High Jinks on the High Seas

After leaving Albany on the Madras, it took Edward nearly two weeks to reach his next destination, Galle on the south coast of Ceylon. For us, travelling by car to Perth, and then the following day by plane to Colombo it took just over two days.

After the storm mentioned in my last post, the trip became a languid cruise, the most exciting occurrence being the identifcation of a midnight rambler, who had been periodically invading the single ladies cabins and groping the residents after lights out, ever since the voyage began. The first suspect was a certain officer of the ship, who, poor wight, although a bit of a dandy and admirer of the sex, was not thought to be capable of such doings as these. However, after a determined effort to catch the offender, one of the ladies was able to observe that it was one of the Chinese cabin crew. Because these pigtailed gentry are all so much alike, she wasn't sure which Chinaman it was but eventually it was decided that it was a popular servant named Ai Youg.

Once he was pronounced guilty he was handcuffed and then attached by his pigtail to the mainmast! This was seen as the ultimate humiliation but according to Edward, preferable to any corporal punishment.This event, which one might have thought a major scandal in the puritanical Victorian times was described by Edward in terms of detached humour and almost as a case of "boys being boys".However, as the voyage was ending three of the passengers, a lawyer, a soldier and a priest who Edward later described as law, war and divinity circulated a letter casting much censure upon the officers, and calling in question the treatment of the crew, and general management of the ship, calling on other to sign it in support.

A man of authority himself, Edward clearly took a dim view of this do-goodery and clearly wasn't about to lend his signature to the letter. Finding little support the authors of the letter re-wrote it in milder terms but still got few signatures. When the Captain got wind of it, he demanded to see the letters and something of a scene took place.

Once ashore in Galle the authors of the letter, having got virtually no support for their general complaints, took up the specific cause of the mistreatment of Ai Youg and made application to the chief magistrate to institute proceedings for his redress.To Edward's undisguised delight, however, Ai Youg seeing which side his bread was buttered on and wanting to put the whole situation behind him declared  that he had no complaint to make against anybody-that he liked his captain and officers-that he did not like to be put in handcuffs, or tied by the tail, but would accuse no one of unjustly treating him; and, finally, that he came before the magistrate only because he was brought by a policeman, and had no other wish than to return to his ship and resume his duties. 
Ai Youg was, therefore, dismissed, and returned on board with all despatch; and our friends, looking extremely foolish, were left to explain their position to the magistrate as best they could. 

Our plane at Perth

Our trip was not attended by any such excitement, being wholly uneventful. Although a low cost carrier Malindo Air, a joint Malaysian-Indonesian venture, provided a good service in a fairly new looking aeroplane. Unlike most flights out of Australia there were few Europeans aboard and in fact on the first leg, from Perth to Kuala Lumpur the plane was pretty empty. From KL to Sri Lanka it filled a bit, primarily with some kind of Sri Lankan sporting team who had clearly enjoyed some success as they were carrying a huge trophy which only just fit in an overhead locker.