The Last Voyage: To India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam'

APPENDIX

PART I

VOYAGE FROM DARNLEY ISLAND TO PORT DARWIN, MAURITIUS, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, AND ENGLAND(By Lord Brassey.)

The pen having fallen from her hand, the task which a brave yet gentle spirit was struggling so hard to complete must be accomplished by one who does not possess her gifts. For obvious reasons, the description of the remainder of the voyage will be compressed within the closest limits.

The 'Sunbeam' sailed from Thursday Island on September 1st. For three days the winds were favourable, from the eastward. The next two days being calm, the voyage was pursued under steam.

On September 5th, in the evening, the 'Sunbeam' was navigated, not without difficulty, through the intricate channels of Clarence Strait. On the 6th, at an early hour the anchor was dropped off the settlement of Palmerston. Our arrival at Port Darwin took place under such circumstances as render it impossible to offer any description from personal observation.

Palmerston, the name given to the settlement at Port Darwin, is beautifully situated on wooded headlands, jutting out into the harbour, in whose ample waters it is no figure of speech to say the navies of Europe could be anchored. The buildings have been erected with considerable taste. A fine esplanade has been laid out along the sea front. The electric wire connects Palmerston with all the great colonies of Australia. In constructing the overland telegraph from South Australia, a great middle section of the continent was discovered, capable of producing pasture for tens of millions of sheep and millions of cattle and horses. The first section from the north, of what will eventually be the Trans-Australian Railway, has been commenced, and is being carried out with energy by Messrs. Miller, the well-known Melbourne contractors for public works.

The total area of the northern territory of South Australia is 523,620 square miles. Within this vast expanse are stony wastes and waterless tracts, vast rolling downs, wide grassy plains, rich alluvial flats, large navigable rivers, and metalliferous areas, exceptionally rich in tin, coal, copper, and silver. Thus far mining has been more successful than agriculture. The Chinese have alone been able to accomplish anything in cultivation. They have gathered harvests of rice and sugar-cane from the limited areas which they have taken in hand. On the banks of the rivers coffee could be grown in many places.

The climate is tropical, and malaria, with its fever and ague, is prevalent. The mean temperature of the year is 75 degrees, and the thermometer has never been seen lower than 68 degrees. The atmosphere is dank, steamy, and heavy with moisture during the wet season, and parching and malarial during the dry season.

From Port Darwin to the Cape of Good Hope, and thence to Sierra Leone, the voyage lay for the most part within the zone of the South-east Trades. Rodriguez Island was sighted on September 26th, and Mauritius was reached on September 29th. It is a painful task to attempt to describe scenes which would have been painted so much more effectively by another. To give the daily life, which, needless to say, was very sad, I will not attempt.

Mauritius is one of the few ports in which sailing ships still hold the field against steamers. It was filled with a noble fleet. As a mark of sympathy, which touched us deeply, their flags were hoisted at half-mast as soon as our sad intelligence became known.

Viewed from the anchorage of Port Louis, the island of Mauritius presents a scene of much beauty. A chain of peaks and craters of picturesque and fantastic forms runs through the island from end to end. The needle-shaped Peter Botte, 2,784 feet, and the Pouce, 2,707 feet, are conspicuous summits. All the mountains are of volcanic formation. Their barren precipices are blue and purple, and their vegetation, watered by frequent and abundant showers, is of the richest green. The landscape displayed admirable effects of colour, varying with every change from rain to sunshine.

The Botanical Gardens and the Observatory are the most interesting objects which Port Louis offers to the passing traveller. The gardens are lovely. The lakes, surrounded by palm trees and a most rich and abundant tropical vegetation, are a charming feature. The fine and rare specimens in the gardens included the Traveller's tree, abounding in water, the Ruffia palm from Madagascar, the lettuce-headed palm, the talipot palm, the Latania aurea from Rodriguez, and another variety of latania from Round Island.

