Excerpt from Five Years Under the Southern Cross: Experiences and Impressions Let the reader procure a map of the globe and carefully examine the situation of Australia from this point of view; and if he has never observed it before, it Will probably come home to him with something of a shock. From Adelaide to Capetown or Durban is a matter of fourteen or fifteen days' good steaming. From London to Capetown is no quicker, if as quick. And that the present average rate of steaming between Durban and Australia can easily be accelerated is Clearly proved by the fact that the new White Star steamer Ceramic recently accomplished the journey from Liverpool to Melbourne via the Cape in two days less than an Orient steamer which left London on the same day and proceeded by the Suez route. It is all a question of coal, and in time of need the consumption of coal would not be a primary con sideration. Still follow the map, and observe that the distance between Sydney and Vancouver is little greater than that between England and Vancouver. The whole of Western Canada is open to traffic with Australia, and there is no great stretch of country to cross by rail. Here, again, an accelerated steamer service would bring Sydney and Vancouver within fifteen or sixteen days of each other. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.