The Wanderings of a Spiritualist

My voyage to New Zealand in the _Maheno_ was pleasant and uneventful, / giving me four days in which to arrange my papers and look over the many / manuscripts which mediums, or, more often, would-be mediums, had / discharged at me as I passed. Dr. Bean, my Theosophic friend, who had / been somewhat perturbed by my view that his people were really the / officers of our movement who had deserted their army, formed an / officers' corps, and so taken the money and brains and leadership away / from the struggling masses, was waiting on the Sydney Quay, and gave me / twelve books upon his subject to mend my wicked ways, so that I was / equipped for a voyage round the world. I needed something, since I had / left my wife and family behind me in Manly, feeling that the rapid / journey through New Zealand would be too severe for them. In Mr. Carlyle / Smythe, however, I had an admirable "cobber," to use the pal phrase of / the Australian soldier.

Mr. Smythe had only one defect as a comrade, and that was his / conversation in a fog. It was of a distinctly depressing character, as I / had occasion to learn when we ran into very thick weather among the / rocky islands which make navigation so difficult to the north of / Auckland. Between the screams of the siren I would hear a still small / voice in the bunk above me.