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[Illustration: WE CHANGED OUR MINDS ABOUT BEING WILLING TO SAIL
PAST--See page 31.]
THE SHIP-DWELLERS
A Story of a Happy Cruise
by
ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE
Author of
"From Van-Dweller to Commuter"
"The Tent-Dwellers" Etc.
With Illustrations from Drawings by Thomas Fogarty and from Photographs
[Illustration]
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London
MCMX
* * * * *
BOOKS BY
ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE
THE SHIP-DWELLERS. Illustrated. 8vo _net_ $1.50
THE TENT-DWELLERS. Illustrated. Post 8vo 1.50
THE HOLLOW TREE AND DEEP WOODS BOOK. Illustrated. Post 8vo 1.50
FROM VAN-DWELLER TO COMMUTER. Ill'd. Post 8vo 1.50
LIFE OF THOMAS NAST. Ill'd. 8vo _net_ 5.00
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.
* * * * *
Copyright, 1910, by HARPER & BROTHERS
TO
MARK TWAIN
HERO OF MY CHILDHOOD
INSPIRATION OF MY YOUTH
FRIEND OF THESE LATER YEARS
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I THE BOOK, AND THE DREAM 1
II IN THE TRACK OF THE INNOCENTS 9
III DAYS AT SEA 16
IV WE BECOME HISTORY 23
V INTRODUCING THE REPROBATES 26
VI A LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE 29
VII A DAY TO OURSELVES 41
VIII OUT OF THE SUNRISE 46
IX EARLY MEDITERRANEAN EXPERIENCES 57
X THE DIVERTING STORY OF ALGIERS 62
XI WE ENTER THE ORIENT 68
XII WE TOUCH AT GENOA 86
XIII MALTA, A LAND OF YESTERDAY 95
XIV A SUNDAY AT SEA 113
XV A PORT OF MISSING DREAMS 118
XVI ATHENS THAT IS 139
XVII INTO THE DARDANELLES 146
XVIII A CITY OF ILLUSION 150
XIX THE TURK AND SOME OF HIS PHASES 158
XX ABDUL HAMID GOES TO PRAYER 172
XXI LOOKING DOWN ON YILDIZ 182
XXII EPHESUS: THE CITY THAT WAS 191
XXIII INTO SYRIA 208
XXIV THE HOUSE THAT CAIN BUILT 214
XXV GOING DOWN TO DAMASCUS 222
XXVI THE "PEARL OF THE EAST" 226
XXVII FOOTPRINTS OF PAUL 239
XXVIII DISCONTENTED PILGRIMS 247
XXIX DAMASCUS, THE GARDEN BEAUTIFUL 255
XXX WHERE PILGRIMS GATHER IN 263
XXXI THE HOLY CITY 274
XXXII THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 278
XXXIII TWO HOLY MOUNTAINS 288
XXXIV THE LITTLE TOWN OF THE MANGER 297
XXXV THE SORROW OF THE CHOSEN--THE WAY OF THE CROSS 301
XXXVI AT THE MOUTH OF THE NILE 309
XXXVII THE SMILE OF THE SPHINX 315
XXXVIII WAYS THAT ARE EGYPTIAN 322
XXXIX WHERE HISTORY BEGAN 328
XL KARNAK AND LUXOR 335
XLI THE STILL VALLEY OF THE KINGS 346
XLII THE HIGHWAY OF EGYPT 359
XLIII OTHER WAYS THAT ARE EGYPTIAN 370
XLIV SAKKARA AND THE SACRED BULLS 377
XLV A VISIT WITH RAMESES II 382
XLVI THE LONG WAY HOME 391
ILLUSTRATIONS
WE CHANGED OUR MINDS ABOUT BEING WILLING TO SAIL PAST _Frontispiece_
TO ME IT WAS ALL TRUE, ALL ROMANCE--ALL POETRY 3
SOMEBODY SENT ME A BASKET OF FRUIT 13
THEY ARE AN ATTRACTIVE LOT--THE REPROBATES 17
GAVE HIM THE "ICY MITT" 21
THEY COULD DIVE LIKE SEALS 33
TWO MEN TAKE YOU IN HAND, AND AWAY YOU GO 38
DID A SORT OF FANDAROLE 41
THEN IT DAWNED UPON THE DIPLOMAT 43
BUT NOW GIBRALTAR, THE CROUCHING LION OF TRAFALGAR, HAD RISEN
FROM THE SEA 49
WE COULD HAVE LISTENED ALL NIGHT TO BENUNES 53
"THAT IS THE KASBA" 66
ONE DOES NOT HURRY THE ORIENT--ONE WAITS ON IT 68
MARVELLOUS BASKETS AND QUEER THINGS 72
WE DID NOT CARE MUCH FOR PARKS 74
ETERNALLY EAST WITH NO HINT OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD 76
TWO BENT, WRINKLED WOMEN WEAVING LACE OUTSIDE THE DOOR 109
WE LOOKED ACROSS THE ENTRANCE AND THERE ROSE THE ACROPOLIS,
HIGH AGAINST THE BLUE 122
HE WOULD SWING HIS ARMS AND BEGIN, "YOU SEE--!" THE REST
REQUIRED A MIND-READER 124
I WOULD HAVE APPLIED FOR THE POSITION IN THE CHORUS MYSELF 129
TOOK TURNS ADDRESSING THE MULTITUDE 131
ONE'S AGE, STATED ON OATH, GOES WITH A PASSPORT 148
KEYEFF 150
I WANTED TO CARRY AWAY ONE OF THOSE TOMBSTONES 189
ALL THE PLAINS AND SLOPES OF THE OLD CITY, WITH ITS WHITE
FRAGMENTS AND POOR RUINED HARBOR, LAY AT OUR FEET 198
FROM THE TIME OF ADAM, BAALBEC BECAME A PLACE OF ALTARS 216
SO THE PATRIARCHS JOURNEYED; SO, TWO THOUSAND YEARS LATER,
JOSEPH AND MARY TRAVELLED INTO EGYPT 225
URGING US TO PARTAKE OF THE PRECIOUS STUFF, WITHOUT STINT 243
ASKED HIM IF HE WOULDN'T EXECUTE A LITTLE COMMISSION FOR ME
IN THE BAZAARS 249
THE PATRIARCH KNEW ALL ABOUT JAFFA 264
JERUSALEM--ITS BUBBLE-ROOFED HOUSES AND DOMES, ITS CYPRESS
AND OLIVE TREES 294
A CAMEL TRAIN LED THE WAY THROUGH THE GATES 300
THE DEPTH OF THEIR FALL 302
THE WAY OF THE CROSS 304
