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[Page 84]
Sept 16th Left Durban 5 p.m. today bound for Melbourne. It is rather a nice place Durban & one could easily spend a couple of weeks pleasantly there. I went to the Empire Theatre, "Vaudeville" & to the Royal "The Marriage Market" produced by a J.C. Williamson Company with W. Tallicur Andrews & Margaret Kemp in the leading roles. Enjoyed this latter very much. Also had dinner at the Royal Hotel & twice at the Edward Hotel which is a very fine place facing the beach & where a lot of visitors from inland (Johannesburg etc) stay during their visits to Durban for the spring weather by the seaside in June & July & sometimes August. They have a fine beach here too with good breakers coming in & there's a lot of mixed bathing there in the summer. The Ricksha boys with horns & feathers etc as a headgear look comical. They are mostly Zulu's & Kaffirs. There is an English population of about 40,000, Electric Tramway service, good clean streets & mostly native & half caste policemen, & some very fine buildings. Went & saw a huge whale being sliced up to obtain the oil & the numerous other products of it, at a big factory on the beach. One can hardly realise the size of them until you see them ashore. We saw a lot in the Atlantic too, on the way here.
Sept 17th Having very heavy weather at present, but not as bad as last night. We shipped some big seas & lot of fittings were stove in & carried away