and shining silver. The dinner was as good a one as you will get anywhere between Sydney Harbour and King George’s Sound—and we couldn’t eat it! We fooled about with the courses, trying to believe that we were hungry and having a real treat, but it was no good. We had lost our taste for clean, well-cooked food, and our palates and digestions47 were hopelessly vitiated. Course after course went away hardly touched. We said many things to each other across the table in decently lowered tones, and ended by satisfying our hunger and thirst with bread and butter and champagne!
After dinner I renewed my acquaintance with the Doctor and the purser of the steam-roller Alameda, and they imparted the unwelcome information that the regular liners were not booking any passengers from Sydney lest Melbourne and Adelaide, Albany and Perth might refuse them admittance, or, at any rate, decline to take passage in a ship from a plague port. Moreover, it was possible that Sydney passengers might be quarantined at every port. Personally, I had had all the[286] quarantine I wanted, and so I was not sorry to accept the other alternative which was to go across to Melbourne and Adelaide by train, and thence by a boat to Freemantle. This would give me time to have a glimpse at Western Australia before picking up the Messagerie liner at Albany. Unhappily, as I have said, we ran up against the plague again at Freemantle, and the inevitable48 delay, combined with the very leisurely49 gait of the West Australian trains, made it just impossible for me to visit the gold-fields without missing my steamer.
One of the first people to welcome me back to Sydney was my very good friend and fellow-voyager from Honolulu, the Accidental American, and with him and his wife I travelled to Melbourne.
After we had passed the customs and changed trains and gauges50 at Albury the journey began to take on a new, or, rather, an old interest for me. Twenty years before I had tramped up through the bush from Melbourne to the Murray after taking French leave of the lime-juicer in which I had made my first miserable voyage from Liverpool to Australia. I had halved51 the fifteen shillings, with which I started, with a[287] penniless “old chum” in exchange for his company and experience, and then turned the other seven and sixpence into about seventy pounds, and, on the strength of my wealth, travelled back to Melbourne first-class.
Now I was doing it again, and as the express swung past the little station, which I had reached after an all-night tramp across the ranges, I found it to be a good deal less changed than I was. Indeed, save for a few new houses scattered52 about the clearing, it was just as it was when I pitched my swag down on a bench before the hotel, put my blackened billy beside it, and ordered my last breakfast in the bush.
At Melbourne we put up at Menzies, and one afternoon I took my friend down to Spencer Street to pay a visit to the hotel that I had last stayed in—the Sailors’ Home. Here again nothing was altered. The very cubicle53 I slept in twenty years before looked as though I had only just turned out of the little blue-and-white counterpaned bed, and outside my yester-self, to coin the only word that seems to fit, was loafing about in beerless and penniless idleness “waiting for a ship.”
[288]
“There I am as I was,” I said; “how do you like me?”
“Not a little bit, Griff,” he replied in the terse speech of his fortuitously native land. “I guess if you were to come like that among the friends you have now you’d look mighty54 like a dirty deuce in a new deck of cards.”
The next morning I went over to Williamstown to have a look at the scene of my old escapade, the only one, by the way, which ever brought me into unpleasant relations with the police, for in those days breaking your indentures55 was a matter of imprisonment. Happily they did not catch me. I found the old Railway Hotel, known, aforetime to officers and apprentices56 as the Hen and Chickens, since it was kept by a dear old Scotchwoman assisted by four charming daughters with one or all of whom every apprentice57 in port was supposed to be in love. It was through the kindly58 offices of one of them that I had saved my kit59 and dodged60 the police.
I sat in the little parlour on the same sofa I had sat on that memorable61 night; opposite was the same old piano on which one or other of our charmers used to accompany our shouting[289] sea-songs, and there beside it was the little cupboard in the wall in which my superfluous62 wardrobe had been stowed away. Not a thing was altered, I believe the very table-cloth was the same, and the patch of vacant ground opposite, across which I had bolted at the penultimate moment to catch the last train to Melbourne, was still unbuilt on; and there was I, still a wanderer, though of a different sort, wanting only the old faces and the old voices to be able to persuade myself that the twenty changing years had begun with the last night’s dream and ended with the morning’s awaking.
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1
sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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yarning
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| vi.讲故事（yarn的现在分词形式） | |
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superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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cove
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| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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coruscated
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| v.闪光，闪烁( coruscate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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inoculated
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| v.给…做预防注射( inoculate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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amicably
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| adv.友善地 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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terse
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| adj.(说话，文笔)精炼的，简明的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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dissected
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| adj.切开的，分割的，（叶子）多裂的v.解剖（动物等）( dissect的过去式和过去分词 )；仔细分析或研究 | |
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blistering
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| adj.酷热的；猛烈的；使起疱的；可恶的v.起水疱；起气泡；使受暴晒n.[涂料] 起泡 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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epithets
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| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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adaptability
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| n.适应性 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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remiss
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| adj.不小心的，马虎 | |
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judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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bribery
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| n.贿络行为，行贿，受贿 | |
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wringing
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| 淋湿的，湿透的 | |
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42
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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rivet
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| n.铆钉；vt.铆接，铆牢；集中(目光或注意力) | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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digestions
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| n.消化能力( digestion的名词复数 )；消化，领悟 | |
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48
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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gauges
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| n.规格( gauge的名词复数 )；厚度；宽度；标准尺寸v.（用仪器）测量( gauge的第三人称单数 )；估计；计量；划分 | |
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51
halved
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| v.把…分成两半( halve的过去式和过去分词 )；把…减半；对分；平摊 | |
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52
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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53
cubicle
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| n.大房间中隔出的小室 | |
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54
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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55
indentures
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| vt.以契约束缚（indenture的第三人称单数形式） | |
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56
apprentices
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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apprentice
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| n.学徒，徒弟 | |
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58
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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