England and Canada. Fleming Sandford

      CHAPTER V.

       ENGLAND TO CANADA.

       Table of Contents

      The Ocean Voyage—Its Comfort—Moville—Mail Coach Road of Old Days—Impressive Service on Deck—Comfort on the Vessel—Rimouski—Halifax.

      We are off this Thursday, 26th July, and underway at three p.m. As is usually the case we have a pleasant run down the Mersey to the Irish Sea. With few exceptions the passengers are all strangers, one to the other, and we remain on deck, no few of us speculating as to “who is who?” We dine at four the first day. There is a printed list of passengers on the plate of each as we take our seats at the tables which have been assigned to us, perhaps in some cases by a little pre-arrangement with the purser. In the evening we pass close to the Isle of Man with its bold headlands and picturesque coast line, but few of us appear to be inclined to stay up late. There is always an excitement, and consequent rebound, in leaving the land where we have passed some weeks, whatever the associations we have separated from, and whatever future may lie before us. The first night at sea is generally quiet; it is true you have always your inveterate whist player who wants to get up a rubber as if it was the one duty of life not to lose an opportunity of gaining the odd trick. And you have the perpetual smoker who looks upon leisure as specially designed for the enjoyment of the pipe or cigar, as if the sole charm of life lay in tobacco!

      The whole conditions of an ocean voyage have, of late years, been much changed. A voyage in the modern steamship is more like a yacht trip. Indeed, excepting the yachts of men of colossal fortunes, the yacht suffers by comparison with the steamship. In the latter you have a bed clean and comfortable, with all the auxiliaries of the toilet. On nearly all the best ships you have hot and cold baths. Some vessels carry a professional barber; and I have known a chiropodist to be in attendance. If you want more bedding, or hot water, or any other et cetera you ask for and obtain it. You have a cabin as large and comfortable as it is possible to have under the circumstances, and if you chose to pay for it you can have it to yourself, and thus obtain all the privacy of an anchorite. Your state-room, as it is called, is cleaned daily, and it is open to you whenever you see fit to enter; you have a large saloon in which you take your meals, sit, read, or write, or play chess or whist; where ladies can group themselves in order to carry on their embroidery, or to undertake less pretentious, if more useful work. Generally there is a separate saloon, for ladies, in an airy part of the ship, where, if they are not free from nausea or depression, they can retire and be as private as they desire. You have the best of food, thoroughly and carefully cooked, with the most obsequious of attendants whom you are generally expected to reward at the end of the voyage, and you feel yourself second to no one in the world you are in. There are no troublesome experiences on points of etiquette or ceremony; you never receive a lesson of your insignificance, although if it be particularly sought for, it can be obtained. You have fresh air, bright skies, and the ocean that

      “Glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form

       Glasses itself in tempests.”

      is your constant monitor. All you seem to want is a sea-stomach and firmness on your feet. As a rule, a few days, often a few hours, will give you both. To those who are not sea-sick what life is more pleasant? You have all sorts of people on board, and the sea seems to act as a sort of leveller of individualism. Although there are men and women who are known to have spoken to nobody, and who have walked up and down during almost the whole voyage in perfect solitude, wrapped up in themselves, as if no contact with others were permissible. On seeing these people I have thought of Æsop’s mountain in labour, and pitied the poor little mouse brought into the world with such effort.

      There are storms at sea, naturally, but you have a crew in the highest state of discipline; you have a ship as strong as money and iron can make it; you have an engine of wondrous power and a marvel of perfection in machinery. Competition, energy, and enterprise, have so multiplied the means of travel that you may pass from one continent to the other with comfort, and for not much more money than the sum you pay for the same period of time at one of the high class hotels in London or New York. You have no extras to pay for in the steamship except wine or beer.

      According to your feeling you can give a douceur to the steward who attends to your room, and if need be nurses you in sickness, and to the steward who waits upon you at table. The only items you have to pay extra for, as before stated, are beer and wine, if you choose to order either. You are not remarkable either in avoiding or using them, for never was there so unrestrained a matter of taste as in this respect at the saloon table.

      It is Friday: we have passed the first night at sea, and we take an early tepid salt water bath. We are now steaming up Lough Foyle to Moville, where the mails containing letters posted in London on Thursday night, are put on board. Thus the clear business day of Thursday is gained by English correspondents. The weather is delightful. Some of the party go on shore as the steamer is seven hours in advance of the train with the mails.

      There is nothing specially attractive on this part of the Irish coast it is true, still it is always pleasant to touch terra firma as a change, and it is always a break during the hours that we are lying at anchor. We remain at Moville until three o’clock, when the “Polynesian” starts. The weather continues bright and clear, the water smooth, all is pleasant on deck, where all the passengers are present. The only spectacle to which I can compare the scene is a garden party where everybody has but one thing to do, and that is to amuse and be amused, and look as charming as each one can. We all know that the best way to succeed in being genial and good-humoured is to endeavour to be so, and where can a day be better enjoyed than at sea? I am aware that tradition is against me. The poor sufferer from sea-sickness may remember this trying time, as the most dreary of his life, and this form of sickness is to many, even in a minor way, a most serious ordeal, but, as a rule, it soon passes away. I believe the best cure for those afflicted with this malady is to remain quiet, to eat sparingly, and avoid everything greasy; if there be nausea to take only toast and tea, and make the effort to get on deck. Looking at the severities of the affliction in their strongest light they are certainly by no means what they were in the old days of sailing vessels of small tonnage, and with accommodation proportioned to the craft. There were then many discomforts and privations now happily unknown. Voyages were, at that period, counted by weeks instead of days, and to one unaccustomed to the sea the Atlantic trip was no little of a penalty. It is very much owing to the reminiscences of this period that the dread of the sea now prevails. The discomforts of land travelling in the past have now ceased to be even thought of. The bad roads, the ricketty coaches, the foul air in the inside, and the suffering from cold and wet on the outside of the coach, have all passed out of mind. Even the modern novel does not dwell upon them. All that is recorded is the cheery appearance of the old-time coach on a fine evening, driving through a town, with the guard arrayed in bright uniform, with his bouquet in his buttonhole, the cynosure of all the servant girls; while the coachman handled the ribbons to the admiration and envy of all the fast young gentlemen of the place. In its way there was bitter suffering in bad weather in the course of such a journey, but the ease and comfort of railway travelling have destroyed all remembrance of it. What greater contrast can there be between the torture felt in the inside of an old stage coach going from Liverpool to London and the luxury of sitting in a Pullman car travelling the same distance? What more striking difference can there be between railway life as it is now in the journey from Brighton to London, accomplished in an hour, and the same journey performed by the old stage coaches? Railway travelling has so insensibly crept into our system that the present generation does not think of the privations of half a century ago.

      One of the causes doubtless of the continuance of the prejudice against ocean navigation is the poor and inefficient steamers still in use for crossing