HOMEWARD BOUND.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18942, 5 March 1927, Page 13

HOMEWARD BOUND.

SOUTHAMPTON TO MONTREAL. i LIFE ON A BIG SHir. tHv "Pilgrim.") It was at Southampton that I landed in England, and it was at Isouthampton I embarked after the great adventure. I had arrived in what mar be called a homely ship, a ship that was comfortable and admirably run. but could not boast of luxuries as these things are to-day. I was sailing in n vessel more than twice as large; small, it is true, in comparison with some 'Western-Ooaan ships, but, to mv eye, huge and almost overpoweringly luxurious. Deck after deck towered up above the wharf; there wero lifts connecting them; there were miles of alleyways, and it was quite possible to get lost; and palm gardens and ballrooms almost made ono forget the near presence of the sea. It is curious how short is tho span coveiing | the development of tho grand linerMany of my readers will remember the days when to New Zealanders the Mararoa was a wonder. 1 can recall so clearly looking in through her port- , holes as sho lay at the whai-r, and ! being filled with wonder at the dazzling saloon. Then came tho Mokoia, , the Manuka, tho Marama, and so onup to the Niagara and the Aorangi; at each step we wondered. Yet to-day, after travelling in a 20,000-ton Cana- j dian-Paciflc liner across the Atlantic, j the Niagara seems to mo small. ! The world in this C.P.R. liner wns j different lrom that in which I had been borne Home. There were only I fifty odd persons in our class in the j direct liner, and betweon two and three j hundred passengers all told. In cur j class everybody knew everybody elsCj i we were all of oue nationa- I lity, and wo had many acquaintances in tho other classes, j Tho "foreign third," which lived l'or'aril, we never saw. The second class, where I abode, was crowded with nil interesting cosmopolitan collection. There ivere many Americans, a sprinkling of French Canadians, and some Europeans. The whole ship, with its hundreds of passengers and its much greater provision for amusement, was far moro like a hotel than the ship in which we travelled to England. As we waited to cast off at Southampton we saw the much larger Aquitania go out. I had no wish to bo on board her. The Empress was quite large and luxurious enough for me. You get more steadiness and luxury; as size increases, but you lose something of the beauty and mystery of sea travel. To be precise, I travelled "Tourist Third," which is an interesting development in Western Ocean transport. ■'Tourist Third" is really second-class, less one or two of tho second's privileges. It is substantially cheaper, and quito comfortable. This division is designed especially for the teaching and student class in tho United State? and Canada, for students and school teachers and professors who wish to see Europe, but whose means are restricted. Every season thousands of these men and women take advantage of the cheap accommodation to "do" England and France and other countries. In our "Tourist Third" company I struck up an acquaintance with an American professor whose subject was ethnology—he was keenly interested in oil I could tell him about the Maoris —and two professors or lecturem in Canadian universities. One wns an Englishman who had seen service in Russia, and the other a Dublin man who had the most delightful speaking voice I have ever heard. Here was further evidence of our isolation. These teachers in Canada could easily "run over" to England in their vacation; it was only a week each way. From New Zealand it is five or six weeks. It was a smooth but cold trip. Tho Empress was a noble ship, and there wns something that appealed to the imagination in travelling under the C.P.R. flag. Think of the beginnings of that famous concern—the handful of men ready to back their judgment that a railway across the pra : rie and through tho Ilockies to an almost uninhabited coast, would succeed; tho jeers of others who said tho line would not nay for axle grease; the many difficulties of fmnnce, which brought the enterprise to within an nee of failure; tho eventual conquest of Nature and the prosperity that followed; think of these beginnings and then of the business that to-dnv stretches from Eurpoo to Japan, with its great liners, its thousands of miles of railways, its steamers on _ the great lakes, its vast national and international organisation—nil this well within a life-time. Romance did indeed bring up the C.P.R.'s nine-fifteen! We were not thinking much of the C.P.R., however, when on the fifth day out the ship nosed her way through a fog towards the Strait of Belle Isle. It was the iceberg season, so a spice of danger was added to the daily round. When we made our landfall, it was the most desolate scene I have ever looked upon—an iron-bound shore streaked with snow, a leaden sea and sky, nnd small icebergs dotted about. The whole experience should have made everybody realise what an anxiety navigation can be in these waters. That evening we saw the Northern Lights stabbing the sky with long, white swords. Perhaps I was the only person on board who had seen both the Aurora Borealis and the Ahrora Australis. Here we had another geography lesson, which was to bo repeated on land. You cannot realise the sire of Canada until you cross it. We reached the mouth of the St. Lawrence on Thursday afternoon, and we half thought it was only a step to Quebec, but it waa Saturday morning before we tied up at the river's most easterly port. Save for a short stop to take on Customs officials, we were steaming steadily all the time. I thought of the old days of sail, and especially of the discovery of the St. Lawrence and the fight for Canada. What an adventure it must have been to conquer the river at first, and what an undertaking to place a British fleet and army at Quebec. Barren shores, cold and storm, ice and baffling winds: what heroes those oldtime sailors f.nd soldiers were to plunt a nation at such a distance! The river run was uneventful and not very interesting. Here and there on the shore we saw French-Canadian villages that reminded us of "Evangeline " My American professor, a very agreeable and broadminded man, was critical of the French-Canadian. He thought the people very backward. I heard the other side from a doctor at Toronto, a Canadian-born Presbyterian Liberal of the Laurier school. He praised the FYench-Canadkins very narmlv for their loyalty and oldfashioned domestic virtues. Thej knew, he declared, how to be happy in a simple life, which was just what Americans did not Jcnow and rotild not appreciate. A young man would go out into the woods nnd cane out a farm and bring up a large family on it; and in time the sons would make farms for themselves, and all would live contentedly in one community, industrious, thrifty, happy in their religion, traditions, ana nome life. Americans, he said, could not understand people who preferred an oldftshioned norse-waggon to a motor-Mr.