(_The spirit of the cruise_)
The _King of Cork_ was a funny ship
As ever ploughed the maine:
She kep' no log, she went whar she liked;
So her Cap'n warn't to blaime.
The Management was funnier still.
We always thought it dandy--
Till it wrecked us on the Golden Horn,
When we meant to land at Kandy.
The Cap'n ran the boat ashore
In aerated waters;
The Purser died by swallowin' gas,
Thus windin' up these matters.
_L'Envoi_
Fate's relentless finger,
Points to the Purser's doom:
He gulped the seltzer quickly--
Then bust with an air-tight boom!
Taking my cue from this short, spasmodic dream I had one evening in a
steamer chair, of what I imagined was to happen on our coming voyage, I
started to scribble; and following the fantastic idea in the vision, I
shall adopt the abbreviated name of _The Cork_, for our good
ship--although some of the passengers preferred to call her _The
Corker_, as she was big and fine, and justly celebrated among those who
go down to the sea in fear and trembling. The fame of this ship and
her captain spread so far and wide that a worthy band of male and
female pilgrims besought him to take them to foreign parts, for a
consideration.
There was great ado at starting, and when we finally steamed out of New
York harbor past the "Goddess of Liberty" one fine morning, the air was
rent with the screeching of steam sirens and the tooting of whistles.
The "Goddess" stood calm and silent on her pedestal; she looked
virtuous (which was natural to her, being made of metal), but her stoic
indifference was somewhat upset by an icy stalactite that hung from her
classic nose. One of the passengers remarked that Bartholdi ought to
have supplied her with a handkerchief, but this suggestion was
considered flippant by his Philistine audience, and it made no
impression whatever.
The list of passengers stood at seven hundred, and an extensive
programme of entertainments was promoted for their amusement,
consisting of balls, lectures, glees, games of bridge whist and
progressive euchre, concerts, readings, and a bewildering schedule of
functions, too numerous to mention; in fact, it was a case of three
rings under one tent and a dozen side shows.
The passenger list comprised many examples of eccentric characters,
rarely found outside of the pages of Dickens; the majority, however,
were very interesting and refined people, and the exceptional types
only served to accentuate the desirability and variety of their
companionship on a voyage of this character. Here is a description of
some of them, exaggerated perhaps in places, but not far from the facts
when the peculiar conditions surrounding them are fully considered.
Many of them were doing their best to attract attention in a harmless
way, and in most cases they succeeded, as there is really nothing so
immaterial that it escapes all notice from our fellows.
For instance, there was a human skyscraper, a giant, who had an immense
pyramid of tousled hair--a Matterhorn of curls and pomatum--who gloried
in its possession and scorned to wear hat, bonnet or cap. When it
rained he went out to enjoy a good wetting, and came back a dripping
bear. The sight made those of us who had but little hair atop our
pates green with envy, as all we could now hope for was not hair but
that the shellac finish on our polls might be dull and not shiny. This
man also sat or stood in the sun by the hour to acquire that brick-red
tan that is "quite English, you know;" and he got it, but it did not
altogether match with the other coloring which nature had bestowed upon
him. Then we had a "fidgetarian," who was one of the unlaundered
ironies of life; he could not keep still for a moment. This specimen
was from Throgg's Neck, and danced the carmagnole in concentric circles
all by himself, twisting in and out between the waltzers evidently with
the feeling that he was the "whole show," and that the other dancers
were merely accessories to the draught he made, and followed in his
wake. He was a half portion in the gold-filled class, and a charter
member of the Forty-second Street Country Club.
We were also honored by the presence of Mrs. Handy Jay Andy, of
Alexandry, who had "stunted considerable" in Europe, and was anxious to
repeat the performance in the Levant. She didn't carry a pug dog, but
she thought a "lady" ought to tote round with her something in
captivity, so she compromised on a canary, which she bought in Smyrna,
where all the good figs come from. She was a colored supplement to
high-toned marine society.