The Observatory, under the supervision of Dr. Meldrum, is chiefly devoted to meteorological and astronomical investigations. In addition to these subjects, observations of the solar spots are taken daily, and transmitted monthly to the Solar Physics Committee in London. The transit of the moon has been observed with much success. Sea observations from the log-books of vessels touching at Mauritius are carefully recorded. The tracks and positions at noon of 299 tropical cyclones, which swept over the Indian Ocean south of the equator from 1856 to 1886, have been laid down on charts, and are ready for publication. The in-curving theory of cyclones, as worked out by Dr. Meldrum, is now generally adopted, and it would appear that the rules given for the guidance of ships in the Southern Indian Ocean have been the means of saving much life and property.

On the second day of our short stay we paid a quiet visit to the Acting Governor. The recent political convulsions in Mauritius, in connection with Sir John Pope Hennessy, had by no means subsided. During his leave of absence the Governor was being represented with admirable tact and judgment by Mr. Fleming, who had already succeeded in establishing amicable relations with both sides. Considerable jealousies exist between the English and French residents in Mauritius. They have been unfortunately aroused to an unprecedented degree of violence by the proceedings of Sir John Pope Hennessy. The mass of the population of Mauritius are of mixed race, descendants of the coolies employed on the plantations. French – or rather patois– speaking Creoles come next in point of numbers. The Chinese are the universal shopkeepers.

Later in the day we ascended the Pouce. It commands a view over the harbour of Port Louis and the interior of the island. The broad and shallow valleys, green with sugar-cane, reminded us much of our own South Downs. From the Pouce we drove to the residence of a relative, who is the owner of extensive sugar-cane plantations. The staple industry of Mauritius is the cultivation of sugar. More than 100,000 tons are annually exported. India and Australia are the chief markets. The bounty on the production of sugar in France and Germany has driven the sugar of Mauritius altogether out of Europe. Mauritius received a great blow from the opening of the Suez Canal, but it still possesses abundant resources. The wealth of the island may in some degree be measured by its public revenue, which amounts to no less than 700,000l. a year.

Mauritius produces scarcely anything required for its own consumption. It imports rice from India, grain from Australia, oxen from Madagascar, and sheep from the Cape.

Our last morning at Port Louis was devoted to the defences and the docks. Progress is being made with the improvement of existing defences and the construction of new forts. The works are well advanced, and the guns are promised shortly from home. Mauritius possesses three graving-docks. The Albion Dock could be readily enlarged to receive a ship of war. It would be a wise policy on the part of the Government to assist in the work.

The passage from Port Louis to Algoa Bay occupied eleven days. To the southward of the Trades, off the coast of Natal, a short but severe gale from the south-west was encountered. The gale was followed by a fresh breeze from the east, which carried the 'Sunbeam' rapidly to the westward. In three days a distance of 797 miles was covered, with winds from S.E. to N.E.

The 'Sunbeam' reached Port Elizabeth on October 12. The anchorage is protected from all winds except those from the south-east. Port Elizabeth from the sea has the aspect of a small Brighton. On landing it presents many cheerful indications of prosperity in its pier, railway station, municipal buildings, streets and shops, and last, but not least in the estimation of the traveller, its excellently appointed and hospitable club. The residential quarter is happily situated on elevated ground, swept by refreshing breezes from the ocean. A large space is covered with good houses and well-kept lawns. The public gardens are a great feat of horticulture. The arid and sterile soil has been converted by liberal irrigation into a green oasis, containing groves of palms and a varied tropical vegetation. Needless to say the work is the achievement of a Scotch gardener.

The prosperity of this active commercial centre is due to the trade carried on with Kimberley, of which it is the port. The value of the diamonds produced at Kimberley was estimated for 1883 at 2,359,000l.; 1884, 2,562,000l.; 1885, 2,228,000l.; and 1886, 3,261,000l. These amounts will be exceeded in later returns. As yet, the price per carat shows no tendency to decline. The work of mining for diamonds gives employment to a large amount of well-paid labour. Some 2,000 white employés are engaged at an average wage of 5l. 9s. per week. Twelve thousand coloured men are working under their direction, their earnings exceeding 1l. per week.

