Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/423

 *ard assists in waiting at my table. He is a very capable and agreeable man; every morning when I go to the bath-room, he says: "Good morning, please." I believe that every woman on board, with one notable exception from Kansas, smokes cigarettes. Young women walk about the decks alone, smoking, and it always seems to me to be foolish. The fact that Adelaide does not smoke, causes a good deal of favorable comment among the men. "I may be old-fashioned," I have heard many men say, "but I don't like to see women smoke." We have heard no American news for weeks, except that J. Pierpont Morgan's body has arrived in New York. I see this announcement in every newspaper I pick up; when a cablegram is received here, the newspapers warm it over for days In the cablegram announcing Morgan's death, the impression was given that he had a bad stomach, and starved to death. The passengers talk a good deal about this very rich man starving to death An Englishman whom I know very well, and who talks Kaffir, takes a good deal of interest in the negro passenger who has two wives. Today we went down to the lower deck, and discussed matrimony with the man. Asked if the system of plural marriages pleased him, he replied that if he had it to do over, he wouldn't marry at all. It seems that all the Kaffirs who are deck passengers try to flirt with the man's two wives, and he is very uncomfortable. He says he showed his respect for women in a practical way, by marrying two of them; that he pays their fare on the present journey, but that a lot of young fellows expect his wives to neglect him in order that