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[Illustration: MONT ST. MICHAEL.]
NASBY IN EXILE:
OR,
SIX MONTHS OF TRAVEL
IN
England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany,
Switzerland and Belgium,
WITH MANY THINGS NOT OF TRAVEL.
BY
DAVID R. LOCKE,
(Petroleum V. Nasby.)
PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED.
TOLEDO AND BOSTON:
LOCKE PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1882.
COPYRIGHT,
1882,
BY DAVID R. LOCKE.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
BLADE PRINTING AND PAPER CO.,
_Printers and Binders_,
TOLEDO, O.
PREFACE.
On the afternoon of May 14, 1881, the good ship "City of Richmond,"
steamed out of New York harbor with a varied assortment of passengers on
board, all intent upon seeing Europe. Among these was the writer of the
pages that follow.
Six of the passengers having contracted a sort of liking for each other,
made a tour of six months together, that is, together most of the time.
This book is the record of their experiences, as they appeared
originally in the columns of the TOLEDO BLADE.
It is not issued in compliance with any demand for it. I have no
recollection that any one of the one hundred thousand regular
subscribers to the TOLEDO BLADE ever asked that the letters that
appeared from week to week in its columns should be gathered into book
form. The volume is a purely mercantile speculation, which may or may
not be successful. The publishers held that the matter was of sufficient
value to go between covers, and believing that they were good judges of
such things, I edited the letters, and here they are.
The ground we went over has been gone over by other writers a thousand
times. We went where other tourists have gone, and what we saw others
have seen. The only difference between this book and the thousands of
others that have been printed describing the same scenes, is purely the
difference in the eyes of the writers who saw them. I saw the countries
I visited with a pair of American eyes, and judged of men and things
from a purely American stand-point.
I have not attempted to describe scenery, and buildings, and things of
that nature, at all. That has been done by men and women more capable of
such work than I am. Every library in America is full of books of that
nature. But I was interested in the men and women of the countries I
passed through, I was interested in their ways of living, their
industries and their customs and habits, and I tried faithfully to put
upon paper what I saw, as well as the observations and comments of the
party that traveled and observed with me.
I have a hope that the readers of these pages will lay the book down in
quite as good condition, mentally and physically, as when they took it
up, and that some information as to European life will result from its
perusal. As I make no promises at the beginning I shall have no
apologies to make at the ending.
It is only justice to say that much of the descriptive matter is the
work of Mr. ROBINSON LOCKE, who was with me every minute of the time,
and the intelligent reader will be perfectly safe in ascribing the best
of its pages to his pen.
I can only hope that this work, as a book, will meet with the same
measure of favor that the material did as newspaper sketches.
D. R. L.
_Toledo, Ohio, June 29, 1882._
ILLUSTRATIONS.
No. PAGE
1. FRONTISPIECE.
2. The Departure 18
3. "Shuffle Board" 22
4. The Betting Young Man from Chicago 24
5. "Dear, Sea-sickness is only a Feminine Weakness," 27
6. Lemuel Tibbitts, from Oshkosh, Writes a Letter 29
7. Every Sin I Had Committed Came Before Me 33
8. Off for London 35
9. Public Buildings, London 36
10. The Indian Policy 39
11. The Emetic Policy 39
12. A London Street Scene 45
13. A London Steak 50
14. "And is the Them Shanghais?" 53
15. Sol. Carpenter and the Race 60
16. Leaving for the Derby 62
17. By the Roadside 64
18. English Negro Minstrelsy 66
19. The Roadside Repast 67
20. The Betting Ring 73
21. "D----n the Swindling Scoundrel" 74
22. Egyptian Room, British Museum 76
23. A Bold Briton Trying the American Custom 79
24. A London Gin Drinking Woman 80
25. The Poor Man is Sick 81
26. "That Nigger is Mine" 82
27. St. Thomas Hospital 92
28. Interior of a Variety Hall 95
29. The Magic Purse 98
30. The Man who was Music Proof 100
31. Madame Tussaud 102
32. Wax Figures of Americans 103
33. "Digging Corpses is all Wrong" 105
34. Improved Process of Burke and Hare 106
35. Isle of Wight 107
36. The London Lawyer 110
37. The Old English Way of Procuring a Loan 118
38. "Beware of Fraudulent Imitations" 120
39. The Old Temple Bar 122
40. The Sidewalk Shoe Store 125
41. "Sheap Clodink" 127
42. "Dake Dot Ring" 133
43. A Lane in Camberwell 135
44. The Tower of London 136
45. The Jewel Tower 140
46. Sir Magnus' Men 142
47. Horse Armory 144
48. St. John's Chapel 145
49. St. Thomas' Tower 146
50. General View of the Tower 147
51. The Bloody Tower 148
52. Drowning of Clarence in a Butt of Wine 149
53. The Byward Tower from the East 150
54. The Beauchamp Tower 151
55. The Overworked Headsman 152
56. The Persuasive Rack 153
57. The Byward Tower from the West 154
58. The Middle Tower 155
59. The Beef Eater 156
60. The Flint Tower 157
61. The Traitor's Gate 158
62. What Shall We Do with Sir Thomas? 159
63. The Easiest Way 160
64. The Suits Come Home 163
65. The Candle Episode 168
66. The Little Bill 169
67. Getting Ready to Leave a Hotel 169
68. The Last Straw 170
69. The Cabman Tipped 170
70. The Universal Demand 171
71. The Lord Mayor's Show 173
72. A Second Hand Debauch 175
73. The Anniversary Ceremonies 178
74. In the Harbor 179
75. Isle of Wight 182
76. The Unfinished Entries in the Diary 184
77. Westminster Abbey 186
78. Exterior of the Abbey 187
79. Entrance to the Abbey 188
80. The Poet's Corner 191
81. Henry VII.'s Chapel 193
82. Chapel of Edward 197
83. Effigy Room 200
84. The Abbey in Queen Anne's Time 201
85. "If She Ever Miscalculates She's Gone," 204
86. The Death of the Trainer 206
87. The Gorgeous Funeral Procession 207
88. Monument to the Trainer 208
89. The Side Show Zulu 210
