of meeting in my journeyings with that rogue of a broker, Baer.
The
voyage was not very exciting. Forty-two days sped swiftly enough,
however, and one very bright morning my trunks were put ashore. That
was the only real indication I had that the Orient Mail Line had kept
faith with me and had complied with their bargain.
From
this shore, at any rate, I boarded the vessel which took me up the
1,500 miles of West Australian coast to the "Never Never Land." All I
remember of her is that she was "just" seaworthy. So was the food,
which is a more vivid memory.
After
the first round of drinks the passengers called each other by their
Christian names, and after the first meal we knew each other's
business. A motley crowd we were: a schoolmaster, a lawyer, a
missionary, several up-coast storekeepers, a score of itinerant sheep
shearers, two or three ranch owners, a couple of miners, a prospector,
myself in quest of pearls.
One
of the ranchers was on his way to Java with intent to paint Sourabaya
red. This was his first holiday in twenty years. He owned 60,000 acres
of land, I was told, some 120,000 sheep, and had any amount of money in
the bank. He was clad in a pair of pajamas of the most primitive cut
and of such a vivid crimson check pattern as I had never seen before in
a man's garment. He went about in this apparel at all times while on
board, for prior to setting out on this trip he had consulted his
shearers on the latest male fashions. One wag had told him that pajamas
were all the rage in London. It was scarcely for us to disillusion him.
But when I think of him even now after all these years I chuckle to
myself; and then I stop to wonder whether he was quite the ass he
pretended to be. Maybe he had us on a string.
A
fellow-passenger called Hyams, an Australian-born Jew, a prospector for
gold by trade, asked me to go ashore with him when we docked at our
first stop, Geraldton. I said I would, so after a drink or two in the
first saloon we came to,
