Passage to India, 1862
Rosamond Harcourt-Smith follows an eastern route to India during the early years of viceregal rule.
‘If you are ever shipwrecked, my dearest Laura,’ I wrote a traveller in 1861, ‘contrive to get the Acatastrophy conducted by the Peninsular and Oriental Company. I believe other companies drown you sometimes... drowning is a very prosaic arrangement.
I have just been shipwrecked under the auspices of the P&O Company and I assure you it is the pleasantest thing imaginable. It has its hardships to be sure, but so has a picnic and the wreck was one of the most agreeable picnics you can imagine.’
At that time, the P&O had a rather heavy record of vessels running aground, mainly on sand-shoals at the entrance to Sydney Harbour.
Nevertheless, the impeccable behaviour of the ship’s servants and crew - a detail upon which the Company prided itself - seems to have made the passengers as comfortable as might be; at all events, they seldom drowned.
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