90. The Lost Finger 212
91. On the Thames 218
92. Sandwiches at New Haven 222
93. Off Dieppe--Four A. M. 224
94. "Have You Tobacco or Spirits?" 225
95. Fisher Folk--Dieppe 227
96. Fisher Women--Dieppe 228
97. Fisher Boy and Child 229
98. The Boys of Rouen 232
99. Rouen 233
100. The Professor Stood Before it 234
101. Cathedral of Notre Dame 235
102. House of Joan d'Arc 235
103. Harbor of Rouen 236
104. St. Ouen--Rouen 238
105. The Showman in Paris 240
106. Bloss' Great Moral Spectacle 241
107. Tower of St. Pierre 242
108. Old Houses--Rouen 242
109. The Professor's Spectacles 245
110. Old Paris 246
111. Liberty, Fraternity, Equality 247
112. New Paris 248
113. The Louvre 250
114. A Boulevard Cafe 252
115. A Costume by Worth 253
116. A Magazine on the Boulevard 254
117. Mr. Thompson's Art Purchases 256
118. The American Party Outside a Cafe 259
119. The Avenue de L'Opera 261
120. Cafe Concerts 262
121. The Faro Bankeress 266
122. French Soldiers 267
123. Parisian Bread Carriers 269
124. Queer--to Frenchmen 271
125. The Porte St. Martin 272
126. A Very Polite Frenchman 275
127. "Merci, Monsieur!" 277
128. Paris Underground 279
129. Interior of the Paris Bourse 280
130. The Arc du Carrousel 282
131. "How Long Must I Endure This?" 285
132. Tail Piece 286
133. The Mother of the Gamin as She Was 288
134. The Mother of the Gamin in the Sere and Yellow Leaf 289
135. The Aged Stump Gatherer 290
136. A Talk with a Gamin 294
137. The Mabille at Night 305
138. A Mabille Divinity 306
139. Professionals in a Quadrille 309
140. A Male Dancer 310
141. The Grisette 311
142. Meeting of Tibbitts and the Professor 314
143. The Cafe Swell 316
144. Tail Piece 318
145. Beauvais Cathedral 319
146. Struggle for the Kingship 322
147. Of the Commune 326
148. Tibbitts and Faro Bankeress 330
149. Tail Piece 331
150. Palais Royal 333
151. Vision of the Commune 335
152. Mother and Bonne 337
153. The Youthful Bonne 338
154. The Aged Bonne 338
155. "Who Put that Ribbon in your Cap?" 345
156. Corrective Used by Mr. Tibbitts 348
157. The Coco Seller 349
158. In Any of the Parks 358
159. The No-Legged Beggar Woman 360
160. How the French Sport Kills Game 362
161. Fishing in the Seine 363
162. Inside a Paris Omnibus 364
163. The Showman Shown the Door 365
164. The Tell Catastrophe 368
165. Zoological Room 369
166. Cork Harbor 370
167. Queenstown 371
168. Irish Woman and Daughter 375
169. A County Cork Cabin 377
170. Interior of Better Class Cabin 378
171. Royal Irish Constabulary 379
172. Interior of Cabin 380
173. A Quiver Full 381
174. Street in an Irish Village 384
175. Blarney Castle 385
176. Free Speech in Ireland 387
177. In a Bog Village 389
178. "Drop the Child!" 391
179. Nature's Looking Glass 393
180. Irishman of the Stage and Novel 394
181. The Evicted Irishman 395
182. To Market and Back 396
183. The Real Irish Girl 397
184. A Small but Well-to-do Farmer 398
185. Sketches in Galway 402
186. Affixing Notice of Eviction 406
187. Eviction 407
188. The Eviction we Saw 408
189. Evicted 409
190. Farming in County Mayo 410
191. My Lord's Agent 413
192. Kind of a Girl My Lord Wants 414
193. The Woman who Paid the Poor Rate 416
194. Conemara Women 418
195. At Work in the Bog 420
196. Duke Leinster's Tenants 422
197. Tenant Farmer 424
198. In a Discontented District 426
199. Protecting a Gentleman Farmer 427
200. Filling the Ditch 429
201. Ready for Emigration 431
202. Old but Tolerably Cheerful 433
203. After a Wholesale Eviction 435
204. The "Faymale Painther" 436
205. Old and Not Cheerful 438
206. The Proper End of Royalty 441
207. Meath Lads at Crossakeel 443
208. A Mayo Farmer 445
209. Mayo Peasantry 447
210. Inhabitants of a Bog Village 449
211. Dublin 452
212. They Glared Ferociously 456
213. Bog Village 459
214. Interior French Car 462
215. They were Lively Children 464
216. Geneva 466
217. "Your Hotel is a Swindle, Sir" 474
218. Group of Swiss Girls 480
219. The Sweat of Other Men's Brows 481
220. The Alpine Guide 485
221. A Non-Professional Lady Tourist 487
222. Young Man with Inopportune Remarks 493
223. "Would You Oblige Me?" 495
224. "See Me Unmask this Jew" 497
225. Swiss Timber Village 501
226. The Slender Bridge 503
227. A Bit of Climbing 504
228. Where the Maiden Leaped From 511
229. The Chamois 513
230. Taking the Cattle to the Mountains 513
231. Outside the Chalet 515
232. Inside the Chalet 516
233. An Alpine Homestead 519
234. "I Should Wake Them Cheerily" 520
235. On the Road to Chamonix 525
236. The Presumed Chamois Hunter 530
237. The Fate of Two Englishmen 532
238. A Frequent Accident 533
239. The Mer De Glace 534
240. A Slip Toward the Edge 535
241. Crevasses 536
242. The Moraine 537
243. The Dilemma 538
244. Rocks Polished by Old Glaciers 539
245. The Path to the Village 548
246. Mt. Blanc and Valley of Chamonix 550
247. The Conscientious Barber 555
248. The Jungfrau 557
249. Wood Carving 559
250. Home of the Carver 560
251. Female Costumes 562
252. Our Party at the Giessbach 565
253. Peasants of East Switzerland 567
254. Near Brienz 568
255. Lion of Lucerne 570
256. End of Pontius Pilate 573
257. Lucerne Rigi-Rail 575
258. Ditto from Kanzell 576
259. Old Way of Ascending Rigi 578
260. Night Ascent of Rigi 579
261. Railway up the Rigi 581
262. Rigi Railway 582
263. Railway up the Mountain 583
264. Tell's Chapel 584
265. Tibbitts in Concert Hall 589
266. Entrance Strasburg Cathedral 593
267. Pig Market, Strasburg 596
268. The Great Hall 606
269. Tibbitts Making Plain the Point 608
270. Front of the Kursale 612
271. The Swimming Bath 614
272. The Donkey Enjoyed It 616
273. The Lichtenthal 617
274. Promenade in Baden-Baden 618
275. Charcoal Burners, Black Forest 619
276. Heidelberg Castle 623
277. Heidelberg Tun 626
278. Tibbitts and the Students 629
279. Rhine Steamer 630
280. Mannheim 631
281. Tibbitts in the Cloak Room 633
282. Mayence 639
283. Erchenheim Tower 640
284. Roemer 640
285. Luther's Home 640
284. Street on the Roemerberg 642
285. The Jews' Street 644
286. "Der Hind Leg of a Helty Mule" 649
287. Cologne Cathedral 651
288. Death of Bishop Hatto 655
289. Legend of the Cathedral 668
CONTENTS.