Port Elizabeth is the chief entrepôt for ostrich feathers. The value of this article of export for 1886 was over half a million sterling. The process of selling the feathers by auction is one of the most singular business transactions at which it has been my lot to assist. One of the buyers in attendance, on the occasion of our visit, represents a London firm, and is said to be making an income of over 1,000l. per year. A spirited effort is being made to establish an entrepôt for the Cape wines at Port Elizabeth. We visited the extensive cellars under the public market, where a company has opened a business, which it is intended to conduct in accordance with the most approved methods of treatment in the wine-growing districts of Europe.

A day was spent at Port Elizabeth, and two days of rapid sailing before an easterly wind brought the 'Sunbeam' into Table Bay on the morning of October 15, just in time to gain the anchorage before one of the hard gales from the south-east, which are not unfrequently experienced at the Cape, set in. Between Port Darwin and the Cape the distance covered was 1,047 knots under steam, and 5,622 knots under sail. The average speed under steam and sail was exactly eight knots. In the fortnight, October 13 to 27, 3,073 knots, giving an average speed of nine knots an hour, were covered under sail alone, with winds of moderate strength. Balloon canvas was freely used.

Table Mountain is admirably described by Hübner as a mighty buttress confronting the restless billows of the Southern Ocean. It was covered, on the morning of our arrival, with the graceful wreaths of mist which have so often excited the admiration of travellers. A strong south-east gale was blowing on the occasion. Table Mountain presents to the dwellers in Cape Town a scene of beauty which changes from hour to hour. Every veering of the wind brings some new yet ever effective adjustment of a mantle of vapour, seldom cast aside, which is sometimes silver, sometimes purple, and from time to time subdued to a sombre tone by an approaching fall of rain.

In former years many and disastrous were the losses of life and property in Table Bay. Gales from the N.W. and the NN.E. are frequent in the winter, and blow occasionally with resistless fury. In the old sailing days ships caught at anchor in the bay by one of these terrible storms were doomed to destruction. By the enterprise of the Colonial Government, and the skilful engineering of Sir John Coode, a wide area of sheltered anchorage is now afforded. The breakwater has been extended to a length of 560 yards, and a further extension is far advanced, which will give a total length of breakwater of 1,500 yards.

A wet dock has been formed, capable of receiving the largest steamers in the ocean mail service, and broad enough for an ironclad. The principal dimensions are: length, 540 feet; breadth, 68 feet; depth, 26 feet. An outer harbour, 44 acres in extent, will be gradually formed under the protection of the breakwater. When these works are completed, Cape Town will afford advantages to shipping such as are scarcely exceeded in any port of Great Britain.

Cape Town contains not a few buildings of which the inhabitants of an older capital might justly be proud. The House of Assembly is a noble structure. The admirably kept and beautifully situated Observatory, the banks, the railway station, and the docks are all excellent. The Botanical Gardens, and the shady avenue dividing them from Government House, would be an adornment to the finest capital in Europe.

Considerable as are the attractions of Cape Town, they are far exceeded by the charm of its picturesque suburbs, extending for some miles along the foot of Table Mountain on its eastern side. The country is richly wooded, chiefly with our own dear English trees, and abounds with pleasant buildings, surrounded with gardens bright with the flowers of the summer of our Northern latitudes. The scene recalls the most favoured part of Surrey. The cantonments of the troops at Wynberg, on a well-wooded plateau, have all the lovely features of an English park.

We made an excursion with Sir Gordon Sprigg and his kind family to Constantia, where the Government have purchased an old Dutch manor-house, and are cultivating the vine under the superintendence of Baron Von Babo, with the view of producing wines on the most approved European principles. Our host has made one of those interesting and honourable careers for which colonial life offers so many opportunities to those who know how to use them. He began life in the gallery of the House of Commons, as a reporter of debates, in the days of Cobden. As Premier of a Colonial Parliament, he has had an opportunity of applying the maxims of political wisdom gathered from a close observation of our own Parliamentary proceedings.

