The voyage has been extremely pleasant, with a good and well-found vessel, fairly fast as the briskly competitive speed of these days goes, and above all with a head in Captain Burton who has proved first-class in every requirement.  He has just complimented us by saying that we are the best behaved lot of passengers he ever took.  That was due very greatly to himself; and I think that all of us are well able to reciprocate his compliment by regarding him as the best of captains.  Officers and crew also have been, to our view at least, faultless; but then, again, all that so much depends upon the captain.

Touching the important matter of speed, let me say a little.  All important it is, indeed, in this age of fast progress.  When I first sailed for Australia, in 1840, we were, I think, 141 days on the way.  Nor was that a very inordinate passage then.  This time I expect, within that interval, to go and return, besides having nearly two and a half months to spare—­a space of time which now, with rails and fast steamers everywhere, will enable me to visit all South-Eastern Australasia, including even New Zealand.  Of course, that means hardly more than “to see,” but still that is better than not to see at all, those wonderful parts of our empire.

But yet again, on this point of speed, our “Coptic’s” daily run averaged rather under 300 nautical miles.  In justice to the good ship, we should credit her with rather more, for during the latter half of the voyage she was meeting or anticipating the sun by six or seven degrees of longitude daily, and thus clipping about half an hour off each day.  But turn now to the latest like exploit between Liverpool and New York—­the case, I think, of the s.s.  “Umbria”, whose unprecedented record is of 455 to 503 miles daily.  Granting this to be subject to abatement for running this time away from the sun, and thus prolonging the day, there is enough of difference to give us, at this speed, the hope of a three weeks’ Australian service by the straightest available line.  It has already been effected to Adelaide in 29 days.  We Australians must hope that ere long Melbourne and Sydney, together with all about them, will weigh, with ourselves at least, as heavily as New York.  The coal question is, of course, an awful difficulty for three weeks instead of five to six days, but not, we hope, insuperable.  Our “Coptic” burns but fifty tons a day, but the New York liners require three hundred.

When a man has passed seventy-three, as I have done, he may be excused in doubting his chance of yet another Australian visit.  But while he has been waiting these many years, he has seen such vast improvement in inter-communication facilities of every kind, as to establish, he might say, a complete counterbalance to the increasing infirmities of years.  Imagine, therefore, the Australian liner of the next few years to be a great and comfortable hotel, as though one went for three weeks’ fresh sea air to Brighton or Bournemouth, with the additional charm that, on quitting your pleasant marine apartments, you stepped out upon Australia.