THE TRUE GOLGOTHA--THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 306
A VAST INDIFFERENCE TO ALL PUNY THINGS 318
SANCTUARY IN KARNAK 332
GADDIS 332
I MADE A PICTURE OF THE FLY-BRUSH BRIGADE 338
ITS MAGNIFICENT PYLONS OR ENTRANCE WALLS ... AND THEN ONCE
MORE WE WERE ON THE DONKEYS 340
THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR ... ONCE MORE REFLECTING ITS COLUMNS IN
THE NILE 342
THINK OF WATERING A WHOLE WHEAT-FIELD WITH A WELL-SWEEP AND
A PAIL 360
GOT IT MADE CHEAP SOMEWHERE, WITH HER PICTURE CARVED ON THE
FRONT OF IT 386
SET OUT ON THE LONG, STEADY, ATLANTIC SWING 392
THE SHIP-DWELLERS
"The grand object of all travel is to see the shores of the
Mediterranean."
--DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.
[Illustration]
I
THE BOOK, AND THE DREAM
It was a long time ago--far back in another century--that my father
brought home from the village, one evening, a brand-new book. There were
not so many books in those days, and this was a fine big one, with black
and gilt covers, and such a lot of pictures!
I was at an age to claim things. I said the book was _my_ book, and,
later, petitioned my father to establish that claim. (I remember we were
climbing through the bars at the time, having driven the cows to the
further pasture.)
My father was kindly disposed, but conservative; that was his habit. He
said that I might look at the book--that I might even read it, some day,
when I was old enough, and I think he added that privately I might call
it mine--a privilege which provided as well for any claim I might have
on the moon.
I don't think these permissions altogether satisfied me. I was already
in the second reader, and the lust of individual ownership was upon me.
Besides, this was a _New Pilgrim's Progress_. We had respect in our
house for the old _Pilgrim's Progress_, and I had been encouraged to
search its pages. I had read it, or read at it, for a good while, and my
claim of ownership in that direction had never been disputed. Now, here
was a brand-new one, and the pictures in it looked most attractive. I
was especially enamoured of the frontispiece, "The Pilgrim's Vision,"
showing the "Innocents" on their way "abroad," standing on the deck of
the _Quaker City_ and gazing at Bible pictures in the sky.
I do not remember how the question of ownership settled itself. I do
remember how the book that winter became the nucleus of our family
circle, and how night after night my mother read aloud from it while the
rest of us listened, and often the others laughed.
[Illustration: TO ME IT WAS ALL TRUE, ALL ROMANCE--ALL POETRY]
I did not laugh--not then. In the first place, I would not, in those
days, laugh at any _Pilgrim's Progress_, especially at a new one, and
then I had not arrived at the point of sophistication where a joke, a
literary joke, registers. To me it was all true, all romance--all
poetry--the story of those happy voyagers who sailed in a ship of dreams
to lands beyond the sunrise, where men with turbans, long flowing
garments and Bible whiskers rode on camels; where ruined columns rose in
a desert that was once a city; where the Sphinx and the Pyramids looked
out over the sands that had drifted about them long and long before the
Wise Men of the East had seen the Star rise over Bethlehem.
In the big, bleak farm-house on the wide, bleak Illinois prairie I
looked into the open fire and dreamed. Some day, somehow, I would see
those distant lands. I would sail away on that ship with "Dan" and
"Jack" and "The Doctor" to the Far East; I would visit Damascus and
Jerusalem, and pitch my camp on the borders of the Nile. Very likely I
should decide to remain there and live happy ever after.
How the dreams of youth stretch down the years, and fade, and change!
Only this one did not fade, and I thought it did not change. I learned
to laugh with the others, by-and-by, but the romance and the poetry of
the pilgrimage did not grow dim. The argonauts of the _Quaker City_
sailed always in a halo of romance to harbors of the forgotten days. As
often as I picked up the book the dream was fresh and new, though
realization seemed ever further and still further ahead.
Then all at once, there, just within reach, it lay. There was no reason
why, in some measure at least, I should not follow the track of those
old first "Innocents Abroad." Of course, I was dreaming again--only,
this time, perhaps, I could make the dream come true.
