Page:Melbourne and Mars.djvu/67

Rh in travel and some go to a warmer zone for the winter in order to work there.

The travelling accommodation of the planet is sometimes severely taxed. So much so that the Central Executive advise certain trades to take their holidays at certain periods or between certain months at their convenience, that too many may not be on the move at one time.

This ocean boat, though not one of the largest, can berth and accommodate two thousand five hundred people. It has three decks available for passengers extending from end to end of the ship. The work of the ship is done on the fourth deck. The great motors work there, and the accumulators, weighing some three thousand tuns, are stored in the lowest hold as ballast.

Long voyages have not to be provided for; there is not room in our oceans for a long voyage. We travel nearly one hundred miles an hour, and so complete our ocean journey in little more than two days. Our boat looks very plain; there are no masts, spars nor funnels. Nothing on the upper deck but the bridge, the cook's kitchens, and the ventilators for the lower decks.

Providing for us all is a very easy task, as on land we have but one meal except the little breakfast for mothers and young children, and this meal, though good and plentiful, very rarely consists of more than two courses. We have very little waste of food. Plates are not sent away with their contents almost untested because other courses on the card are likely to be more palatable.

During our brief voyage I made the acquaintance of several young men and women who were going to the metropolis for the purpose of passing examinations or for study. They were all remarkably eager and intelligent, but our conversations were none of them exactly worthy of being recorded.

At twenty-one o'clock of the third day, after a run of fifty-five hours over smooth waters, we drew near the port of Granby, the greatest western port of the central ocean. I went to the cabin and called Grayson, as I had no desire to be separated from him. We saw a number of great boats. I had no idea that there were so many. Going past them all was quite a long walk. About half of them were evidently used like the one we had just left, for passenger traffic only. There were also some very large cargo boats. The concourse of people was very great. Many had come to welcome friends and relatives, and others were there for amusement. It was two hours after sunset, but the abundance of electric lights, none of which were permitted to glare or cast strong shadows, shed a soft radiance upon the scene and almost compensated for the absence of the sun.

In spite of the crowd we were soon comfortably settled in our hostel. There are many large ones in Granby, this being the largest of a ring of ports surrounding the central ocean. Here we had the same springy and