.....PAGE
CHAPTER I.
The Departure--How the Passengers Amused
Themselves--Sea-sickness--Tibbitts, of Oshkosh--The Storm.....17-35
CHAPTER II.
London--The Englishman--A Few Statistics--The Climate--A Red-coated
Romance.....18-57
CHAPTER III.
The Derby Races--Departure for the Derby--Sights and Scenes--Shows and
Beggars--Betting.....58-76
CHAPTER IV.
What the Londoners Quench their Thirst with--The Kind of
Liquor--Tobacco--Early Closing.....77-90
CHAPTER V.
How London is Amused--The London Theaters--An English Idea of a Good
Time--Punch and Judy.....91-100
CHAPTER VI.
Madame Tussaud--American Worthies.....101-107
CHAPTER VII.
The London Lawyer--The Solicitor's Bill.....108-112
CHAPTER VIII.
English Capital--London Quacks--The London Advertiser.....113-122
CHAPTER IX.
Petticoat Lane--The Home of Second-Hand--The Clothing
Dealer--Diamonds--The Confiding Israelite.....123-134
CHAPTER X.
The Tower--The Royal Jewels--The Horse Armory--Interesting Relics--The
Beef-Eaters.....137-160
CHAPTER XI.
Two English Nuisances--A Badly Dressed People--An English Hotel--The
English Landlord.....161-172
CHAPTER XII.
Portsmouth--Nelson's Ship--In the Harbor--Tibbitts' Diary.....174-185
CHAPTER XIII.
Westminster Abbey--Seeing the Abbey--Warren
Hastings--Epitaphs--Religious Service--A Little History.....187-202
CHAPTER XIV.
The American Showman--The Trainer's Widow--Foggerty the Zulu.....203-212
CHAPTER XV.
Richmond--The Star and Garter--Down the River.....213-219
CHAPTER XVI.
From London to Paris--The Custom House--Normandy--The Cathedral--On the
Way to Paris.....221-242
CHAPTER XVII.
A Scattering View of Paris--Drinking in Paris--Wine and Whisky--The
National Fête.....243-267
CHAPTER XVIII.
Something About Parisians--French Cleanliness--The Polite French--The
Disgust of Tibbitts.....268-286
CHAPTER XIX.
Parisian Gamin--Interview with a Gamin--A Contented Being.....287-299
CHAPTER XX.
How Paris Amuses Itself--The Grand Opera--The Wicked Mabille--Gardens
other than the Mabille--Tibbitts and the Professor.....300-318
CHAPTER XXI.
The Louvre--Art in the Louvre--The Commune.....320-331
CHAPTER XXII.
The Palais-Royal--A Tale of the Commune--The Wisdom of Therese--The Two
Lovers.....332-345
CHAPTER XXIII.
French Drinking--The Water of Paris--The Mild Swash.....346-351
CHAPTER XXIV.
Parisian Living--The Market Woman--Parisian Washing--Female
Shop-keepers--The Career of Sam.....352-369
CHAPTER XXV.
Ireland--Cork--The Jaunting Car--Another Cabin.....370-383
CHAPTER XXVI.
Bantry--How My Lord Bantry Lives--The Real and the Ideal--Several
Delusions--The Conversion of an Irish Lady.....384-401
CHAPTER XXVII.
An Irish Mass Meeting--An Eviction--Boycotting--One Landlord who was
Killed--How he was killed--Patsey's Dead.....403-518
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Some Little History--The Question of Lease--A Foiled Landlord--Bantry
Village--The Boatman and Nancy.....419-438
CHAPTER XXIX.
England, Ireland, Scotland--Land Troubles in England--The Royal
Family--The Palace and the Workhouse--Women's Work.....439-460
CHAPTER XXX.
Paris to Geneva--A Night on the Rail--Geneva--Affecting Anecdote--Piracy
on Lake Erie--The Irate Guest--Too Much Music.....461-477
CHAPTER XXXI.
Switzerland--The Rhone--A Geneva Bakery--Swiss Roads--Female
Climbers--Ascent of Mont Blanc--A Useful Man at Last.....478-491
CHAPTER XXXII.
Chillon--Tibbitts and the Jew--On the Lake.....492-501
CHAPTER XXXIII.
From Geneva over the Alps--Mountain Climbing--Legend of the
Gorge--Martigny--A Swiss Cottage--Alpine Ascents.....502-517
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Over the Alps--Tibbitts' Idea--Dangers of Ascending Mt.
Blanc.....518-529
CHAPTER XXXV.
Going up the Mountain--The Mer de Glace--The Gorge--Something About
Glaciers.....530-545
CHAPTER XXXVI.