I began to read advertisements. I found that a good many ship-loads of
"Pilgrims" had followed that first little band to the Orient--that the
first "ocean picnic" steamer, which set sail in June forty-two years
before, had started a fashion in sea excursioning which had changed only
in details. Ocean picnics to the Mediterranean were made in winter now,
and the vessels used for them were fully eight times as big as the old
_Quaker City_, which had been a side-wheel steamer, and grand, no doubt,
for her period, with a register proudly advertised at eighteen hundred
tons! Itineraries, too, varied more or less, but Greece, Egypt, and the
Holy Land were still names to conjure with. Advertisements of cruises
were plentiful, and literature on the subject was luminous and exciting.
A small table by my bed became gorgeous with prospectuses in blue and
gold and crimson sunset dyes. The Sphinx, the Pyramids, and prows of
stately vessels looked out from many covers and became backgrounds for
lofty, dark-blue camels and dusky men of fantastic dress. Often I woke
in the night and lit my lamp and consulted these things. When I went to
the city I made the lives of various agents miserable with my inquiries.
It was hard--it was nerve-racking to decide. But on one of these
occasions I overheard the casual remark that the S. S. _Grosser
Kurfuerst_ would set out on her cruise to the Orient with two tons of
dressed chicken and four thousand bottles of champagne.
I hesitated no longer. Dear me, my dream had changed, then, after all!
Such things had not in the least concerned the boy who had looked into
the open fire, and pictured a pilgrimage to Damascus and Jerusalem, and
a camp on the borders of the Nile.
My remembrance of the next few days is hazy--that is, it is
kaleidoscopic. I recall doing a good many things in a hurry and
receiving a good deal of advice. Also the impression that everybody in
the world except myself had been everywhere in the world, and that
presently they were all going again, and that I should find them, no
doubt, strewn all the way from Gibraltar to Jerusalem, when I had been
persuading myself that in the places I had intended to visit I should
meet only the fantastic stranger. Suddenly it was two days before
sailing. Then it was the day before sailing. Then it was sailing day!
Perhaps it was the hurry and stress of those last days; perhaps it is
the feeling natural to such a proximity. I do not know. But I do know
that during those final flying hours, when I was looking across the very
threshold of realization, the old fascination faded, and if somebody
had only suggested a good reason for my staying at home, I would have
stayed there, and I would have given that person something valuable,
besides. But nobody did it. Not a soul was thoughtful enough to hint
that I was either needed or desired in my native land, and I was too
modest to mention it myself.
There had been rain, but it was bright enough that February morning of
departure--just a bit squally along the west. What a gay crowd there was
at the pier and on the vessel! I thought all of New York must be going.
That was a mistake--they were mostly visitors, as I discovered later. It
would average three visitors to one passenger, I should think. I had
more than that--twice as many. I am not boasting--they came mainly to be
sure that I got aboard and stayed there, and to see that I didn't lose
most of my things. They knew me and what I would be likely to do, alone.
They wanted to steer me to the right state-room and distribute my traps.
Then they could put me in charge of Providence and the deck-steward, and
wash their hands of me, and feel that whatever happened they had done
their duty and were not to blame.
So I had six, as I say, and we worked our way through, among the
passengers and visitors, who seemed all to be talking and laughing at
once or pawing over mail and packages heaped upon the cabin table. I
didn't feel like laughing and talking, and I wasn't interested in the
mail. Almost everybody in the world that meant anything to me was in my
crowd, and they were going away, presently, to leave me on this big
ship, among strangers, bound for the strange lands. My long dream of the
Orient dwindled to a decrepit thing.
But presently we found my state-room, and it was gratifying. I was
impressed with its regal furnishings. After all, there were
compensations in a habitation like that. Besides, there were always the
two tons of dressed chicken and those thousands of champagne. I became
more cheerful.
Only, I wish the ship people wouldn't find it necessary to blow their
whistle so loud and suddenly to send one's friends ashore. There is no
chance to carry off somebody--somebody you would enjoy having along.
They blow that thing until it shivers the very marrow of one's soul.
How the visitors do crowd ashore! A word--a last kiss--a "God bless
you"--your own are gone presently--you are left merely standing there,
abandoned, marooned, deserted--feeling somehow that it's all wrong, and
that something ought to be done about it. Why don't those people hurry?
You want to get away now; you want it over with.
A familiar figure fights its way up the gang-plank, breasting the
shoreward tide. Your pulse jumps--they are going to take you home, after
all. But no, he only comes to tell you that _your_ six will be at a
certain place near the end of the dock, where you can see them, and wave
to them.
You push to the ship's side for a place at the rail. The last visitors
are straggling off now, even to the final official. Then somewhere
somebody does something that slackens the cables, the remaining
gang-plank is dragged away. That whistle again, and then a band--our
band--turns loose a perfect storm of music.
We are going! We are going! We have dropped away from the pier and are
gliding past the rows of upturned faces, the lines of frantic
handkerchiefs. Yes, oh yes, we are going--there is no turning back now,
no changing of one's mind again. All the cares of work, the claims of
home--they cannot reach us any more. Those waiting at the pier's end to
wave as we pass--whatever life holds for me is centred there, and I am
leaving it all behind. There they are, now! Wave! Wave! Oh, I did not
know it would be like this! I did not suppose that I might--need another
handkerchief!
The smoke of a tug drifts between-- I have lost them. No, there they are
again, still waving. That white spot--that is a little furry coat--such
a little furry coat and getting so far off, and so blurry. My glass--if
I can only get hold of myself enough to see through it. Yes, there they
are! Oh, those wretched boats to drift in and shut that baby figure
away! Now they are gone, but I cannot find her again. The smoke, the
mist, and a sudden drift of snow have swept between. I have lost the
direction-- I don't know where to look any more. It is all over--we are
off--we are going out to sea!
