Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/185

 the sea. A regular game of cricket is so dull that some of our most noted humorists have laughed at it, but sea cricket is much worse I was talking to-*day with an Englishman who has lived in Australia a long time, and who married an Australian woman. He says it pleases Australians to be told they are like Americans, and it makes them very angry to be told that they are like the English. He confirms what I have noticed everywhere; that Australians and New-Zealanders "pick" at the English constantly I am beginning to believe I can see a difference between the colonists and the English, although I couldn't at first. A woman today told me of her troubles with servants in Australia, and her troubles are exactly like those I hear women complain of at home. There are English nurse girls and Australian nurse girls on board, but they do not mix. The English girls wear nurses' costumes, but the Australian girls say that is beneath their dignity. One of these Australian nurse girls is not more than twenty years old, and has a full set of false teeth. There are many "American dentists" in Australia (one was shot by his office girl in Melbourne while I was there), and I judge they have a great deal to do.

—I read a good deal, as the ship has an excellent library; frequently I take out two books a day. One I read this morning is entitled, "The Cruise of the 'Falcon.'" In 1880, an Englishman named E. F. Knight conceived the notion of taking a long voyage in a small yacht called the "Falcon."