For many passengers the voyage was simply very boring and routine. There is a depressing similarity about the accounts of voyages through the Mediterranean, the Canal, and via the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Basically all accounts show a strong inward gaze, describing the conditions on board, boredom, meals and mealtimes, entertainment, accidents and death. The outward gaze concerns the weather and boats being passed, flying fish (very often mentioned), while the Ocean is merely the medium on which one travels – 'nothing but water' – or rough sea, a hazard one has to cross (as quickly as possible).
Many passengers hoped that the passage through the Canal, a major engineering feat and in an area redolent with history, would be quite fascinating.
What thoughts come crowding to the mind when the Red Sea is mentioned. Sailing down the Canal we crossed the track of Joseph and Mary when they were fleeing into Egypt with Jesus, now sailing thro' the Red Sea we pass over the spot where the Pharoah was overwhelmed and all his host with him. The sailors were at it with their yarns about finding chariot wheels hung on the anchor. One of them upset the thing a little by saying the Rubber tyre was eaten away by crabs. I think we have as fine a lot of yarn spinners as can be found on any ship.
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But these expectations were often crushed. Joseph Woodhouse wrote that 'of course, on entering the Canal, & for a short distance through it, great interest was manifested by the passengers. This, however, soon passed away as on further progress it was found that nothing but a vast monotonous stretch of sandy desert was to be seen on either side.'
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On another occasion Emma Tompsitt wrote that 'This morning we passed a succession of rocks called the Twelve Apostles; they are not very large, and there is nothing extraordinary about them. The stewardess says there is a tale attached to them, but she does not know it, and as I do not, there is an end of them.'
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Dr Mackenzie wrote,
We now entered the Suez Canal, which I am not at all anxious to see again. Dreary desert as far as the eye can see on either side and canal itself muddy
and abominably offensive to the sense of smell. Visions of Enteric fever amongst the souls under my care would keep rising in my mind & made me impatient with our slow progress. The heat was very oppressive [it was April].... Several Arabs were seen striding (with tremendous strides) along the banks of sand – many of them on some pilgrimage – poor fools.
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The Suez Canal and Red Sea were both hot and boring. Forster noted perceptively that one really has seen it all before, though his comment would hardly apply to most passengers. The canal
was in a way disappointing, for the East has been so painted that nothing was new. It was like sailing through the Royal Academy – a man standing by a sitting camel, followed by a picture of a camel standing by a seated man; picturesque Arabs in encampment, ditto in a felucca. Scene of Pharoah's mishap. Mount Sinai & god on the top in a cloud.
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Heat was the other problem. A doctor's wife in 1883 wrote when they got to the Red Sea that 'It is getting too hot to do anything, if you sit still you feel suffocating, if you move, perspiration wells from you. It is much too fatiguing to make lemon squash but the ice is not quite exhausted yet, so we exist on ice water.' They long for a breeze, 'But here when the breeze came it was hotter than ever and was like a breath of hot air out of an oven sweeping across one's face.' 'People are fainting all over the ship, just dropping down onto the deck all around us.' Then a passenger died, mostly as a result of heat, and also a young baby for whom 'human care & sympathy were alike of no avail, the Great Reaper with his sickle keen had gathered yet another flower into his mighty sheaves.' Similarly in 1901, 'It is red hot here, we none of us have scarcely any clothes on, perspiration rolls off us in streams. I expect we shall lose over 3 stone before our journey ends. We cannot sleep downstairs so brought 2 beds up on deck for the children. Sam and I slept in our deck chairs, ladies on one side of the ship and gentlemen on the other.' A fat old man died, 'they say he drank a lot . . . they found over 30 stout bottles under his bunk.'
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The prac tical Isabel Burton got her fellow passengers organised to try and cope with the heat.
Every night we slept on deck, in rows, whilst in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea; for the cabins were like heated ovens, and we darted down only to dress as quickly as we could. At six a.m. we went, in our dressing-gowns, to the saloon, and took coffee; and then we read, talked and slept on deck in the day; my husband and I a little apart when seriously employed with literature. In the evening we sang glees and duets. We abolished
toilette
, and dressed in loose white or coloured cotton, or linen, dressing-gowns.