[Illustration]
II
IN THE TRACK OF THE INNOCENTS
We are through luncheon; we have left Sandy Hook, and the shores have
dropped behind the western horizon. It was a noble luncheon we sat down
to as we crossed the lower bay. One stopped at the serving-table to
admire an exhibition like that. Banked up in splendid pyramids as for a
World's Fair display, garnished and embroidered and fringed with every
inviting trick of decoration, it was a spectacle to take one's breath
and make him resolve to consume it all. One felt that he could recover a
good deal on a luncheon like that, but I think the most of us recovered
too much. I am sure, now, that I did--a good deal too much--and that my
selections were not the best--not for the beginning of a strange, new
life at sea.
Then there was Laura--Laura, age fourteen, whose place at the table is
next to mine, and a rather sturdy young person; I think she also
considered the bill of fare too casually. She ventured the information
that this was her second voyage, that the first had been a short trip on
a smaller vessel, and that she had been seasick. She did not intend to
be seasick on a fine, big steamer like this, and I could tell by the
liberality with which she stowed away the satisfying German provender
that she had enjoyed an early and light breakfast, followed by brisk
exercise in getting to the ship. The tables were gay with flowers; the
company looked happy, handsome, and well-dressed; the music was
inspiring. Friends left behind seemed suddenly very far away. We had
become a little world all to ourselves--most of us strangers to one
another, but thrown in a narrow compass here and likely to remain
associates for weeks, even months. What a big, jolly picnic it was,
after all!
Outside it was bleak and squally, but no matter. The air was fine and
salt and invigorating. The old _Quaker City_ had been held by storm at
anchor in the lower bay. We were already down the Narrows and heading
straight for the open sea. Land presently lost its detail and became a
dark outline. That, too, sank lower and became grayer and fell back into
the mist.
I remembered that certain travellers had displayed strong emotions on
seeing their native land disappear. I had none--none of any consequence.
I had symptoms, though, and I recognized them. Like Laura, aged
fourteen, I had taken a shorter voyage on a poorer ship, and I had
decided that this would be different. I had engaged a steamer-chair, and
soon after luncheon I thought I would take a cigar and a book on Italy
and come out here and sit in it--in the chair, of course--and smoke and
think and look out to sea. But when I got to the door of my state-room
and felt the great vessel take a slow, curious side-step and caught a
faint whiff of linoleum and varnish from the newly renovated cabin, I
decided to forego the cigar and guide-book and take a volume on mind
cure instead.
It seems a good ship, though, and I feel that we shall all learn to be
proud of her, in time. In a little prospectus pamphlet I have here I
find some of her measurements and capacities, and I have been comparing
them with those of the _Quaker City_, the first steamer to set out on
this Oriental cruise. If she were travelling along beside us to-day I
suppose she would look like a private yacht. She must have had trouble
with a sea like this. She was little more than two hundred feet long, I
believe, and, as already mentioned, her tonnage was registered at
eighteen hundred. The figures set down in the prospectus for this vessel
are a good deal bigger than those, but they are still too modest. The
figures quote her as being a trifle less than six hundred feet long, but
I can see in both directions from where I sit, and I am satisfied that
it would take me hours to get either to her bow or stern. I don't
believe I could do it in that time. I am convinced that it is at least
half a mile to my state-room.
The prospectus is correct, however, in one item. It says that the
_Kurfuerst_ has a displacement of twenty-two thousand tons. That is
handsome, and it is not too much; I realized that some moments ago. When
I felt our noble vessel "sashay" in her slow majestic fashion toward
Cuba, and then pause to revolve the matter a little, and after
concluding to sink, suddenly set out in a long, slow, upward slide for
the moon, I knew that her displacement was all that is claimed for it,
and I prepared for the worst; so did Laura, and started for her
state-room suddenly....
Later: I don't know how many of our party went down to dinner. I know
one that did not go. The music is good, but I can hear it very well from
where I am. No doubt the dinner is good, too, but I am satisfied to give
it absent treatment.
There is a full-blown Scientist in the next room. She keeps saying "Mind
is all. Mind is all. This is nothing. This is--this is just--" after
which, the Earthquake.
What an amazing ocean it is to be able to toss this mighty ship about in
such a way! I suppose there is no hope of her sinking. No hope!
[Illustration: SOMEBODY SENT ME A BASKET OF FRUIT]
Somebody sent me a basket of fruit. I vaguely wonder what it is like,
and if I shall ever know? I suppose there are men who could untie that
paper and look at it. I could stand in awe of a man like that. I could--
However, it is no matter; there is no such man.
* * * * *
But it was bright next morning, though a heavy sea was still running. I
was by no means perfectly happy, but I struggled on deck quite early,
and found company. A stout youngish man was marching round and round
vigorously as if the number of laps he might achieve was vital. He
fetched up suddenly as I stepped on deck. He spoke with quick energy.
"Look here," he said, earnestly, "perhaps you can tell me; it's
important, and I want to know: is a seasick man better off if he walks
or sits still? I'm seasick. I confess it, fully. My interior economy is
all disqualified, and I want advice. Now tell me, _is_ a seasick man
better off when he walks or when he sits still?"
I gave it up, and the Diplomat (we learned later that he was connected
with the consular service) passed to the next possible source of
information. I heard him propounding his inquiries several times during
the morning as new arrivals appeared on deck.
He was the most honest man on the ship. The rest of us did not confess
that we were seasick. We had a bad cold or rheumatism or dyspepsia or
locomotorataxia or pleurisy--all sorts of things--but we were not
seasick. It was remarkable what a floating hospital of miscellaneous
complaints the ship had become, and how suddenly they all disappeared
that afternoon when the sea went down.
