With love to all & sundry, hoping Auntie is in the pink, & trusting to write to her someday YrYour dutiful & affectaffectionate son, Jack S.SSteam Ship "Osterley"30/8/26 Dear Mummy

I'm afraid this is only going to be a note un- lessunless we get to Fremantle late; as in the effort to finish my letters of thanks triumphantly I seem hardly to have left time to write to you properly before lunch & we are due to arrive at port just after lunch, when I shall feel it my duty to explore Western Australia to the best of my ability — we are only there for about 6 hours. And I'm sure you wouldn't like me to omit my lunch. Such is the ravenous humger that has come over me that I have found it vitally necessary to insert beef-tea in the morning & afternoon tea about 4pm — you see there is six hours between the incidence of lunch & dinner. And this is too much to entertain unsupported.

Anyhow not a great deal has happened since I posted my Melbourne letter to you, or rather got Maie Ross to post it for me. After writing same I went into town for lunch & then ambled out to the University where they have a new & palatial arts building, but the real attraction of the place, apart from the Library, which I couldn't see as it was locked for the vacation, was a Newman College, a place run by the Micks, designed after a very peculiar style by a bird whose name I forget, the Yank who designed the layout of Canberra. It is in a sort of an L with arms an equal length, not very high but two stories, a sort of cloisters all round the middle looking out on a big lawn & garden with a big circular dining-hall in the angle of the L with a wonderful domed ceiling & a curious kind of multiple spire on top. There is a cunning use of colour to get all sorts of effects inside; upstairs they have an attractive looking library, but that also was locked. All the furniture is designed by this same bloke, very plain & strong, but handsome looking; & there are bath-rooms on both floors with sunk-in baths. They let you wander round as you like. A caretaker at the University told me with consid- erableconsiderable emotion that when the Oxford debaters were out here little Ramsay MacDonald stayed there & said it was the best- appointed joint he had ever had the privelege of striking in his travels. My word, the Micks do themselves proud all right. And there they are in Sydney, putting enormous additions on to their Cathedral & making it about the biggest place in the Southern hemisphere. Well, it only just shows, as you might say.

Excitement grows out on the deck; we are sailing down very close to the shore, so that we can see the beaches and what are either people or large stones standing & gazing at us with interest.

Maie Ross got a couple of hours off from work & came down to the pier to see me off; which was very nice of her, but thank heaven that's the last farewell I'll have this trip. But one is quite enough really, in my opinion. We left at 3 in the afternoon; the rest of the day was very nice & sunny & quiet & calm; and then the wind got up & the sea likewise, & we had Friday, Saturday & Sunday rough, even in the technical nautical sense ; which gave the officer lad who sits at our table, Wingfield by name, considerable joy, as it enhanced his reputation as a prophet. But it didn't worry our table-full, which turned up with regularity & as much punctuality as you can expect from 1st-class passengers for every meal. It was as bad yesterday as it was on the Tasman, with swells & cross-swells & counter-swells, but I never batted an eyelid from start to finish, with the exception of a few hiccups the first night, which I can only put down to the ginger in the pudding.

We stayed at Adelaide about six hours, not long enough to impress me. The train takes about an hour to get from the outer harbour to Adelaide itself; & a rotten dirty trip it is most of it. Sydney seems to be the only place in Australia with a harbour; I speak of course without having seen Fremantle, which they say is only ½ hrhour from Perth. So I may have to apologise later. But gosh! all these colonial towns, as towns, are the same, after all; & apart from one or two pictures, none of them are worth more than a damn. The Adelaide pla picture gallery has a glorious big tapestry about 10ftfeet by 6 of the coming of the Magi by Burne-Jones & Morris & one or two other things, but is nothing like the the Melbourne place. They have good gardens there though.

I went out to see old Hale & found him in bed doing his best to look pale & interesting in between two bouts of judging competitions or something. He said he had a frightful cold but I couldn't detect much evidence of it; but I never could in any of his colds. He told me all about his church & the its Club & so on. Apparently the things he has most difficulty in contending with is the excessive wealth of his parishioners. I wonder old Heathecote couldn't stand the place. Mrs. Hale is much the same, in a terrible hurry; I didn't see any of the kids bar Una, who called for water in an imperious tone in the middle of her sausages & was immediately supplied by agitated maternity. Channing seems to be the star member of the family; I gathered that he was more than a lad & a half, a real boy, in fact, to quote his ma.

Since leaving Adelaide we have been crossing the Bight & had it pretty rough up till this morning when there was nothing but a pretty solid swell. "Rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the something was or is swinging free," as the poet said; but even in the thickest of the storm I never batted an eyelid. Our table full turned up with almost monotonous persistency to every meal, walked the decks, even attempted quoits as usual; so you can see that I am getting to be a pretty hardened sailor. I think the Tasman must have broken me in pretty well; for we got it as bad yesterday. We do a good deal of arguing; so much so that the place has rather the atmosphere of a miniature V.U.C.Victoria University College The Sydney lads are right willing controversialists. One of them McGrath is very interesting in other ways; I don't know if I told you before that he had an architectural scholarship; we got yapping about books and things, and he turned out to be a very remarkable artist as well, & writes good prose & less good verse. I knew his stuff before from seeing it in the Sydney Univ.University Magazine; but he showed a book of wonderful woodcuts he had done; some of them the best illustrations of W de la Mare's poetry that I have ever seen. He has been corresp- ondingcorresponding with de la M. a bit & is going to see him when he gets Home. He also has a mssmanuscripts book written by himself of his own prose & verse & pictures & some illustrations by his sister, who sculpssculpts, bound by another Australian, one Walter Taylor, most beautifully. His handwriting is beautiful & he writes his letters with a margin on each side just like a small book. Truly a remarkable young feller — I showed him some of my stuff, which he likes, & we talk a good deal about this & that. I should say that if keeps on doing better work he will be a good deal heard of as a woodcut artist some / day if not as an architect. He has very sound ideas anyhow.

Well, we appear to be getting close to something like wharves now — I write after lunch. There isn't much else to say; it seems to be pretty hard to read on board, although you would think it easy to do nothing else. But I have started The Golden Bough & read 37 pages out of 718, so things aren't going badly. I hope you are con- tinuingcontinuing to improve; & go don't go & do any barmy thing to drop you back again or you will be getting a good solid piece of my mind.

I suppose the next letter I post will be from Colombo in about 10 days — I hope this will ge catch the next mail from Sydney.