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Even blue water sailing, around the Cape or in the Indian Ocean, could be boring. Many journals merely record meals. William Lawrence noted for 11 June
1884, 'we had pickles served out to us and salt pork and pea soup and pottatoes for dinner and this afternoon was just the same as any other day. Nothing but water all round you. Marmalade for tea.' Or 18 June 'We had harricot beans boiled pork and soup for dinner after dinner the nap as usual we had a birth on board but it died soon after birth same as usual for tea after tea had a concert in our cabin and the doctor took the chair minnie sang do they miss me at home the people down the other end had a prayer meeting.' So also William Heeley in 1890: 'There is nothing particular to record, only it is getting monotonous with not seeing anything but water for so long – 8 or 9 days. We shall be at Colombo either tomorrow or Wednesday, so that will be a nice break.' And after Colombo, 'Nothing has been seen yet since we left Colombo, not even a passing ship, that is, I have not seen anything, nor heard of anybody who had. It begins to get jading seeing nothing but water, water all around.' And yet again, six days out from Aden, 'We have not sighted a sail or steamer the last 24 hours. Already the Voyage is beginning to get tedious & no wonder considering the little excitement that prevails on board, of course I find the time drags fearfully, not having anything to do. Speed on my bark, land us safely at our destination.' Later again, 'Of course one knows that Sunday is very monotonous on board.' And next day, 'I am pretty well tired of reading already & only now & again do I get a game of chess or cards, yet that will soon be spent up everybody seems to long for the end of the Voyage.'
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There were other hazards also: steam did not make travel completely safe and comfortable. We have pointed to the effects of heat, but even the sturdiest steamer could still be threatened by storms. The
Pathan
, an iron hulled twin-screw steamer of 1,790 tonnes, 103.7 metres long, hit the full southwest monsoon as it entered the Indian Ocean in July.
As soon as we passed Cape Guardafui, the ship began to roll most fearfully. George immediately turned a ghastly white and sank into an armchair, and several of the girls lay down on mattresses spread along the poop and prepared for the worst. The lower deck was soon cleared as the waves were washing over it. The spray was coming in torrents over the captain's bridge and the funnel was soon perfectly white with salt. The waves looked like moving mountains and this great ship... was tossed like an insignificant toy from side to side.
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When Harding's ship left Colombo he wrote ruefully that
I always pictured the neighbourhood of the Equator as a calm region with the bluest of skies and the hottest of heats. Instead we have been beating along all day under a cloudy sky with occasional torrents of rain – to the accompaniment of a strong wind and the consequential rolling and pitching. Beside all that it has been most horribly damp and everyone has been either sea sick or limp in the extreme. I belong to the latter band.
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Whatever the hazards and discomforts, the arrival in the East, especially if it was the first time for a traveller, was always something special and memorable. Conrad got this well. He was on a small boat.
We drag at the oars with aching arms, and suddenly a puff of wind, a puff faint and tepid and laden with strange odours of blossoms, of aromatic wood, comes out of the still night – the first sigh of the East on my face. That I can never forget. It was impalpable and enslaving, like a charm, like a whispered promise of mysterious delight.
So also the people:
And then I saw the men of the East – they were looking at me. The whole length of the jetty was full of people. I saw brown, bronze, yellow faces, the black eyes, the glitter, the colour of an Eastern crowd. And all these beings stared without a murmur, without a sigh, without a movement. They stared down at the boats, at the sleeping men who at night had come to them from the sea. Nothing moved. The fronds of palms stood still against the sky. Not a branch stirred along the shore, and the brown roofs of hidden houses peeped through the green foliage, through the big leaves that hung shining and still like leaves forged of heavy metal. This was the East of the ancient navigators, so old, so mysterious, resplendent and sombre, living and unchanged full of danger and promise.