Another excursion was made to Stellenbosch, a characteristic example of the old Dutch towns of the Cape Colony. We were under the guidance of Sir Gordon Sprigg, Mr. Hofmeyr, and Mr. Tudhope, the Colonial Secretary. The journey from Cape Town occupied an hour by railway. Stellenbosch is in many ways a perfect reproduction of a country town in Holland. If we miss the canals, we have the domestic architecture, the fine avenues running through the principal streets, and the Dutch characteristics of the people. These features give to this distant settlement in South Africa, not one of whose inhabitants probably has ever visited Holland, a markedly national aspect.

On our arrival at Stellenbosch we were driven, under the guidance of the Mayor, to the University, where a mixed staff of professors, English and Dutch, are doing excellent work in education. We were received by a guard of honour, furnished by the students' Volunteer Corps. Having inspected the University buildings, we drove out to an old Dutch farm, under a burning sun, and through a country in which the foliage of the temperate and the tropical zones was closely intermingled.

The farm we visited comprises an extensive range of buildings, with an excellent dwelling-house, roomy stables, and the stores, filled with butts of wine, which are characteristic of the district. The buildings form a large quadrangle, surrounding a plot of grass shaded by noble trees. The situation of the farm is very striking. It stands in a deep valley, green, fertile, and well watered, but completely hemmed in by mountains of volcanic formation some 4,000 feet in height, beautiful in form, but entirely devoid of vegetation. Want of rain and the phylloxera are constant anxieties at the Cape. We observed that the field labourers were invariably men of colour. Their earnings do not exceed one shilling per day.

Cape politics have been a fertile source of trouble and anxiety to the British Government at home. With the necessarily imperfect knowledge of local circumstances, it is impossible, from London, to deal in a satisfactory manner with the relations between the Government of a distant colony and neighbours so little known as the Boers, and savages so rude as the Kaffirs and Zulus. Our errors of the past will not be repeated, if only we resolve firmly not to fetter the discretion of the local Governments, which, in pursuance of a wise policy, we have called into existence.

The visit of President Kruger, of the Transvaal, to President Brand, of the Free State, was a prominent topic at the time of our visit. It had led to the delivery of a speech by Mr. Kruger, in which he had declared the determination of the Boers to preserve their complete independence. In the Cape Colony people are more interested in the establishment of railway communication with the new gold-fields within the borders of the Transvaal than in the question of political union. As yet a certain reluctance is manifested by the Boers to establish railway communication with the Cape. An English company has made a railway from Delagoa Bay to the Transvaal frontier, and the line will shortly be extended to Pretoria. In the meanwhile the people of the Cape Colony are desirous of extending their system of railways, already 1,483 miles in length, into the interior. Considerable discoveries of gold have recently been made within the limits of the Transvaal, but close to the border, and all the workers at the mines are Englishmen from the Cape Colony. There is no reason to doubt that permission to establish railway communication with this newly discovered gold-mining district will be ultimately granted.

Among the Boers of the Transvaal a large number are friendly to the English. Once connected with the Cape by railway, and by a Customs union, which has been much under discussion, the Cape Colony and the Transvaal will be for all practical purposes of trade united. A divided administration of government in a country of such wide extent is an unmixed advantage.

It was particularly gratifying to hear from Mr. Hofmeyr, the head of the Dutch party in the Cape Parliament, and a most able representative of the Colony in the late Colonial Conference, how entirely satisfied his people are to live under British rule as now conducted. The Dutch colonists at the Cape have no personal relations with Holland. They look back upon their former connection as an interesting historical association; but the protection which England affords against the occupation of the Cape by some other foreign power is a practical boon, and one greatly valued. There is a party at the Cape which regards with disfavour the dependence of the present Premier, Sir Gordon Sprigg, on the Dutch vote, or, as it is called, the Africander Bond. From another point of view we may hail with satisfaction the success which an Englishman has achieved in winning the confidence of the Dutch. While conducting the government to their satisfaction, he is thoroughly loyal to his own nationality. Baron Hübner speaks in discouraging tones of our position at the Cape. A much more cheerful impression was conveyed by the present able Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson, and by other eminent men whom I had an opportunity of consulting.