No collection of this kind would be complete without a military
officer, and we had him all right; we called him "the General," a man
who jested at scars and who had a beard out of which a Pullman pillow
might be easily constructed. On gala nights he decorated himself with
medals, and on the whole was a very ornamental piece of human
_bric-à-brac_. Of course we had the man with the green--but not too
French green--hat. He had a curly duck's tail, dyed green, sticking up
in its rear, so that the view from the back would resemble Emperor
William. He attracted attention, but somehow seemed like an empty
green bottle thrown in the surf.
Some of the ladies had their little peculiarities also. There was Mrs.
Galley-West from North Fifth Avenue, New York, a "widow-lady," whose
name went up on the social electric-light sign when she began to ride
home in a limousine. She stated that everybody who was anybody in that
great city knew who _she_ was and all about her. Nobody disputed her
statements. As time elapsed she became very confidential, and one day
stated that she was matrimonially inclined and intimated that she would
welcome an introduction to an aged millionaire in delicate health, as
it might result in her being able to carry out some ambitious plans she
had made in "philomathy." By the time we reached Cairo she had lowered
her figures to a very modest amount--but she is still a widow.
The human mushroom was also in evidence--the girl narrow and straight
up-and-down, like a tube ending in a fishtail, with a Paquin wrap and a
Virot hat, reinforced with a steel net wire neck-band--the very latest
fads from Paris. Her gowns were grand, her hats were great, I tell
you! When some one was warbling at the piano, she would put her elbow
on the lid of the "baby grand," face the audience, and strike a
stained-glass attitude that would make Raphael's cartoons look like
subway posters.
[Illustration: FUNCHAL THE LONG BRANCH OF MADEIRA; NICE BALMY PLACE FOR
A REST AFTER A PANIC. STEAMER LEAVES LONDON TWICE A WEEK. HOTEL
ACCOMMODATIONS BY CABLE]
Among those present who came all the way from Medicine Hat was the
cowboy girl, who could ride a mustang, toss a steer with a lariat,
shoot a bear or climb a tree. She wore a sombrero, rolled up her
sleeves, and was just _dying_ to show what she could do if she had only
half a chance. She got it when we came to the donkey rides in Egypt.
She was a "Dreadnaught girl," sure enough.
The claims of the pocket "Venus" from the "Soo," must not be forgotten.
She was small and of the reversible, air-cooled, selective type, but as
perfect as anything ever seen in a glass case. She wore a spray of
soft-shell crab-apple blossoms in her hair, which stamped her with the
bloom of Arcady. She spilled her chatter lavishly, and had the small
change of conversation right at her finger-tips. She had an
early-English look, and was deservedly popular with the boys.
The beet-sugar man from Colorado also had his place. This specialist
put his table to sleep before we lost sight of land. He stifled his
listeners with sugar statistics, informing them how many tons of beets
the State produced and what they were worth in money; how much to
expect from an acre, and the risks and profits of the industry: a
collection of facts that were the mythology of alleged truth. If you
were good the gods would make you a sugar-king in the world to come,
and Colorado was to be financially sugar-cured in the sweet by-and-by.
His whole song was a powerful anaesthetic, and many at the table did
not know the meal was over till the steward woke them up.
One among our crowd who really mattered was a tall, gloomy, dyspeptic
man, hard to approach, but once known he never failed to harp on his
favorite string,--the old masters and the Barbizon school of painting.
This man had all the ready veneer of the art connoisseur. He used to
talk by the hour about the great pictures he had seen, and gave each
artist a descriptive niche for what he thought him famous: such as, the
_expression_ of Rubens; the _grace_ of Raphael; the _purity_ of
Domenichino; the _correggiosity_ of Correggio; the _learning_ of
Poussin; the _air_ of Guido; the _taste_ of Coraceis, and the _drawing_
of Michelangelo. This, of course, was all Greek to most of us, but it
raised the tone of the smoking-room and enveloped the entire ship in a
highly artistic atmosphere which no odors from the galley could
overcome. Incidentally I may say, however, he didn't know all about
them, for one day a wag set a trap for him by saying he had had a fine
bit of Botticelli at dinner.