It was Lincoln's Birthday, and, inspired by the lively appearance of the
deck, a kindly promoter of entertainment went among the passengers
inviting them to take part in some sort of simple exercises for the
evening. Our pleasure excursion seemed really to have begun now, and
walking leisurely around the promenade-deck one could get a fair
impression of our company and cast the horoscope. They were a fair
average of Americans, on the whole, with a heavy percentage of foreign
faces, mostly German. Referring to the passenger-list, one discovered
that we hailed from many States; but when I drifted into the German
purlieus of that register and found such prefixes as Herr
Regierungs-praesident a. D., and Frau Regierungs-praesident a. D., and
looking further discovered Herr Kommerzienrat, Herr Oberpraesidialrat
von, and a few more high-power explosives like that, I said, "This is
not an excursion, after all; it is a court assembly." I did not know in
the least what these titles meant, but I was uneasy. I had the feeling
that the owner of any one of them could nod to the executioner and
dismiss me permanently from the ship. The interpreter came along just
then. He said:
"Do not excite yourself. They are not so dangerous as they look. It is
only as one would say, 'Mr. and Mrs. Councilmanofthethirdward Jones, or
Mr. MayorofOshkosh Smith, or Mrs. Commissionerofhighways Brown.' It is
pure decoration; nothing fatal will occur." I felt better then, and set
out to identify some of the owners of this furniture. It was as the
interpreter had said--there was no danger. A man with a six-story title
could hardly be distinguished from the rest of his countrymen except
when he tried to sign it. But a thing like that must be valuable in
Germany; otherwise he would not go to the trouble and expense of lugging
such a burden around on a trip like this, when one usually wants to
travel light.
The ship gave us a surprise that night, and it was worth while. When we
got to the dining-room we found it decorated with the interwoven colors
of two nations; the tables likewise radiant, and there were menus with
the picture of Abraham Lincoln outside. We were far out in the blackness
of the ocean now, but here was as brilliant a spot as you would find at
Sherry's or Delmonico's, and a little company gathered from the world's
end to do honor to the pioneer boy of Kentucky. I think many of us there
had never observed Lincoln's Birthday before, and it was fitting enough
that we should begin at such a time and place. I know we all rose and
joined in _America_ and the _Star-Spangled Banner_ at the close, and we
are not likely to forget that mid-ocean celebration of the birth of
America's greatest, gentlest hero.
III
DAYS AT SEA
We have settled down into a pleasant routine of lazy life. Most of us
are regularly on deck now, though one sees new faces daily.
[Illustration: THEY ARE AN ATTRACTIVE LOT--THE REPROBATES]
We have taken up such amusements as please us--reading, games, gossip,
diaries, picture-puzzles, and there are even one or two mild flirtations
discoverable. In the "booze-bazaar" (the Diplomat's name for the
smoking-room) the Reprobates find solace in pleasant mixtures and droll
stories, while they win one another's money at diverting games. They are
an attractive lot--the Reprobates. One can hardly tear himself away from
them. Only the odors of the smoking-room are not quite attractive, as
yet. I am no longer seasick--at least, not definitely so; but I still
say "Mind is all" as I pass through the smoking-room.
We are getting well acquainted, too, for the brief period of time we
have been together. It does not seem brief, however. That bleak day of
departure in North River is already far back in the past--as far back as
if it belonged to another period, which indeed it does. We are becoming
acquainted, as I say. We are rapidly finding out one another's names;
whether we are married, single, or divorced--and why; what, if anything,
we do when we are at home; how we happened to come on this trip; and a
great deal of useful information--useful on a ship like this, where the
voyage is to be a long one and associations more or less continuous. We
form into little groups and discuss these things--our own affairs
first--then presently we shift the personnel of our groups and discuss
each other, and are happy and satisfied, and feel that the cruise is a
success.
There are not many young people on the ship--a condition which would
seem to have prevailed on these long ocean excursions since the first
Oriental pilgrimage, forty-two years ago. I suppose the prospects of
several months on one ship, with sight-seeing in Egypt and the Holy
Land, do not look attractive enough to the average young person who is
thinking of gayer things. One can be gay enough on shipboard, however,
where there is a good band of music; a quarter-deck to dance on; nooks
on the sun-deck to flirt in; promenades and shuffleboard, with full
dress every night for dinner. No need to have an idle time on an
excursion like this if one doesn't want it; which most of us do,
however, because we are no longer entirely young, and just loaf around
and talk of unimportant things and pretend to read up on the places we
are going to see.
We need to do that. What we don't know about history and geography on
this ship would sink it. Most of us who have been to school, even if it
is a good while ago, keep sort of mental pictures of the hemispheres,
and preserve the sound of certain old familiar names. We live under the
impression that this is knowledge, and it passes well enough for that
until a time comes like this when particular places on the map are to be
visited and particular associations are to be recalled. Then, of course,
we start in to classify and distinguish, and suddenly find that there is
scarcely anything to classify and less still to distinguish. I am
morally certain that there are not ten of us on this vessel who could
tell with certainty the difference between Deucalion and Deuteronomy, or
between the Pillars of Hercules and the Golden Horn. The brightest man
on the ship this morning asked if Algiers was in Egypt or Spain, and a
dashing high-school girl wanted to know if Greece were not a part of
Asia Minor.