In Switzerland--Tibbitts' Letter--Berne and Bears--Barbers.....546-555
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Lake Thun and Beyond--Interlaken--Wood Carving--Geissbach.....556-568
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Lucerne and the Rigi--Up the Rigi--A Mountain Railway--The Rigi
Kulm--Tell's Chapel.....569-587
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Zurich and Strasburg--Beer and Music--The Cathedral--The Wonderful
Clock.....588-604
CHAPTER XL.
Baden-Baden--A Few Legends--Up the Mountain--To old Schloss.....605-621
CHAPTER XLI.
Heidelberg--The Great Cask--The Students.....622-630
CHAPTER XLII.
Mannheim--Opera--A Treatise on Treating.....631-639
CHAPTER XLIII.
Frankfort-on-the-Maine--Red Tape--Jews' Street--Lovely
Gardens.....640-651
CHAPTER XLIV.
Down the Rhine--Bingen--Mouse Tower--Tibbitts' Romance.....652-663
CHAPTER XLV.
Cologne--The Cathedral--Eleven Thousand Virgins--Home.....664-672
TO
Charles A. B. Shepard,
_The "Poetical Bookseller,"_
_This book is dedicated (without permission)
as a
Tribute to a most Reliable Friend,
a Thorough Business Man, and
One whose steady devotion to everything right and proper,
and whose
hatred for everything mean and disreputable,
was never questioned by any one
who knew him._
NASBY IN EXILE.
CHAPTER I.
THE DEPARTURE, VOYAGE, AND LANDING.
"Cast Off!" There was a bustle, a movement of fifty men, a rush of
people to the gangways; hurried good-bys were said; another rush,
assisted by the fifty men, the enormous gangways were lifted, there was
a throb of steam, a mighty jar of machinery, a tremor along the line of
the vast body of wood and iron, and the good ship "City of Richmond" was
out at sea.
[Illustration: THE DEPARTURE.]
I am not going to inflict upon the reader a description of the harbor of
New York, or anything of the kind. The whole world knows that it is the
finest in the world, and every American would believe it so, whether it
is so or not. Suffice it to say that the ship got out of the harbor
safely, and before nightfall was upon the broad Atlantic, out of the way
of telegraph and mail facilities, and one hundred and fifty-six saloon
passengers--men, women, and children--found themselves beyond the reach
of daily papers, though they had everything else that pertains to
civilization and luxury.
A voyage at sea is not what it was when first I sailed from--but no, I
have never been abroad before, and have not, therefore, the privilege of
lying about travel. That will come in time, and doubtless I shall use it
as others do. But I was going to say that sailing is not what it was, as
I understand it to have been. The ship of to-day is nothing more or less
than a floating hotel, with some few of the conveniences omitted, and a
great many conveniences that hotels on shore have not. You have your
luxurious barber-shop, you have a gorgeous bar, you have hot and cold
water in your room, and a table as good as the best in New York. You
eat, drink, and sleep just as well, if not better, than on shore.
The sailor is no more what he used to be than the ship is. I have seen
any number of sailors, and know all about them. The tight young fellow
in blue jacket and shiny tarpaulin, and equally shiny belt, and white
trousers, the latter enormously wide at the bottom, which trousers he
was always hitching up with a very peculiar movement of the body,
standing first upon one leg and then upon the other; the sailor who
could fight three pirates at once and kill them all, finishing the last
one by disabling his starboard eye with a chew of tobacco thrown with
terrible precision; who, if an English sailor, was always a match for
three Frenchmen, if an American a match for three Englishmen, and no
matter of what nationality, was always ready to d--n the eyes of the man
he did not like, and protect prepossessing females and oppressed
children even at the risk of being hung at the yard-arm by a
court-martial--this kind of a sailor is gone, and I fear forever. I know
I have given a proper description of him, for I have seen hundreds of
them--at the theater.
[Sidenote: WHO WERE ON BOARD.]
In his stead is an unpoetic being, clad in all sorts of unpoetic
clothing, and no two of them alike. There is a faint effort at
uniformity in their caps, which have sometimes the name of their ship on
them, but even that not always. In fair weather he is in appearance very
like a hod carrier, and in foul weather a New York drayman. He doesn't
d--n anybody's eyes, and he doesn't sing out "Belay there," or "Avast,
you lubber," or indulge in any other nautical expressions. He uses just
about the language that people on shore do, and is as dull and
uninteresting a person as one would wish not to meet.
The traditional jack tar, of whom the Dibden of the last century sang,
only remains in "Pinafore" opera, and can only be seen when the nautical
pieces of the thirty years ago are revived. If such sailors ever
existed, off the stage, they are as extinct a race as the icthyosaurus.
Steam has knocked the poetry out of navigation, as it has out of
everything else--that is, that kind of poetry. It will doubtless have a
poetry of its own, when its gets older, but it is too new yet.
There is no holystoning the decks. On the contrary the decks are washed
with hose, and scrubbed afterward by a patent appliance, which has
nothing of the old time about it. The lifting is done by steam, and in
fact every blessed thing about the ship is done by machinery. There is
neither a ship nor a sailor any more. There are floating hotels, and
help. The last remaining show for a ship is the masts and sails they all
have, and they seem to be more for ornament than use.
The company on board was, on the whole, monotonous. Ocean travel is
either monotonous or dangerous. Its principal advantage over land travel
is, the track is not dusty.
We had on our passenger list precisely the usual people, and none
others. There were three Jews of different types: the strong, robust,
eagle-nosed and eagle-eyed German Jew, resident of New York, going
abroad on business; the keen French Jew, returning from a successful
foray on New York jewelers, and the Southern Jew, who, having made a
fortune in cotton, attached no value to anything else.
I like the Jews, and ten days with them did not lessen my liking. They
know something for certain; they do things, and they do well what they
do.
There was a Chicago operator in mining stocks, going abroad to place
the "Great Mastodon" in London. There was the smooth-chinned,
side-whiskered minister, or "priest," as he delighted in calling
himself, of the Church of England, going home, and a fiery Welsh Baptist
who had been laboring in the States for many years.
