Following the Equator, Part 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 81 pages of information about Following the Equator, Part 2.

Following the Equator, Part 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 81 pages of information about Following the Equator, Part 2.
Melbourne-Mount Gambier,.......300
Mount Gambier-Adelaide,........270
Adelaide-Port Augusta,.........200
Port Augusta-Alice Springs...1,036
Alice Springs-Port Darwin,.....898
Port Darwin-Banjoewangie,... 1,150
Banjoewangie-Batavia,..........480
Batavia-Singapore,.............553
Singapore-Penang,..............399
Penang-Madras,...............1,280
Madras-Bombay,.................650
Bombay-Aden,.................1,662
Aden-Suez,...................1,346
Suez-Alexandria,...............224
Alexandria-Malta,..............828
Malta-Gibraltar,.............1,008
Gibraltar-Falmouth,..........1,061
Falmouth-London,...............350
London-New York,.............2,500
New York-San Francisco,......3,500

I was in Adelaide again, some months later, and saw the multitudes gather in the neighboring city of Glenelg to commemorate the Reading of the Proclamation—­in 1836—­which founded the Province.  If I have at any time called it a Colony, I withdraw the discourtesy.  It is not a Colony, it is a Province; and officially so.  Moreover, it is the only one so named in Australasia.  There was great enthusiasm; it was the Province’s national holiday, its Fourth of July, so to speak.  It is the pre-eminent holiday; and that is saying much, in a country where they seem to have a most un-English mania for holidays.  Mainly they are workingmen’s holidays; for in South Australia the workingman is sovereign; his vote is the desire of the politician—­indeed, it is the very breath of the politician’s being; the parliament exists to deliver the will of the workingman, and the government exists to execute it.  The workingman is a great power everywhere in Australia, but South Australia is his paradise.  He has had a hard time in this world, and has earned a paradise.  I am glad he has found it.  The holidays there are frequent enough to be bewildering to the stranger.  I tried to get the hang of the system, but was not able to do it.

You have seen that the Province is tolerant, religious-wise.  It is so politically, also.  One of the speakers at the Commemoration banquet—­the Minister of Public Works-was an American, born and reared in New England.  There is nothing narrow about the Province, politically, or in any other way that I know of.  Sixty-four religions and a Yankee cabinet minister.  No amount of horse-racing can damn this community.

The mean temperature of the Province is 62 deg.  The death-rate is 13 in the 1,000—­about half what it is in the city of New York, I should think, and New York is a healthy city.  Thirteen is the death-rate for the average citizen of the Province, but there seems to be no death-rate for the old people.  There were people at the Commemoration banquet who could remember Cromwell.  There were six of them.  These Old Settlers had all been present at the original Reading of the Proclamation, in 1536.  They showed signs of the blightings and blastings of time, in their outward aspect, but they were young within; young

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Following the Equator, Part 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.