"My dear sir," exclaimed our "authority," "Botticelli isn't a cheese;
he was a famous fiddler!"
"I have always had an impression he was an old master," said another
passenger, who was an amused listener.
It is impossible for any large body of travelers to escape the man who
by every device tries to impress his fellows with the idea that he is a
Mungo Park on his travels, and so our harmless impostor had his
"trunkage" plastered with labels from all parts of the world, sold to
him by hotel porters, who deal in them. He wore the fez, of course,
and sported a Montenegrin order on his lapel; he had Turkish slippers;
he carried a Malacca cane; he wrapped himself in a Mohave blanket and
he wore a Caracas carved gold ring on his four-in-hand scarf. But his
crowning effort was in wearing the great traveling badge, the English
fore-and-aft checked cap, with its ear flaps tied up over the crown,
leaving the front and rear scoops exposed. Not all of the passengers
carried this array of proofs, but many dabbled in them just a little
bit. It doesn't do, however, when assuming this role to have had your
hair cut in Rome, New York, or to have bought your "pants" in Paris,
Texas, for if you are guilty in those matters you will give the
impression of being a mammoth comique on his annual holiday.
The dear lady who delights in "piffle," and to whom "pifflage" is the
very breath of life, had also her niche in our affairs. She hailed
from Egg Harbor and was an antique guinea hen of uncertain age. When
you are thinking of the "white porch of your home," she will tell you
she "didn't sleep a wink last night!" that "the eggs on this steamer
are not what they ought to be," that the cook doesn't know how to boil
them, and that as her husband is troubled with insomnia her son is
quite likely to run down from the harbor to meet her at the landing two
months hence. Then she will turn to the query by asking if you think
the captain is a fit man to run this steamer; if the purser would be
likely to change a sovereign for her; what tip she should give her
steward; whether you think Mrs. Galley-West's pearls are real, and
whether the Customs are as strict with passengers as they used to be;
whether any real cure for seasickness has yet been found, and why are
they always painting the ship? Not being able to think of anything
else she leaves her victim, to his infinite relief. Oh you! iridescent
humming-bird!
The men who yacht and those who motor are of course anxious to attract
attention. The freshwater yachtsman (usually river or pond), plants
his insignia of office on his cap. It is generally a combination of a
spread-eagle and a "hydriad," surrounded by the stars and stripes.
These things lift him above the level of those who would naturally be
his peers, and effect his purpose. The motorer sports his car duster
on all possible occasions, and thinks his goggles are necessary to
protect his eyes from the glare of the sun on the deck of the steamer.
He has large studs of motors, and always proposes to keep in front of
the main squeeze. The chatter relating to cars and yachts when these
men were in evidence was insistent and incessant. You were never
allowed to forget for a moment that they owned cars, power boats and
runabouts, and that their tours averaged thousands of miles. The man
from the stogie sections does not, of course, fear to fire his fusee in
this company and he always does it--it keeps up the steam.
A row of three extinct volcanoes was frequently to be seen seated side
by side in the smoking-room, where they recounted the scenes of their
youth with evident gusto. One would recall the days of '49, spring of
'50, and tell his companions all about the excitement of mining in
those early times,--"Glorious climate, California!" was the way he
usually wound up his reminiscences. Another would draw his picture of
the firing on Fort Sumter, and would assert that the battle of Antietam
in which he took part was the hottest of the war. The favorite topic
of the third raconteur was the flush times on Oil Creek in the early
'60's, when he had drilled a dry hole near "Colonel Drake's" pioneer
venture. And so it would go till it was time to "douse the glim." One
thing they all agreed on--that the whiskey was good but the drinks were
small on the _Cork_.
