OCEANA.
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and conceal it, even for themselves, behind a veil of plausibilities; but in a few years tjjey may change places again, and •
will have excellent reasons for doing it. E-any way was
happy, thinking that we were going in for the Russians at last ; and so were a number of militia officers who had been recalled to their regiments, and were in high spirits at the prospect.
CHAPTER XIX.
Sail for America.—The “Australia.—Heavy Weather.—A New Zealand Colonist. —Easter in the Southern Hemisphere.—Occupations on Board.—Samoa.— A Missionary.—Parliamentary Government in the Pacific Islands.—A young Australian. — The Sandwich Islands. — Honolulu.—American Influence.— Bay of San Francisco.
The “Australia” was a ship of three thousand tons, and smartly fitted, as these Pacific steamers generally are. The “City of Sydney” was American. The “Australia” was English, with an English captain and English officers, the crew and attendants being principally Chinese. She was crowded to repletion. In the saloon we had a hundred and thirty passengers: colonial tourists going to Europe for the summer; wealthy families taking a sea voyage for a holiday; young married couples on their honeymoon, &c. All the idle people in Auckland must have been on the pier to see us off. Deck, cabins, were thronged with the sisters, aunts, cousins, friends, who had come on board for a last leave-taking. From the tears, embraces, and exclamations, it might have seemed we were taking our departure to the other world. I heard a young lady who was sitting alone with a single companion observe, “Isn’t it lovely to have nobody to care about one, and so escape all that?”
We were going north, right up to the line. We were warned that it would be hot, and hot it proved, but under conditions more intolerable than I had before experienced. The sky was overcast. We had rain and heavy head-winds. The seas flew over the deck, the ports were closed, the hatches shut down. The temperature in the saloon was 85 0 , and even