On Sunday evening the Chicago man and a Texan engaged the English
minister in a discussion on the evidences of Christianity. It was a
furious controversy, and an amusing one. The Welsh Baptist was a more
zealous Christian than the Church of England man, and he did by far the
best part of the argument; but the priest, by look at least, resented
his interference. Being a Baptist, he was entirely irregular, and did
not hold up his end of the argument regularly. The priest regarded the
evangelist as a regular soldier might a guerilla serving the same side.
The discussion embraced every point that religionists affirm and
infidels deny, commencing with the creation and coming down to the
present day, with long excursions into the future.
A terrible disaster was the result. The next morning the priest met the
infidel on deck, and extended his hand humbly:
"My dear sir," said he, "I have been thinking over the matter we
discussed last night. I am convinced that you are right, and that--"
"What!" exclaimed the infidel. "My dear sir, I was looking for you. Your
forcible and convincing statements satisfy me that there is truth in the
Christian religion, and--"
Neither said more. The priest had converted the infidel to Christianity,
and the infidel had converted the priest to infidelity. So far as the
result upon the religion of the world was concerned, it was a stand-off.
The days were devoted to all sorts of occupations. There were young men
spooning young women, and young women who made a business of flirtation,
or what was akin to it. One young lady who could be seen at any time in
the day, in a most bewitching attitude, reclining on a steamer chair,
picturesque in all sorts of wraps, held a brief conversation with her
mother, who had hooked a widower the second day out. The mother was
skillful at looking young, and compelled her child, therefore, to be
juvenile and shy of young men.
[Sidenote: HOW THE PASSENGERS AMUSED THEMSELVES.]
"Helen, you were flirting with that Chicago young man, this morning!"
"Flirting! Mamma! It's too mean! You won't let me flirt. I havn't
enjoyed myself a minute since we sailed. I wish you would let me alone
to do as I please."
The poor child envied her mother, and with good reason, for within ten
minutes she was under the wing, or arm, of the widower, looking not a
minute over thirty-five.
There were old maids who found themselves objects of attention for the
first time for years; there were widows who grew sentimental looking at
the changing waters, especially at night when the moon and stars were
out; there were married men whose wives were many leagues away,
determined to have a good time once more, flirting with all sorts and
conditions of women, and there were all sorts and conditions of women
flirting hungrily with all sorts and conditions of men. There were
speculators driving bargains with each other just the same as on
land--in brief, the ship was a little world by itself, and just about
the same as any other world.
In the smoking room the great and muscular American game of draw poker
was played incessantly, from early in the morning, till late in the
night.
A portion of the passengers, including the English dominie, played a
game called "shuffle-board." Squares were marked upon the deck, which
were numbered from one to seven. Then some distance from the squares a
line was drawn, and what you had to do was to take an implement shaped
like a crutch, and shove discs of wood at the squares. We all played it,
sooner or later, for on ship-board one will get, in time, to playing pin
alone in his room. The beauty about shuffle-board is, one player is as
good as another, if not better, for there isn't the slightest skill to
be displayed in it. Indeed, the best playing is always done at first,
when the player shoots entirely at random. There is a chance that he
will strike a square, then; but when one gets to calculating distances,
and looking knowingly, and attempting some particular square, the
chances are even that the disc goes overboard.
However, it is a good and useful game. The young ladies look well
handling the clumsy cues, and the attitudes they are compelled to take
are graceful. Then as the vessel lurches they fall naturally in your
arms. By the way, it is a curious fact and one worthy of record, that I
did not see a young lady fall into the arms of another young lady during
the entire voyage.
We had on board, as a matter of course, the betting young man from
Chicago. No steamer ever sailed that did not have this young fellow
aboard, and there is enough of them to last the Atlantic for a great
many years. He knew everything that everybody thinks they know, but do
not, and his delight was to propound a query, and then when you had
answered it, to very coolly and exasperatingly remark:--
"Bet yer bottle of wine you're wrong."
The matter would be so simple and one of so common repute that
immediately you accepted the wager only to find that in some minute
particular, you _were_ wrong, and that the knowing youth had won.
For instance:--
"Thompson, do you know how many States there are in the Union?"
[Illustration: "SHUFFLE BOARD."]
Now any citizen of the United States who votes, and is eligible to the
Presidency, ought to know how many States there are in his beloved
country without thinking, but how many are there who can say, off-hand?
And so poor Thompson answered:--
"What a question! Of course I know."
"Bet ye bottle ye don't!"
"Done. There are--"
[Sidenote: THE YOUNG MAN FROM CHICAGO.]
And then Thompson would find himself figuring the very important problem
as to whether Colorado had been admitted, and Nevada, and Oregon, and he
would decide that one had and the other hadn't, and finally state the
number, with great certainty that it was wrong.
The Chicago man's crowning bet occurred the last day out. The smoking
room was tolerably full, as were the occupants, and everybody was bored,
as everybody is on the last day. The Chicago man had been silent for an
hour, when suddenly he broke out:
"Gentlemen--"
"Oh, no more bets," was the exclamation of the entire party. "Give us a
rest."
"I don't want to bet, but I can show you something curious."
"Well?"
"I say it and mean it. I can drink a glass of water without it's going
down my throat."
"And get it into your stomach?"
"Certainly."
There was a silence of considerably more than a minute. Every man in the
room had been victimized by this gatherer up of inconsidered trifles,
and there was a general disposition to get the better of him in some way
if possible. Here was the opportunity. How could a man get a glass of
water into his stomach without its going down his throat? Impossible!
And so the usual bottle of wine was wagered, and the Chicago man
proceeded to accomplish the supposed impossible feat. It was very easily
done. All he did was to stand upon his head on the seat that runs around
the room and swallow a glass of water. It went to his stomach, but it
did not go _down_ his throat. It went _up_ his throat. And so his last
triumph was greater than all his previous ones, for every man in the
room had been eager to accept his wager. From that time out had he
offered to wager that he would swallow his own head he would have got no
takers.
It is astonishing how short remembrance is, and how the knowledge of one
decade is swallowed up in the increasing volume of the next. Every one
of the catches employed by this young man to keep himself in wine and
cigars were well known ten years ago, but totally unknown now except by
the few who use them. The water going up the throat instead of down was
published years ago in a small volume called "Hocus Pocus," and it sold
by the million, but nobody knows of it to-day. I once asked a sharper
who had lived thirty years by the practice of one simple trick, how it
happened that the whole world did not know his little game?