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As they neared Mumbai men arriving to serve in India found that
During the last few days a feeling of excitement did begin to build up. There was the hot, sunny weather, the flying fish dropping little droplets of water on to the smooth sea – everything seemed to be beautiful. There was a difference in the air or in the atmosphere or in the heat or in the way the wind blew or possibly even the smell, and then the unique smell of India, difficult to pinpoint, partly the populace, partly the different vegetation, partly the very rapid fall of dusk and the cooling off which leads to a most lovely scent just after sundown.
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And so also Frederic Trench, arriving from Ireland to serve in the EIC army in 1826. Nearing Chennai,
On turning out this morning at four o'clock I heard that the morning gun from Fort St George had been distinctly heard, and hastening on the poop, anxious to get the first view of the Asiatic shores, I was surprised and delighted with the balmy fragrance of fruits and flowers which the land breeze brought us from the shore and about five minutes afterwards not less so, as we strained our eyes towards the long-wished for port to perceive the
land and the glaring white houses of Madras on the verge of the horizon. As we gradually and slowly approached, the view became more distinct and was truly gratifying after so long an absence from any object to relieve the eye from the dull, boundless and unvarying expanse of sky and ocean.
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This, it must be pointed out, was not just an arrival at a new place, say going across the Atlantic to America. This was arrival in a mysterious, fabled, different place, the East.
Not all maritime travel was oceanic, and we can conclude this lengthy account of European travellers by noting coastal and riverine travel. Isabel Burton in 1876 took a middle-sized steamer down the west Indian coast from Mumbai to Goa. The voyage was pleasant: 'beautifully clean, with good table, excellent wines, airy cabins, great civility, ship very steady in wind and swell, fares extravagantly dear.' The seas were rough, even though being May the southwest monsoon would not yet have started. The steamer stood off the coast and let passengers go ashore to Goa in a row boat, a distance of eight miles and a rather hazardous eight miles too. Getting back on board some weeks later, after a very unpleasant stay in Goa (a 'fetid hole') was extremely dangerous. They waited four days for their steamer to arrive, for although they were meant to run like clockwork, every two weeks, theirs was much delayed. (For the actual process of getting on board, see pages 35–6.)
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Again Juanita Harrison provides a nice contrast. In 1929 she went from Chittagong to Rangoon in a packed local steamer:
they have many hundred 3rd Class on board at one end of the Boat are a Hindoo resturant and a Mohammed one Both very clean I had dinner from the Mohammed. Chicken curry with Rice. The curry doesnt tast nothing like the dryed curry powder we get. Here they use the fresh Curry. I ate so much and to fast so with the Sea became seasick and felt wonderful after. When I came on boad they said that European women were not allowed to travelle as Deck Passanges. I answered I had my ticket and I couldnt pay any more and if they didnt like it they must pay the differents. everything is going lovely now.
Later she met 'another Gentleman a Very smart Professor and a strong Buddish He talked for 2 hours to me on that faith and I was so thankful it was just what I wanted to hear I sat very quiet and took it all in he spoke about it said I was a good listner as most Christians argue.'
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In 1837 Emily Eden went on a voyage up the Ganga with her brother. She complained about the discomfort, too many dinners, and so on, but this was a very luxurious, imperial progression, for her brother was Lord Auckland, the Governor General. The vast entourage was in 'flats' towed by a steamer. It was a slow progress indeed, making only 200 miles in the first ten days, partly as the boats kept going aground, and partly as Lord Auckland frequently had to go ashore to receive local dignitaries. In this same year Emily's sister Fanny Eden went to Rajmahal, northwest
of Kolkata, to hunt tigers. She and her nephew had an entourage of 260 camp followers, and twenty elephants. Coming back down river, they anchored every night and 'we had our dinner table set out upon a very handsome sand-bank. It looked so odd when we were walking a little distance to see a table with silver plate and candlesticks and nothing to relieve it of any kind, for the budgerows [river boats] were hid by the bank.' This luxury contrasted strongly with what happened to her servants. One day they travelled for 17 hours on the shallow river without stopping. This was 'to the utter desperation of the Hindoos [among her boatmen], whose caste will not let them cook on board a boat. So some of them went more than twenty-four hours without eating.'
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