We shall all know better when we are through with this trip. We shall be
wonders in the matter of knowledge, and we shall get it from first
hands. We shall no longer confuse Upper and Lower Egypt, or a peristyle
with a stadium. We are going to know about these things. That is why we
are here.
In the matter of our amusements, picture-puzzles seem to be in the lead.
They are fascinating things, once one gets the habit. They sell them on
this ship, and nearly everybody has one or more. The tables in the
forward cabin are full of them, and after dinner there is a group around
each table pawing over the pieces in a rapt way or offering advice to
whoever happens to be setting them. Certain of our middle-aged ladies in
particular find comfort in the picture-puzzles, and sit all day in their
steamer-chairs with the pieces on a large pasteboard cover, shifting and
trying and fitting them into place. One wonders what blessing those old
_Quaker City_ pilgrims had that took the place of the fascinating
picture-puzzle.
We are getting south now, and the weather is much warmer. The sun is
bright, too, and a little rainbow travels with the ship, just over the
port screw. When the water is fairly quiet the decks are really gay. New
faces still appear, however. Every little while there is a fresh
arrival, as it were; a fluttering out from some inner tangle of sea
magic and darkness, just as a butterfly might emerge from a cocoon. Some
of them do not stay. We run into a cross-sea or a swell, or something,
and they disappear again, and their places at the table remain vacant.
The Diplomat continues his fight and his inquiries. Every little while
one may hear him ask: "Is it better for a seasick man to walk or to sit
down?" The Diplomat never denies his condition. "Oh, Lord, I'm seasick!"
he says. "I'd be sick on a duck-pond. I'd be sick if the ship were tied
to the dock. I'd be sick if anybody told me I was on a ship. Say, what
is a fellow like that to do, anyway? And here I am bound for Jerusalem!"
Down here the water is very blue. We might be sailing on a great tub of
indigo. One imagines that to take up a glass of it would be to dip up
pure ultra-marine. I mentioned this to the Diplomat.
"Yes," he said, "it is a cracker-jack of an ocean, but I don't care for
it just now."
But what a lonely ocean it is! Not a vessel, not a sail, not a column of
smoke on the horizon!
We are officially German on this ship, and the language prevails. Our
passenger-list shows that we are fully half German, I believe, and of
course all the officers and stewards are of that race. The consequence
is that everybody on the ship, almost, speaks or tries to speak the
language. Persons one would never suspect of such a thing do it, and
some of them pretty well, too. Even I got reckless and shameless, and
from a long-buried past produced a few German remarks of my own. They
were only about ten-carat assay, but they were accepted at par. I
remember an old and very dear German man in America who once said to me,
speaking of his crops, "Der early corn, he iss all right; aber der late
corn, she's bad!"
My German is not as good as his English, but you'd think it was better,
the serious way these stewards accept it. They recognize the
quality--they have many cargoes of the same brand.
We have two exceedingly pretty girls on this ship--one of them as
amiable, as gentle, as lovely in every way as she is pretty. The
other--well, she is pretty enough in all conscience, and she may be
amiable--I wouldn't want to be unfair in my estimate--but if she is, she
has a genius for concealing it from the rest of the passengers. Her
chief characteristic besides her comeliness seems to be a conviction
that she has made a mistake in coming with such a crowd.
[Illustration: GAVE HIM THE "ICY MITT"]
We can't domesticate that girl--she won't mix with us. The poor old
Promoter, one of the kindliest creatures alive, approached her with an
invitation to read aloud a small selection for the little Lincoln
memorial he was preparing. She declined chillily--gave him the "icy
mitt," the Diplomat said.
"I nevah do anything on shipboahd," she declared, and ignored his
apologies.
She spends most of her time disposed in a ravishing fashion in a
steamer-chair, reading a novel or letting the volume drop listlessly at
her side, with one of her dainty fingers between the pages to mark the
place, while her spirit lives in other worlds than ours. The Promoter
says she is cold and frigidly beautiful--a winter landscape. But then
the Promoter is a simple, forgiving soul. I think she is just flitter
and frosting--just a Christmas-card. A ship like this is democratic--it
has to be. We are all just people here.
It is also cosmopolitan--it has to be that, too, with a crowd like ours.
This Sunday evening affords an example of what I mean. In the
dining-room forward there are religious exercises--prayers and a song
service under the direction of the Promoter--a repetition, no doubt, of
the very excellent programme given this morning. Far aft, on the
quarter-deck, a dance is in progress, under the direction, I believe, of
our German contingent; while amidships, in the "booze-bazaar," the
Reprobates and their Godless friends are engaged in revelry, probably
under the direction of Satan. The ship is very long, and the
entertainments do not conflict or compete. One may select whatever best
accords with his taste and morals, or, if he likes variety, he may
divide his time. Everything is running wide open as this luminous speck
of life--a small, self-constituted world--goes throbbing through the
dark.
IV
WE BECOME HISTORY
We had been four days at sea, boring our way into the sunrise at the
rate of three hundred and sixty miles a day, when we met the "Great
Sight"--the American fleet of sixteen ships of war returning from its
cruise around the world.
It had been rumored among us when we left New York that there was a
possibility of such a meeting. It was only a possibility, of course, for
even a fleet is a mere speck on a wide waste of ocean, and with engines
on both sides driving at full speed the chances of intersection were
small.
So we went about figuring and speculating and worrying the officers, who
were more anxious over the matter than we were, but conservative,
nevertheless. We only learned, therefore, or rather we guessed, I think,
that our Marconi flash was travelling out beyond the horizon, and the
loneliest sea imaginable, trying to find an answering spark.
