ROAMERS OF THE SEAS

Waikato Times, Volume 117, Issue 19599, 11 June 1935, Page 9

ROAMERS OF THE SEAS

TO ESCAPE INCOME TAX.

RISE OF A NEW CLASS. ■ A new type or tourist has appeared in the pleasure cities of the Mediter-ranean—-the habitual cruiser who finds it cheaper to keep wandering 1 in circles than to live ashore (writes Sir Philip Gibbs in the Daily Telegraph). The Levant has seen much of them this winter. They are distinct from the amateur sightseer engaged in verifying Baedeker, and the refugee from winter who is only interested in changes of climate. You know them by their air of : boredom, cautious avoidance of guides and curio shops, and the superior way they sheer off • from the mobilisation centres for "doing” local sights in mass. It was one of those keen students of humanity, a hotelkeeper, who first made me acquainted with the constantcruiser, and put the creature under a microscope. This speciman was a portly woman—incidentally, a German —in a grim travelling suit apparently made of cast-iron, and a defensive hat of no recognisable vintage. She climbed heavily to the hotel terrace, seated herself at an empty table for six, warned away the expectant Berber waiter with one fat hand, and deliberately ate sandwiches from a paper-bag, utterly unmoved by the manager’s malignant stare.

No Cost But Fare. "An old friend,” he said, bitterly. "This is the fourth time she has been here tills winter. She conies up from Port Said by train, second-class, takes an omnibus to the hotel, and that is the last penny she will spend until she goes back by omnibus to take the night train back to the ship. Her winter home is a German cruising liner. She books for Hie round trip, spends from two to three weeks in the ports between Algiers, Istanbul, and the Canal, returns to Germany—and books for the next cruise, perhaps leaving again the day afterwards by the same ship. "All it costs her is the fare. She does her own washing, and no steward could exist on the lips she almost gives them. Ashore she buys a few postcards, nothing else. Her expenditure is less per cruise than for the same period ashore.” Tho cruise-addict is for the most part a Continental product. 1 have seen none hearing a British stamp save a few doubtful specimens evicted by the Gold Standard from pensions oil tile Riviera. These were tied to cruisers covering the winter months and extending to the Far East in ships ottering the simple comforts of a hoarding-house at 12 knots. They can hardly be classed with tho revolving pilgrims on the Mediterranean run. They gel. greater varieties of scene and climate and longer intervals in port. Full Year at Sea.

1 met n retired colonel and his wife this week who are cruising for a year to escape I ho income lax. They spent two months pottering about I he Mediterranean and Black -Sea in a semi-

[ tramp steamer, and then joined a larg- ) cr ship at Marseilles, which will make a leisurely voyage, lasting six weeks, to Darien, in Southern Manchuria, after visiting eleven ports. Just outside Darien is a delightful little seaside resort, with family hotels run by Japanese in the European way. There they will spend the early summer. Living is cheap on the depreciated yen, and the total expenditure for two months’ stay would he less than we would havo to pay for as good accommodation at a coast resort in England—far less than in France or Belgium. Their round-the-world ticket will enable them to move on to Japan after the hot weather. The next move will be by another slow ship, carrying a tew passengers, across the Pacific and through the Panama Canal to the West Indies. There they intend to remain until the late autumn. Then eastward again. This nomadic life afloat would not appeal to every traveller, but it suits the colonel and his wife,'and they are secure from the pressure of a surveyor of taxes. Another variation of the cruiseaddict crossed my path in Athens. An English novelist and his wife were on the third lap of a three months’ tour by tho same ship—what they called a “taxi voyage" of the Mediterranean. They left London on her first winter cruise, with a time-table adjusted to the ship’s schedule for the season, and are being dropped at various ports, to remain until she arrives on her next round. J 1 Racial Differences. The same cabin Is reserved for them and they keep part of their luggage on hoard. Thus they avoid the deadly monotony of living with the same people for weeks at a time, and are free to follow their own devices ashore. I imagine that 'their position as "permanent residents” lias given them a slightly superior feeling. _ As we sat over cocktails in tho Grande Bretagne Hotel three other obvious cruise passengers stopped for, a moment at our table. I asked who they were. "I 'can’t remember their names',” said my friend indifferently, "they are only with us for this voyage.” It is a rather dismal sight when the cargo of a cruise-ship is decanted into a hotel on the circular route, and tho diverse elements arc herded by guides into groups for the usual intensive day’s lour. They dash about from museums to ruined temples in a race against time. Nightfall finds them jaded and full of undigested history. National characteristics reveal themselves unmistakably in these feverish attacks on the show places of a cruise itinerary. British sightseers are at- , most invariably cheerful, mildly conversational, and interested in the day’s work of pretending lo play. They joke over minor mishaps." and refuse to he infuriated by delays or unforeseen discomforts. The Americans plunge intensely into a set programme, tick it off item by item, make copious notes which they lose or forget, and receive with cold cynicism the fall stories led them by voluble loiils. The French attack their ordered menu of “sights” with fierce energy, talking all the time at lop speed, 'photographing everything in’ iheir path, and returning aboard to discard guide-book stuff for the in- .»

terminable debate on the state of Europe. * The New Gipsies. The Germans are different. They come ashore in any old clothes, with an air of being about lo engage in a desperate adventure. The majority are middle-aged and of ample girth. I have seen very few young Germans addicted to cruising. They are disciplined beyond belief, and the most trivial movements overseen by their efficient leaders are executed with almost military prevision. If 8 o’clock is the hour for mobilisation to see the Pyramids at 8.45, they are standing in line, punctual to the seconds with their car numbers held aloft, cameras at the ready, and guide books in reserve. The hotels know them for their thriftiness. You never see half a dozen Prussian playboy.* ordering cocktails beforo the mess cal! Is sounded. The servants know better than to linger with palms upwards when the food lias vanished.