[Illustration: THE BETTING YOUNG MAN FROM CHICAGO.]
"There are new crops of fools coming on every year," was his answer. He
was right. The stock will never run out.
[Sidenote: SEA-SICKNESS.]
There were one hundred and fifty-six saloon passengers on board, but
with the exception of those mentioned, a distressing monotony prevailed
among them. Never was so good a set of people ever gathered together.
They were fearfully good--too good by half.
True goodness is all very well in the abstract, but there is nothing
picturesque about it. It is slightly tame. Your brigand, with short
green jacket and yellow breeches, with blue or green garters, and a tall
hat with a feather in it, is a much more striking being than a Quaker
woman. The wicked is always the startling, and, therefore, taking to the
eye.
On our ship the people were all good. There wasn't a pickpocket, a card
sharper, or anything of the sort to vary the monotony of life. It was a
dead level of goodness, a sort of quiet mill-pond of morality, that to
the lover of excitement was distressing in the extreme. The card parties
were conducted decorously, and the religious services in the grand
saloon were attended by nearly every passenger, and what is more they
all seemed to enjoy it. Possibly it was because religious services were
a novelty to the most of them.
The second day out was a very rough one. The wind freshened--I think
that is the proper phrase--and a tremendously heavy sea was on. The
"City of Richmond" is a very staunch ship, and behaves herself
commendably in bad weather, but there is no ship that can resist the
power of the enormous waves of the North Atlantic. Consequently she
tossed like a cork, and, consequently, there was an amount of suffering
for two days that was amusing to everybody but the sufferers.
Sea-sickness is probably the most distressing of all the maladies that
do not kill. The sickness from first to last is a taste of death. The
resultant vomiting is of a nature totally different from any other
variety of vomiting known. The victim does not vomit--he throws up.
There is a wild legend that one man in a severe fit of sea-sickness
threw up his boots, but it is not credible. It is entirely safe to say,
however, that one throws up everything but original sin, and he gives
that a tolerable trial.
It was amusing to see those who had done the voyage before, and who had
been through sea-sickness, smile upon those who were in the throes of
agony. The look of superiority they took on, as much as to say, "when
you have been through it as I have, you won't have it any more." And
then to see these same fellows turn deadly pale, and leave their seats,
and rush to their rooms and disappear from mortal view a day or so, was
refreshing to those who were having their first experience.
The beauty of sea-sickness is that you may have it every voyage, which
is fortunate, as having a tendency to restrain pride and keep down
assumption of superiority; for when one has to suffer, one loves to see
everybody else suffer.
One man aboard did not think it possible that he could be sick, and he
was rather indignant that his wife should be. She, poor thing, was in
the agonies of death, and he insisted, as he held her head, that she
ought not to be sick, that her giving way to it was a weakness purely
feminine, and he went on wondering why a woman could not--
He quit talking very quickly. The strong man who was not a woman, turned
pale, the regular paleness that denotes the coming of the malady, and
dropping the head he had been holding so patronizingly with no more
compunction than as though it had been his pet dog's, rushed to the side
of the vessel, and there paid his tribute to Neptune. The suffering
wife, sick as she was, could not resist the temptation to wreak a trifle
of feminine vengeance upon him. "Dear," said she, between the heaves
that were rending her in several twains, "Sea-sickness is only a
feminine weakness. Oh--ugh--ugh--how I wish I were a strong man!"
There is one good thing about sea-sickness, and only one: the sufferer
cannot possibly have any other disease at the same time. One may have
bronchitis and dyspepsia at once, but sea-sickness monopolizes the whole
body. It is so all-pervading; it is such a giant of illness that there
is room for nothing else when it takes possession of a human body.
During General Butler's occupancy of New Orleans a fiery Rebel Frenchman
was inveighing against him in set terms.
"But you must admit," said a loyal Northerner, "that during General
Butler's administration your city was free from yellow fever."
[Sidenote: THE SHARP-NOSED MAN.]
"Ze yellow fevair and General Butlair in one season? Have ze great God
no maircy, zen?"
A kind Providence couldn't possibly saddle sea-sickness with any other
ailment.
[Illustration: "DEAR--, SEA-SICKNESS IS ONLY--A FEMININE WEAKNESS."]
Was there ever a ship or a rail car, or any other place where danger is
possible, that there was not present the man with a sharp nose, slightly
red at the tip, whose chief delight seems to be to point out the
possibilities of all sorts of disaster, and to do it in the most
friendly way? I remember once going down the Hoosac Tunnel before it was
finished. I went down, not because I wanted to, (indeed I would have
given a farm, if I had had one, to have avoided it,) but it was the
thing to do there, and must be done. So with about the feeling that
accompanied John Rogers to the stake, I stepped, with others, upon the
platform, and down we went. It was a most terrible descent. A hole in
the ground eighteen hundred feet deep, and a platform, suspended by a
single rope! In my eyes that rope was not larger or stronger than
pack-thread.
"Is this safe?" I asked of the sharp-nosed man.
"Wa'all, yes, I s'pose so. It does break sometimes--did last month and
killed eight men. I guess we are all right, though the rope's tollable
old and yest'dy they histed out a very heavy ingine and biler, which may
hev strained it. Long ways to fall--if she does break!"
Cheerful suggestion for people who were fifteen hundred feet from the
bottom and couldn't possibly get off.
Another time on the Shore Line between Boston and New York, there was an
old lady who had never been upon a railroad train before, and who was
exceedingly nervous. Behind her sat the sharp-nosed man of that train,
who answered all her questions.
"Ya'as, railroad travelin' is dangerous. Y'see they git keerless. Only a
year ago, they left a draw opened, and a train run into it, and mor'n a
hundred passengers wuz drownded."
"Merciful heavens!" ejaculated the old lady, in an agony of horror. "We
don't go over that bridge."
"Yes we do, and we're putty nigh to it now. And the men are jest ez
keerless now ez they wuz then. They git keerless. I never travel over
this road ef I kin help it."
