Odds and Ends by B.M. Croker

A great white Orient liner lay in the harbour of Colombo, with her Blue Peter flying. The coaling process was accomplished, and her passengers -- who had lunched and scattered over the town and its environs -- were being thus summoned to abandon Ceylon's spicy breezes for the breezes of the sea.

As the _Oriana_ was homeward bound from Melbourne, naturally most of her freight were Australians -- squatters and their families taking a trip to the old country, wealthy men from the big towns, tourists who had been visiting the Colonies, parsons, actors, doctors, engineers, with their corresponding women-folk.