Stories from our pages over the last 150 years.
Quite overwhelmed by the spectacle of thousands of Victorians scattered about the docks, shouting enthusiastic welcome to his ship, Captain Samuel Robinson, R.N.R., master of the Empress of Australia and hero of the Japanese disaster, brought the big liner into port late Sunday, back again in home waters after a voyage, what with typhoons at Hong Kong and earthquakes at Yokohama, of horror unparalleled in the annals of the sea.
With his mind still full of pictures of the land rolling like an angry sea, of columns of flames whirling about like waterspouts and ships driven helter skelter about a crowded harbor, Captain Robinson found it difficult to adjust his understanding to the more ordinary happenings of life, and met with frank surprise the reception accorded him by the admiring people of this city.
"Why," he exclaimed in the comparative seclusion of his cabin, the while eager friends burst in to shake him by the hand, "half of Victoria must be down here to see us. And look at this (with a gesture to his table) they have been sending me cigars, flowers, papers and everything!
"What I have been really wondering on the way across," he observed, facetiously, "is whether I shall not get a panning for being late. You know we should have been here two weeks ago."
