Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/14

 it. He finds that when any body of men engage in a disreputable transaction, several of them are always anxious to turn informers, and secure a reward. An informer nearly always asks a thousand dollars, but he will usually compromise, and take two hundred. If you engage in any kind of dirty work, remember that some one will know about it, and sell you out The sugar man says that reliable Mexicans tell him that during the thirty-two years Diaz was president of Mexico, he ordered forty thousand men shot, and that he didn't make a mistake in a single case.

The "Sonoma" is a ten-thousand-ton ship, and has been in the Australian trade only a few months since it was rebuilt last winter. It ran between San Francisco and Sydney several years ago, but the owners claimed the business did not pay, so the three ships in the line lay in San Francisco bay a long time. Then the owners decided to try it again, and the ships were rebuilt, and fitted with oil-burners. This is the fifth voyage of the "Sonoma" since the owners changed their minds. A good deal of the trade has been lost, and the employees are very polite, with a view of recovering the lost business. We have enough fuel oil on board to run the ship to Sydney and back to Honolulu. We all like the ship, except that it is a great roller. The other night, while the passengers were at dinner, a big roll sent the dishes and food into heaps on the floor, and those on deck were shot against the rail with great force.

Captain Trask is a very pleasant man, and most of the passengers know him. Some captains, particu