During the afternoon of the Sunday previously mentioned a sentence on
the blackboard, the first official word, announced, with a German
flavor, that it was "not quite impossible" that the meeting would occur
next morning, and this we took to mean that wireless communication had
been established, though we were not further informed.
There was a wild gale during the night and a heavy sea running at
daybreak, but the sky was clear. A few stragglers were at early
breakfast when, all at once, a roll of drums and a burst of martial
music brought us to our feet.
We did not need any one to tell us what it meant. "The fleet!" came to
every man's lips, and a moment later we were on deck. Not only those in
the dining-room came. Sick or well, bundled together somehow, from every
opening our excursionists staggered forth, and, climbing to the
sun-deck, looked out across the bridge to where the sunrise had just
filled the morning sky. There they were--far, faint, and blurred at
first, but presently outlined clear--stretched across the glowing east,
lifting and tossing out of the morning, our sixteen noble vessels on
their homeward way!
At that moment I think there was not one on our ship who did not feel
that whatever might come, now, the cruise was a success. Foreign lands
would bring us grand sights, no doubt, but nothing that could equal
this. We realized that, fully, and whispered our good-fortune to one
another as we gazed out upon that spectacle of a lifetime.
Viewed across our bow, the vessels appeared to form a continuous
straight line, but they divided into two sections as they came on, eight
vessels in each, and passed in column formation. In a little while we
were close to them--they were just under our starboard bow--their upper
decks black with men turned out in our honor. We waved to them and our
band played, but we did not cheer. We were too much impressed to be
noisy, nor could we have made our voices heard across that wild
shouting sea. So we only looked, and waved, and perhaps wiped our eyes,
and some of us tried to photograph them.
They passed in perfect formation. Heavy seas broke over them, and every
billow seemed to sweep their decks, but their lines varied not a point
and the separating distances remained unchanged. So perfect was the
alignment that each column became a single vessel when they had left us
behind.
It was over, all too soon. Straight as an arrow those two noble lines
pierced the western horizon, passed through it, and were gone. We went
below then, to find chairs flying, crockery smashing, and state-rooms in
a wreck. It was the rough day of the trip, but we declared that we did
not mind it at all. By wireless we thanked Admiral Sperry, and wished
him safe arrival home. Then presently he returned thanks, and good
wishes for our journey in distant lands.
We meant to vote resolutions of gratitude to our captain that night at
dinner for his skill in finding the fleet. But it was our rough day, as
I have mentioned, and nobody was there to do it--at least, there was not
enough for a real, first-class, able-bodied resolution. We did it next
evening--that is, to-night. Between the asparagus and the pheasant we
told him some of the nice things we thought of him, and ended up by
drinking his health, standing, and by giving a great "Hoch soil er
leben!" in real German fashion.
We were vain and set up, and why not? Had we not been the first
Americans to give our fleet welcome home? We felt that we had become
almost history.
V
INTRODUCING THE REPROBATES
We are a week at sea now, and have been making our courtesy to the
sunrise half an hour earlier every morning. That is to say, we have
gained three hours and a half, and when the first bugle blows for
half-past seven, and commands us to get up and muss around and be ready
for the next bugle half an hour later, it means in the well-regulated
civilized country we've left behind that it's just four o'clock, and
time to turn over and settle down and really enjoy life. The result is
you swear at the bugler, when you ought to love him for the trouble he
takes to get you up in time for breakfast.
After breakfast, the deck. It is good to walk around and around the
promenade these fine mornings down here, even though the sea keeps
billowy and the horizon line lifts and falls with its majestic swing.
You are no longer disturbed by it. Your body has adapted itself to the
motion, and sways like an inverted pendulum. You feel that you have your
sea-legs almost as well as the stewards, and this makes you proud and
showy before the other passengers. It is February, but it is not cold
down in this violet, semi-tropic sea. The air is fresh enough, but it is
soft and gratifying, and one almost imagines that he can smell flowers
in it. Perhaps it is a fact, too, for we are not far from land now; we
shall reach Madeira to-morrow morning.
Yet somehow the thought of land is not exciting. I do not believe any of
us are eager for it. We are quite restored now, even the Diplomat, and
the days on shipboard are serene and pleasantly satisfying.
So many happy things go to make up the day. It is refreshing to play
shuffleboard on the after deck with Laura, age fourteen, and her
companion, the only other girl of her age on board. It is inspiring to
hear the band play every morning at ten when one is not too close to the
strenuous music. I suppose beating a bass drum and cymbals makes muscle,
and the man does not realize how strong he is. It is diverting to drift
into the smoking-room--now that I do not mind its fragrance any
more--and watch the Apostle (so christened because of his name and
general build and inspired look) winning money from the Colonel at
piquet, while the Horse Doctor discusses the philosophies of life in a
manner at least pleasing to the unregenerates.
I should add, I suppose, that the Horse Doctor is not really that by
profession, but having been dubbed so one day by his fellow-Reprobates,
the Apostle and the Colonel, his cheerful reply: "Yes, I expect to be
taken for one--travelling, as I do, with a couple of asses," fixed the
title for him permanently. We enjoy the Reprobates. They are so
ingenuous in their morals, and are corrupting the smoking-room in such a
frank, unrestricted way. We enjoy their arguments too, they are so free
and personal. We disapprove of the Reprobates, but we love them because
we are human and born in sin, and they stand for all things we would
like to do--if we dared.
It is inviting and comfortable almost anywhere on the ship these days.