Judging from such indications as came under our personal notice, the native races, so far from being a source of weakness, are a great strength to the colony. The Indians in North America, the Maoris in New Zealand, the aborigines of Australia, have disappeared or dwindled away before the white man. The Zulus and Kaffirs have proved themselves capable of adopting and promoting civilisation. They show in numerous instances a high appreciation of the blessings of education. They are ready to labour on the farms, on the railways, and in the mines. They are content to live under the rule of a superior race.

Material prosperity has been greatly advanced by the discoveries of gold, the opening up of gold-fields, and still more by the large amount of wealth which has been derived from the exportation of diamonds.

The 'Sunbeam' left Cape Town on October 24th. St. Helena was reached on November 3rd. Like all the islands of the Atlantic, it is of volcanic formation. It presents to the ocean on every side a coast-line of precipices, sharp peaks, and gloomy chasms. The contorted shapes of rock and mountain give a powerful impression of the tremendous forces of nature in a period of volcanic activity. The landing-place for St. Helena is under the lee of the island, at Jamestown, a small town depending entirely on shipping.

Above Jamestown for some 2,000 feet the country is inexpressibly sterile. At a higher level the soil is watered by the frequent showers brought up from the ocean by the South-east Trades, and is covered with a rich carpet of grass. In every sheltered dell the growth of timber is abundant and varied, combining the trees of the tropics with those of our cold English latitudes. The water-courses are innumerable. The bed of every stream is filled, and every bank is covered with lovely masses of arum-lilies. The scenery of the island is most beautiful. The Acting Governor occupies a fine country house surrounded by a noble park. It is sad to visit Longwood, and to reflect on the intolerable weariness of such a place of confinement to the victor in many battles, and the former arbiter of the destinies of Central Europe.

A personal visit to St. Helena is necessary to appreciate the facilities for the defence of the island. The landing-places are few, and they are commanded by works of considerable strength. New works are in progress which will give an extended range of fire to seaward. The guns are not yet to hand. The expenditure recently authorised, amounting to some 10,000l., appears fully justified in view of the importance of St. Helena as a coaling station for the Cape route to the East. As a sanatorium it might be of great value to the ships of the African Squadron.

The 'Sunbeam' touched at Ascension on November 7th. This barren and inhospitable volcanic island has presented a singularly unpromising field of labour to the naval detachment which for many years has been maintained there. Solid and capacious stores, extensive ranges of buildings, miles of roads, the tanks, the hospitals on the seashore and on the mountain, the farm on the peak – a green oasis crowning a heap of cinders – attest the zeal of a succession of officers and men. To the naval reformer they give occasion for reflections on the considerable cost which has been thrown upon the country in the creation of an establishment which has become practically useless through the universal use of steam and the suppression of the slave trade. In the present circumstances St. Helena offers unquestionably superior advantages for all naval purposes. As a coaling station it is in a better position, being approximately equidistant between the Cape and Sierra Leone, and less exposed to rollers, which frequently interrupt the coaling of ships at Ascension. It is repugnant to abandon to utter ruin an establishment created with much labour and expense. To this alternative, however, we must come, unless we are prepared to put Ascension in a state of defence. The value of the naval stores is not less than 50,000l., and the ample stock of coal would offer an irresistible temptation to an enemy's cruiser. Three or four long-range, armour-piercing guns, with a few machine-guns, would give security against a coup de main. We should look to the fleet to prevent an attack in force.

Sierra Leone was reached on November 14th. In this section of the voyage the distance under canvas was 3,327 knots, the average speed 7·7 knots, and the distance under steam 289 knots, with an average speed of 7 knots. The South-east Trades were light, and balloon canvas again proved extremely serviceable.

Sierra Leone is an important coaling station, halfway between England and the Cape. The harbour is large and safe for ships of heavy tonnage. The works of defence are in active progress. The cost is estimated at 22,000l. for works and 15,000l. for armaments. It is to be regretted that the armament is almost entirely composed of muzzle-loading rifled guns. In addition to the works now in hand, a battery is thought desirable to prevent an attack with long-range guns from seaward. Having admitted Sierra Leone into the list of our coaling stations of the first class, its defence should be made complete against a powerful cruiser.