To some this voyage is a new experience, and to them everything is a pleasure and delight; their senses are on the _qui vive_, and they extract a keen enjoyment from the slightest matter; whether they are watching the shifting colours of the sea and skies, strolling idly up and down, or leaning over the bulwarks, straining their eyes over the vast expanse, eagerly expecting a school of whales to go spouting past, they are equally happy and content, seeing mountains where never a molehill exists; the atmospheric changes interest them, the whistling of the wind through the shrouds makes a new music to their ears, and the life on board ship with all its variations has the charm of novelty. But the novelty soon wears off and they gradually awake to the fact that a sea-voyage is a most monotonous affair. This the _habitués_, to whom the voyage is as an oft-told tale, realise from the first moment; they know precisely how the next ten days are likely to pass, and at once set their minds to enliven the monotony, every one contributing something to the amusement of the whole. We are especially fortunate on the present occasion, there being several of Colonel Mapleson’s company on board, who are most amiable in their endeavours to amuse their fellow-passengers. There is also an unusual amount of amateur musical and dramatic talent on board, and they combine together and organise a concert or some kind of dramatic entertainment every evening.
About eight o’clock everybody turns out in pretty, simple toilettes, and the stream sets towards the music-room. Great Britain is sparsely represented, and I don’t think with the best specimens; the scanty few seem manufactured for foreign travel only, and are not of the finest workmanship, either of art or nature.
On the evening of the first entertainment a gorgeous apparition appeared in the shape of the master of the ceremonies, the only evident reason for his filling that position being his possession of a swallow-tail coat. He was a fair, slim young man, with his hair parted down the middle. He was in full evening dress, with a huge artificial flower--a sunflower--in his buttonhole, and white gloves too long for his fingers. He was a British-Australian, we learned. When he opened his mouth he dropped, not pearls, but _h_’s; he dropped them in one place and picked them up in another, and in his attempt to announce the different operatic airs he mangled the soft Italian language till it fell upon the ear a mass of mutilated sounds. He had to run the gauntlet of a good deal of masculine chaff, which he bore with a stolid equanimity born of self-contentment; however, he unconsciously contributed to the general amusement, and gave rise to some humorous illustrations which served to beguile the time.