[Illustration: THE PARTHENON, ATHENS, GREECE--THE MOST IMPRESSIVE RUIN
IN EXISTENCE]
There was a young southern Colonel on board who was a charming
companion and a good-natured, all-round fellow, always willing to do
anything for anybody, young or old. The ladies soon found out his
weakness, and they "pulled his leg" "right hard," as he would have put
it. When ashore he bought them strawberries, ice-cream, wine,
confectionery, lemonade, and anything else he could think of. He was a
veritable packhorse, and many times when he was already loaded with
impedimenta they would, as a matter of course, toss him wraps,
umbrellas and fans, followed by photo's, _bric-à-brac_ and other
purchases, till the man was fairly loaded to the gunwales. This they
would do with an airy grace all their own, remarking perhaps:
"Here, Colonel, I see you haven't much to carry; take this on board for
me like a good boy, won't you?"
He stood the strain like a Spartan to the bitter end, and when the trip
was over he, like Lord Ullen, was left lamenting in the shuffle of the
forgotten, and didn't even get a kiss in the final good-byes, when they
fell as thick as the leaves in Vallombrosa.
The most picturesque and amusing man on board was a Mexican rubber
planter from Guadalajara, known on the ship's list as Señor Cyrano de
Bergerac. He hadn't a Roman nose--but that's a mere detail; he had a
Numidian mane of blue-black hair which swung over his collar so that he
looked like the leader of a Wild West show. He was a contradiction in
terms: his voice proclaimed him a man of war, while all the fighting he
ever did, so far as we knew, was with the flies on the Nile. To look
at him was to stand in the presence of a composite picture of
Agamemnon, Charles XII. and John L. Sullivan; but to hear him
_shout_--ah! that voice was the megaphone of Boanerges! It held tones
that put a revolving spur on every syllable and gave a dentist-drill
feeling as they ploughed their way through space. It was alleged that
when he struck his plantation and shouted at the depot as he leaped
from the train that he had arrived, all the ranch hands fell down and
crossed themselves, thinking it was the sound of the last trump and
their time had come. We have no actual proof of it, but undoubtedly
these announcements were heard on Mars, and might better be utilized as
signals to that planet than anything that has yet been suggested. He
had a fatal faculty of stringing together big words from Webster's
"Unabridged," and connecting them with conjunctions quite irrespective
of the sense, so that the product was like waves of hot air from a
vast, reverberating furnace. It was the practice of this orator to
jump from his seat at all gatherings without warning, and make
detonating announcements on all kinds of subjects to the utterly
helpless passengers, the captain, the officers and the stewards. These
hardy sons of the sea, who had often faced imminent danger, would
visibly flinch, set their faces and cover their ears till the ordeal
was over. But they were never safe, as he made two or three
announcements daily, and they had to listen to his thunder in all parts
of the ship till it returned to New York. His incessant shouting was a
flock of dinosauria in the amber of repose; it upset our nerves, but as
it added to our opportunities for killing time, many forgave him and
thought him well worth the price of admission. In many respects his
disposition was kindly and generous; but oh, my! how he could and did
talk!
There were two men with us who represented a type known to the _Cork's_
other passengers as "the Impressionists." When they came on board
orders were given in a loud voice as to the disposal of their luggage,
the chauffeurs were asked whether everything had been taken from the
cars, and the travelers then made their way to the chief steward.
After receiving a tip, that personage became satisfied that they were
deep enough in dry goods to entitle them to seats at an officer's
table, which were given them. Their opportunity came next day when
they had donned their "glad rags," and stood in the centre of the
smoking-room. A few minutes before the dinner gong sounded they drank
a Martini, and looked over the heads of the crowd with an air of
conscious superiority. Dinner started, they surrounded themselves with
table waters and Rhine wines, ostentatiously popping corks and making a
great show of "bottlage" for very little money. When they left their
seats they were _the_ men of the ship--in their own estimation; but
they had shot their bolt and could go no further, so they settled down
in a condition of social decay that became very distressing. This
recalls an incident of Thackeray's: he once saw an unimportant looking
man strutting along the deck of a steamer. Stepping up to him he said:
"Excuse me, sir, but are you any person in particular?"
