1909 S. S. SEYDLITZ. 152pp. Tasmania Manuscript Travel Diary of Miss Daisy Blanche Miller

An absolutely charming travelogue of 26 year old Daisy Blanche Miller [1883-1976] on board the S.S. Seydlitz, recounting in great detail her return journey from Boxmoor, England back to her home in Tasmania, Australia. It appears that she was born there, but raised in England, and returning to visit as an adult. The diary covers all the way up to her arrival and she describes it as a person who had never been before. 

A completely full 152 pages of very legible handwriting covering the entirety of the voyage. It does then break and also pick up a later diary in 1914, a substantial amount of it, perhaps the majority, covers the ocean voyage. Well worth preservation and research. 

Items we note, just from a brief flip through, include guinea pigs, the river Tamar, sea sickness, arrival in Melbourne, visiting the Australia museum, cables breaking on board ship while docking, Kangaroo Island [Kangaru], Perth, "the Scotch and others getting drunk and very disagreeable," getting a "neptune bath," riding in a rickshaw, "we had two black servants to wait on us all the time," Colombo [Sri Lanka], "electric fairy lamps," flying fish, Island of Socotra [Yemen], black men selling oranges and ostrich feathers, traveling through the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, Benares, cockfighting [on board the ship], etc. etc. 

I think the most charming part of the diary is a section where "the fellas" composed a song on board the ship about their travels. 

"While on this trip to Australia
Altho you aren't a good sailor
You jolly soon feel 
With meat at each meal 
Life's not much of a failure

Although little German we're speaking
Yet if our ship Seydlitz starts leaking 
There'l be such a din
When the water comes in
We shan't get much done for the shouting. 

We've Scotchmen on board just a few
And this one thing I'd like to bet you
Although Scottes behind
When they're pulling a pint
There won't be a bawber in view. 

You all know that young chap from Leeds
Who with jawing supplies all our needs
I thought talking all night
Was a cross wife's delight
But he'll even jaw as he feeds. 

There once was a fellow named Portious
How a chairman is jovial taught he us
If he is a trifle too fat
Well, he cannot help that
And to mention it isn't quite courteous.

It's bad when you sat up on deck
If a wave comes which nothing can check
The ship gives a lurch
Tipples you off your perch
That you find you are wet to the neck.

If in Naples your pestered by guides
Who smilingly keep by your side
Though you rage and your fume
For want of their room
They'l stick there whatever betides

Oh Naples has beauties a lot
We saw just a few on the spot
Their cheeks and their dimples
And beastly big pimples
Talk of beauty, its sheer Tommy rot." 

Complete, but nearly disbound with almost all pages loose form original notebook. Very legible. A few years later, prior to 1914 we believe, she married a member of the Huxley family and we see mention of a Mr. Huxley repeatedly in the other portions. 

The S. S. Seydlitz had been a passenger ship that, importantly, was retrofitted by the Germans during World War I and along with the SMS Nurnberg, SMS Leipzig, and SMS Dresden and others raided the British supply base at the Falkland Islands, etc., The only two ships to escape were the Dresden and the Seydlitz.