KNOCKING ABOUT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 498, 3 December 1877, Page 2

KNOCKING ABOUT.

No. I. DUNEUIN TO OAMARU. Which I didn't get on very well. I started wrong in the first place, for, wishing to be affable and to make things pleasant for everybody, I just saluted the captain on the bridge, and told him that if lie wanted any advice or assistance, lie might reckon on me, as the wind was a-head and his starboard topgallant bowline might foul the flukes of his right bower ; and the way that man, who, to all appearance, is intelligent and wears good clothes, considering he is only a paddle-boat skipper, carried on waa something to remember. It reminded me of what J heard iu Wei-

lington when Major Atkinson said Sir George was a mud snoot, and would as soon slip a Tommy Dodd sixpence into an Indian Famine Relief box as not. I says—" Well, capting, don't forget 1. offered, and if your top hamper gets athwart your futtock shrouds, and carries awaj r the gooseneck of the bowßprit gammoning, remember mo in storm and wind," and I would havo given a choice quotation from J. Gordon Stuart Grant, but the brutal mate caught me in the small of the back with one of Levy's agent's ironbound trunks, of American manufacture, as I could feel by the base metal reeking; with protection and a high duty tnrifl*. il Here," Bays I, " my gay herald of tho greatest living instrumentalist, do you have that Saratoga carted round for a battering ram ( because 1 shall charge tho pet of princes and kings, your eminent boss, for a new back-bone ;" at which tho imperturbable Thatcher smiled kindly and apologised in his usual winning way. He only had two trunks, a portmanteau, a case of bills, a travelling bag, a dressing-ease, four parcels, a groat-coat a life-belt, a walking stick, and "

lithographs, and was explaining ti. was an oil" trip and he had left t<,fi "things" behind. I thought agonta *he oidy to travel first-class smoke good cigars, live in tho best hotels and write periodically to their principal's to say they wanted more money; \\\\t from what I saw of the übiquitous Thatcher T should say he earned tho few paltvy hundreds a week he gets, and I resolved not to go as agent for the Kaiapoi seal as t had originally intended. 1 would'ntminil making a tour with Billy Rowe and some other few wild Hau Man chiefs, for 1 might earn good money, and show the civilised world how rampant heathenism was once in this favoured land. Having taken stock of the great agent, I strolled down into the engine-room and was accosted by the engineer, who asked mo what tho deuce 1 wanted there, and 1 told him that tho foo-foo valvo of tho oscillating cylinder wanted screwing up, and he ilew into a great rage. He swelled out as if lie was chief of the Taupo, tho Wellington, the Ohimbora/.0, tho Groat Eastern, the Halclutha, or some other of those princely boats. " Why," said I, " You eold-foed-jet-condcusiug-forty-cockroaeh-power son of lignite, one would fancy yon bossed a surface-condensing, three-cylindered, million-tubed, highpressure engine, with a stroke of piston as long as a bill from my favourite Dunodin hotel." At least I thought I would say this, but there was something in tho man's albatross eye which warned me that mildness would be the best policy, and 1 just told him I was thinking of setting up a mill in Oaniaru for grinding old MoNg ; *d tweed suits into shoddy for clothes''t city councillors and wanted some experience, and walked up on deck and down the native companion into the palatial saloon of tho Samson. There I saw the steward, a tall, majestic gazelleeyed youth. 1 asked him to put my paper parcel into my stale-room, before lie showed me the smoking-saloon and began getting me breakfast. Tho affable steward did not say anything, but ho looked. He just, looked a want-of-confidence debate, a discussion in a town council on a motion to pave and mutai a new street, and two Oamaru cabmen having an argument about a squatter fare, all in one. Jlo looked so that 1 apologised and begged permission to put my traps upon the cabin floor. Seeing that he did not relent, 1 promised to drink every half-hour, to dine on tho passage, to tip him going ashore, ami to persuade my friend M'-'iikman to give him a new 'H-oufc of electro-plate for the boa*. At tliis ho was graoionsly plcaucd to let his benign (7 x '.•) countenance »«simio something between the expression worn by a Maori chief silting down to a roasted baby and a legislator getting a free drink, which was no doubt intended for a smile, and I ultimately persuaded him to get mo a cup of cotfee. (N.B. —Tliis is sarcastic. I cultivated the steward, and found that he possessed a heart as soft as an alderman's head, and was really a good little fellow.) Then I went on deck, and found that the S imson (named after the strong man of Bible history, no doubt by somo humourous member of the I'nion Company after a severe struggle with a tidal wave glass of Dunodin beer) was breasting the angry foam at the rate of about four knots per lunar hour, and snorting and puffing like a fat man getting up tho stairs of a six-storey hotel. Much 1 marvelled at her performance, and at tho folly of constructing railways when travelling can be done so expeditionary and comfortably by sea. Tho Samson lias a splendid saloon, a palatial smoking-room, a gorgeous deck - house, a magnificent lounging cabin, and her sleeping accommodation is fit for a retired brewer —or tho, boat to replace her has, so \[\ all tho same. The plan of niakipg people pay for their meals or board is calculated to bring tho meanness out of human naturo as efficaciously as Weston's Wizard Oil. There are, too, in connection with the sorvico, little adjuncts—snoh as permitting a set of groedy beach combers to rob passengers by charging 200 per cent, more f'.nn is fair for carrying a parcel from the train to the boat—that renders it ptrfoot, and I recommend that a digest of the system be sent to America and England for the enlightenment of benighted steamboat proprietors -in those countries, To leave joking, 1 must turn aside from my sarcasm to say a word of praise for tho captain, the chief officer, and the engineer —all gentlemanly, jolly follows, and worthy of a boat not quite so much like Samson after his lady-love had treated him so barbc-Tou»]y. The second mate wore no distinguishing badgo or uniform, and I did not make his acquaintance, but no doubt lie chaws his bacca and hitches up his pantaloons and loves his Sue as well as any other bold mariner. But enough of

the boat and its shortcomings, which I will sum up in a very few lines — Oh, Samson, passengers you tease, With no more power than forty fleas ; When sickness sore doth wring the brow, A bnnkless, rolling devil thou.

We got to the Breakwater after a passage that seemed as long as a speech from Whitaker. I will not say anything about the colossal blocks hurled by Titans into the roadstead to defy the giant waves. As Jones, " poor old Jones," would say they were made of cement, because it was evident the sea meant mischief to the shipping. Who shall describe the deputation on that calm Sabbath evening—the congregation who listened to the sermon from the stones of the Breakwater ? We landed and got on board the train, when a gentleman softly asked us sixpence a-piece for the ride, with an air worthy of Beau Brummel, and made us regret it was not a pound. It was Sunday, and there was no demonstration in our honour ; no bands such as greeted Levy on his arrival at Invercargill and Dunedin ; no nothing, rsave a policeman who inspected our While here " knockmay have something to say pleasant little city of Oamaru. \ • Pass Check -