Now we reach the post-card mania. This is the most pernicious disease
that has ever seized humanity since the days of the Garden of Eden, and
in no better place can it be seen at its worst than on a steamer
calling at foreign ports: once it gets a foothold it supplants almost
all other vices and becomes a veritable Frankenstein. It is harder to
break away from this habit than from poker, gossiping, strong drink,
tobacco, or even eating peas with your knife if you have been brought
up that way. The majority of the "Corks" when landing at a port would
not have stopped to say "Good morning" to Adam, to take a peep at Bwana
Tumbo's hides and horns, or to pick up the Declaration of Independence
if it lay at their feet--in their eager rush to load up with the cards
necessary to let all their friends know that they had arrived at any
given place on the map. This is but the first act in the drama, for
stamps must be found, writing places must be secured, pencils, pens and
ink must be had, together with a mailing list as long as to-day and
to-morrow. The smoking-room is invaded, the lounge occupied, and every
table, desk and chair in the writing-room is preempted, to the
exclusion of all who are not addressing post-cards. Although we toiled
like electrified beavers we got behind on the schedule, so that those
who did not finish at Malta had to work hard to get their cards off at
Constantinople, and so on through the trip. The chariot of Aurora
would hardly hold their output at a single port. At the start it was a
mild, pleasurable fad, but later it absorbed the victim's mind to such
an extent that he thought of nothing but the licking of stamps and
mailing of cards to friends--who get so many of them that they are for
the most part considered a nuisance and after a hasty glance are
quietly dropped in the waste-basket. Many had such an extensive
collection of mailing lists that it became necessary to segregate them
into divisions; in some cases these last were labeled for
classification, "Atlantic Coast Line," "Middle West," "Canadian
Provinces," "New England," "Europe," etc. Again they were subdivided
into trades and professions, such as lawyers, ministers, politicians,
stock brokers, real estate agents, bankers (in jail and out of it),
dermatologists and "hoss-doctors." This habit obtained such a hold on
people who were otherwise respectable that they would enter into any
"fake," to gratify their obsession. Some of the "Corks" did not tour
Spain but remained on the ship; many of these would get up packages of
cards, dating them as if at Cadiz, Seville or Granada, and request
those who were landing to mail them at the proper places, so as to
impose on their friends at home. I felt no hesitancy, after silently
receiving my share of this fraud, in quietly dropping them overboard as
a just punishment for this impertinence. Incidents like this will
account in part for the non-delivery of post-cards and the
disappointment of those who did not receive them.
Our Purser had what is known in tonsorial circles as a "walrus" or
drooping moustache; he was plied with so many foolish questions in
regard to this mailing business that he became very nervous and tugged
vigorously at this ornament whenever something new was sprung on him.
It is said that water will wear a hole in stone, and so it came to pass
that he pulled his moustache out, hair by hair, till there were left
only nine on a side. The style of his adornment was then necessarily
changed to the "baseball," by which it was known to the "fans" on board.
The handling of this enormous output has already become an
international postal problem of grave importance in many countries; the
mails have been congested and demoralized, and thousands of important
letters have been delayed because Mrs. Galley-West would have her
friends on Riverside Drive thoroughly realize that she has got as far
as Queenstown on her triumphal tour, and that she and all the little
Galley-Wests are "feeling quite well, I thank you."
The ultimate fate of the post-card mania is as yet undecided. It may,
like the measles or the South Sea Bubble, run its course and that will
end it; on the other hand, it may grow to such proportions that it will
shut out all human endeavor and bring commercial pursuits to a complete
standstill. In any case its foundations are laid in vanity and
egotism, and that will eventually prove its undoing.