It is good just to sit in the sun and dream; to lean over the rail and
watch the little rainbow that travels with us, the white lace that the
ship makes in its majestic sweep, to wander back to the stern and follow
the interminable wake of the screw as it stretches back beyond the
horizon line. Then there is the sunset; it was wonderful to-night. The
air was perfectly clear, the sun a red disk going down cleanly cut into
the sea. Laura and I saw it from amidships, looking out across the high
stern of the vessel that sank now below the horizon, then lifted into
the sky. Even the chief engineer and the ship's doctor came out to look
at it, and told us to watch for the green sun which would appear the
instant after setting. Later--after dinner, I mean--we danced.
They have put a stout awning over the quarter-deck and strung a lot of
electric globes there so that when the music is going and the
illumination is turned on, the place is gay and pretty and cosey, and
those of us who have not danced for twenty years of more begin to sit up
straighter when the music starts, and presently we forget that all is
vanity and life a sorry mess at best, and look about for a partner, and
there on the wide, lifting, falling quarter-deck caper away the years.
It is not so much wonder, then, that the prospect of land does not
arouse any feverish interest. We are willing to go right on sailing for
a while and not bother about land at all.
[Illustration]
VI
A LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
It was a mistake, however, to be indifferent to Madeira. We are no
longer so. Whatever enthusiasm we lacked beforehand we have acquired
now. Of all fair, jewelled islands of the sea, it is the particular gem.
Not one of us on this ship but has made up his mind to go to Madeira
again some day, and to stay there and live happy ever after; or, if not
during life, to try to exchange a corner of heaven for it when he dies.
We knew nothing about Madeira except what the little prospectus told us,
and the day before arrival we began to look up guide-book information on
the subject. There was not much of this on the ship; I suspect that
there is not much anywhere. Madeira was known to the Phoenicians, of
course, that race of people who knew everything, went everywhere, built
all the first cities, invented all the arts, named everything, and then
perished. I ought to be sorry that they perished, I suppose, but I'm
not. I've heard enough of that tribe on this ship.
The Patriarch is stuffed full of Phoenician statistics, and to touch
any line of historical discussion in his hearing is like tripping over a
cord attached to a spring gun. He is as fatal as an Irishman I once knew
who was perfectly adorable until some question of race came up. Then it
was time to stand from under. According to Malone there was originally
but one race--the Irish. All the early saints were Irish; so was
Abraham; so was Noah; so was Adam; so was--but that is far enough back.
I remember hearing him tell one night how, in a later day, when
Alexander the Great set out to conquer Asia, he first sent emissaries to
make peace with Ireland as a precaution against being attacked in the
rear.
But I am beginning to wander. There is no trace of the Phoenicians, I
believe, on Madeira to-day, and the early history of the island is
mainly mythical. When ancient Mediterranean sailors went exploring a
little into the Atlantic and saw its purple form rise on the horizon
they decided that it must be the mouth of hell, or at all events the
abode of evil creatures, and hastily turned back. One account says that
in the course of time a gentleman named Taxicab--probably the inventor
of the vehicle later known by that name--and his companion were
shipwrecked on Madeira and set up a monument in celebration of the
event. I don't know what became of Taxicab and his friend or the
monument, but about the same time it was discovered again by a
Portuguese named Zargo, who set it afire as a means of clearing the
land of its splendid forests and kept the fires going for seven
years.[1]
Zargo's devastation began about five hundred years ago, and the island
has required all those centuries for recovery. It may be added that he
believed Madeira to be the lost Atlantis, though a point of land thirty
miles long and fifteen miles wide could hardly be more than a splinter
of that vanished continent. More likely Madeira and the fragmentary
islets about it formed that mythical Ultima Thule referred to by
Ulysses, when, according to Tennyson, he said:
"My purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles whom we knew."
Perhaps Madeira was indeed a home of gods and favored spirits in the
olden days. It would have been a suitable place. When we drew near
enough to see its terraced hills--lofty hills they are, some of them in
the interior rising to a point six thousand feet above the sea--and to
make out the tiny houses nestling like white and tinted shells against
the green, we changed our minds about being willing to sail past without
stopping, and when at last we swung slowly into the Harbor of Funchal we
felt somehow that we had come upon an island enchantment in the middle
of the sea.
For everything was so marvellous in its beauty: the green hills,
terraced almost to the very top; the gorges between, the little fairy
city just where the hills flow into the sea. With glasses one could make
out flowering vines on many of the walls. Even with the naked eye,
somebody presently discovered a great purple mass, part way up the
hillside. The glass showed it to be a house almost covered with
bougainvillea--our first vision of this lavish and splendid flower of
the Mediterranean.
As we drew in and came to anchor, we saw descending upon us a fleet of
small, curious boats, filled with half-naked men. We prepared for the
worst, but they merely wanted us to throw coins over in the liquid azure
which they call water in this country, whereupon their divers would try
to intercept the said coins somewhere between the top and bottom of the
sea. We didn't believe they could do it, which was poor judgment on our
part.
[Illustration: THEY COULD DIVE LIKE SEALS]
If those amphibians did not always get the coins, they generally did.
They could see them perfectly in that amazing water, and they could dive
like seals. Some of the divers were mere children--poor, lean creatures
who stood up in their boats and shouted and implored and swung their
arms in a wild invitation to us to fling our money overboard. They did
not want small money--at least, not very small money--they declined to
dive for pennies. Perhaps they could only distinguish the gleam of the
white metal. Let a nickel or a dime be tossed over and two or three
were after it in a flash, while a vehement outbreak of Portuguese from
all the rest entreated still further largess. It was really a good show,
and being the first of its kind, we enjoyed it.