Then he went on and told her of every accident that he could remember,
especially those that had occurred upon that road.
And the old lady, with her blood frozen by the horrible recitals, sat
during the entire trip with her hands grasping tightly the arms of her
seat, expecting momentarily to be hurled from the track and torn limb
from limb, or to be plunged into the wild waters of the Sound.
[Sidenote: TIBBITTS, OF OSHKOSH.]
We had the sharp-nosed man with us. His delight was to take timid
girls, or nervous women, and explain if the slightest thing should get
wrong with the machinery how we should be at the mercy of the waves. For
instance, if we should lose our propeller what would happen? Or if any
one of the boilers should explode, filling the ship with hot steam,
scalding the passengers, or if the main shaft should break, in such a
sea as we were then having, or if we should run upon an iceberg, or
collide with some floating hulk?
"They say all these ships are built with water-tight compartments. Sho!
Stave in one part of the ship and it must go down. What happened to the
'City of Boston?' Never heard of. 'City of Paris?' Lost half her
passengers. But we must take our chances if we will travel."
And this to a lot of people who had never been at sea before, with an
ugly wind blowing and a tremendous sea on. Imagine the frame of mind he
left his auditors in, and he made it his business, day after day, to
regale the very timid ones with harrowing histories of shipwrecks and
disasters at sea till their blood would run cold.
Some night this old raven will be lost overboard, but there will be
others just like him to take his place. Nature duplicates her
monstrosities as well as her good things.
[Illustration: LEMUEL TIBBITTS, FROM NEAR OSHKOSH, WISCONSIN, WRITING A
LETTER TO HIS MOTHER.]
Among the passengers was a young man from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, named
Tibbitts. He was an excellent young man, of his kind, and he very soon
acquired the reputation, which he deserved, of being the very best poker
player on the ship. He was uneasy till a game was organized in the
morning, and he growled ferociously when the lights were turned down at
twelve at night. He was impatient with slow players, because, as he
said, all the time they wasted was so much loss to him. He could drink
more Scotch whisky than any one on the ship, and he was the pet of the
entire crew, for his hand was always in his pocket. He ruined the rest
of the passengers by his reckless liberality. His father was a rich
Wisconsin farmer, and this was his first experience in travel.
What time he could spare from poker and his meals, was devoted to
writing a letter to his mother, for whom the scape-grace did seem to
have a great deal of respect and a very considerable amount of love. His
letter was finished the day before we made Queenstown, so that he could
mail it from there. He read it to me. The sentences in parenthesis were
his comments:--
ON BOARD THE CITY OF RICHMOND, }
NEAR QUEENSTOWN, May 23, 1881. }
DEAR MOTHER:--While there is everything to interest one from the
interior in a sea voyage, I confess that I have not enjoyed the
passage at all. I have no heart for it for my mind is perpetually
on you and my home in the far West. (_You see it will please the
old lady to know I am thinking of her all the time. Didn't I scoop
in that jack pot nicely last evening? Hadn't a thing in my hand,
and Filkins actually opened it with three deuces._) The ship is one
of the strongest and best on the ocean, and is commanded and manned
by the best sailors on the sea. The passengers are all good,
serious people, with perhaps one exception. There is one young man
from New York of dissolute habits, who has a bottle of whisky in
his room, and who actually tried to tempt me to play cards with
him. But he is known and avoided by the entire company.
We have regular services in the grand saloon, every morning, and
occasional meetings for vocal exercises and conversation at other
hours. I have just come from one, at which--
"You are not going to send this infernal aggregation of lies to your
mother, are you?" I asked.
"Why not? She don't know any better, and it will make her feel good. I
have my opinion of a man who won't give his old mother a pleasure when
he can just as well as not. I will, you bet?"
"But such atrocious lies!"
[Sidenote: TIBBITTS' LETTER.]
"I'll chance that. I can stand lies of that kind when they are told in
so good a cause. I love my mother, I do. Let's see, where was I? Oh
yes."
I have just come from one at which the discussion was mostly on the
progress of missions in the Far West. (_The old lady is Treasurer
of a society for the conversion of the Apaches, or some other
tribe._) Just now the sailors are heaving a log, which they do to
ascertain the speed the ship is making. Mr. Inman, the owner of
this ship, is a very wealthy man, and he has everything of the
best. He furnishes his vessel with nothing but black walnut logs to
heave, while the others use pine or poplar. Captain Leitch is a
very humane man, and never uses profane language to his crew. On
other ships the men who go aloft are compelled to climb tarred rope
ladders, but Captain Leitch has passenger elevators rigged to the
masts, such as you saw in the Palmer House in Chicago, in which
they sit comfortably and are hoisted up by a steam engine.
"Great heavens! You are not surely going to send that?"
"Why not? What is an old lady in silver spectacles on a farm thirty
miles from any water more than a well, going to know about a steamer? I
must write her something, for she persuaded the old gentleman to let me
take the trip. I ain't ungrateful, I ain't. I'll give her one good
letter, anyhow. Why, by the way you talk, I should suppose you never had
a mother, and if you had that you didn't know how to treat her. I hate a
man who don't love his mother and isn't willing to sacrifice himself for
her. All I can do for her now is to write to her, and write such letters
as will interest her, and the dear old girl is going to get them, if the
paper and ink holds out, and they are going to be good ones, too."
I have got to be a good deal of a sailor, and if it were not for
leaving you, which I couldn't do, I believe I should take one of
these ships myself. I know all about starboard and port--port used
to be larboard--and I can tell the stern from the bow. On a ship
you don't say, "I will go down stairs," but you say, "I will go
below." One would think that I had been born on the sea, and was a
true child of the ocean.
Owing to my strictly temperate habits at home, and my absolute
abstemiousness on the ship, I have escaped the horrors of sea
sickness. As you taught me, true happiness can only be found in
virtue. The wicked young man from New York has been sick half the
time, as a young man who keeps a bottle in his room should be.
The nice woolen stockings you knit for me have been a great
comfort, and all I regret is, I am afraid I have not enough of them
to last me till I get home.
(The young villain had purchased in New York an assortment of the most
picturesque hosiery procurable, which he was wearing with low cut
shoes. The woolen stockings he gave to his room-steward.)
The tracts you put in my valise I have read over and over again,
and have lent them since to the passengers who prefer serious
reading to trashy novels and literature of that kind. What time I
have had to spare for other reading, I have devoted to books of
travel, so that I may see Europe intelligently.
"By the way," he stopped to say, "are the Argyle rooms in London
actually closed, and is the Mabille in Paris as lively as it used to be?
Great Cæsar! won't I make it lively for them!"
In another day we shall land in Liverpool, and then I shall be only
five hours from London. I long to reach London, for I do so desire
to hear Spurgeon, and attend the Exeter Hall meetings, as you
desired me. But as we shall reach London on Tuesday, I shall be
compelled to wait till the following Sunday--five long days.
Please ma, have pa send me a draft at my address at London, at
once. I find the expense of travel is much greater than I supposed,
and I fear I shall not have enough.
Your affectionate son,
LEMUEL.
"There," said Lemuel, as he sealed the letter, "that is what I call a
good letter. The old lady will read it over and over to herself, and
then she will read it to all the neighbors. It will do her a heap of
good. Bye-bye. The boys are waiting for me in the smoking-room."
And stopping at the bar to take a drink--the liberality of English
measure was not too great for him--he was, a minute after, absorbed in
the mysteries of poker, and was "raking-in" the money of the others at a
lively rate.
And the letter went to the good old mother, and probably did her good.
And she, doubtless, worried the old gentleman till he sent the graceless
fellow a remittance. Boys can always be sure of their mothers--would
that mothers could only be half as sure of their boys.
[Sidenote: THE STORM.]
The fourth night out we were favored with a most terrific thunder storm.
I say favored, now that we are through with it, for it is a good thing
to look back upon, but we esteemed it no favor at the time. A fierce
storm is bad enough on land--it is a terror on water. On the land you
are threatened with danger only from above--on the water you are doubly
menaced. There was the marshaling of the clouds that were arranging
themselves for an attack upon us, then the terrible darkness, then the
first onslaught of the winds, that tossed the strong ship like a cork,
then the thunder that seemed like the voice of a merciless Vengeance,
and the lightnings that were its fiery fingers; pitchy darkness, except
when the lightning illuminated the scene, and the sight it disclosed
made darkness preferable, for it showed the great waves rolling one
after another, their white crests like the teeth of enormous dragons,
strong enough to crush the mass of iron against which their fury was
directed. And then the wind howling through the rigging was fearfully
like the shrieks of the monsters baffled and robbed of their prey. It
seemed as though the entire forces of Nature were arrayed intelligently
against our ship, and for the sole purpose of its destruction.
[Illustration: EVERY SIN I HAD COMMITTED CAME BEFORE ME LIKE ACCUSING
GHOSTS.]
It was far from pleasant, and it is fortunate that such displays last
but a little while. In less than a second from its beginning every sin I
had ever committed, namely, the stealing of a watermelon in my boyhood,
and the voting of a split ticket in my manhood, came vividly before me
like accusing ghosts. I did remember also, once, that when a
ticket-seller in a railroad station in Troy, who was very insolent and
unobliging, made a mistake in my favor to the amount of thirty cents, in
my anger I did not rectify it, and I debated as to whether that was a
sin or not; but when I thought it over I came to the conclusion that,
inasmuch as the recording angel knew how brutal the fellow was, he would
blot out the record if he had to drop upon it a tear of oxalic acid.
But the good ship endured it all. The great body of iron, with its soul
of steam, and muscles of steel, defied the elements and rode it out
safely.
The storm hurried away to pursue and fright other vessels, and the waste
of waters was once more in a sort of a light that was not lurid. Though
the greatest terror was passed, the long swell which kept the ship
either climbing a mountain of water or descending into its depths was
anything but pleasant.
A ship at dock looks strong enough to defy all the elements, but out at
sea when those elements become angry it is wonderful how frail she
seems. It is man against Omnipotence.
I don't care how many times a man has been to sea, the first sight of
land after a voyage is an unmixed delight. I know that, for I have
crossed the Great Lakes repeatedly, and when a boy I used to "go home"
via the Erie Canal, I always got up early in the morning to look at the
land on either shore. A man is not a fish, and no man takes to water
naturally. It is a necessity that drives him to it, the same as to
labor.
Therefore the decks were crowded on the ninth morning of the voyage when
the shores of Ireland were sighted. Not because it was Ireland--nobody
thrilled over that--but because it was land, because it was something
that did not roll and pitch, and toss and swing, but was substantial and
permanent. The Mississippi Ethiopian, when discussing the difference
between traveling by rail and water remarked: "Ef de cahs run off de
track dah ye is--ef de boat goes to pieces, wha is ye?"
[Sidenote: "LAND!"]
Ireland was there and land was there and reliable. Ireland--as land--has
no machinery to get out of order, no icebergs to run into--no other
steamers to collide with. I was delighted to look at her, and I venture
to say that the older the sailor, the more reassuring and delightful
the sight of land.
The bold cliffs looked friendly, and the long stretches of green on
their summits were an absolute delight. The color was the green of grass
and trees, that had something akin to humanity in it, not the
glittering, changing, treacherous green of the water we had been sailing
over and plunging through for eight very long days. And then to think
that twenty-four hours more would release us from our friendly prison,
and that during that twenty-four hours we should be within a short
distance of land, was a delight.
I have at times found fault with the Irish in America, and I don't rank
Ireland as the greatest country under the heavens, but that morning I
felt for her a most profound respect. Had Ashantee been the first land
we had sighted that morning, I presume I should have forgiven the
Ashantees for killing and eating the missionaries. After one has been at
sea, even for eight days, land is the principal wish of the heart. One
day and night across the Channel, and we made Liverpool. There were
promises to meet in London, or Paris, exchanges of cards, the passing
the Custom House with our baggage, the purchase of tickets, and we found
ourselves in the cars of the Midland Road and scurrying away through
Derbyshire to London.
[Illustration: OFF FOR LONDON.]
[Illustration]