“Ouch! What to --ll did I get out of that infernal bed for? I wish

the Lord had made the waves some other shape. I’d rather get out and

walk home than ride up every derned single wave in the ocean and then

slide back again. I always supposed that a boat went forward instead of

upward and downward and sideways. Confound the boat!--I wish ’twould

go to the bottom. ’Twould serve the miserly Fruit Company right for

putting people in such a drifting rat-trap. I wish I were home. Home is

good enough for me. Whoo-oop!”

This periodic whooping reminded me how undignified people will act in

the most conspicuous places and inopportune moments, and how often

such unseemly actions become contagious and spread like laughter.

The man had evidently rushed or staggered out to the outer door as he

uttered the last whoop. After a short session of silent thought, I

heard him walk back to his stateroom mumbling between his teeth:

“The yellow fever is bad enough, but seasickness is a deuced sight

worse. The next time I want to see a _canal_ I’ll look at the Chicago

Drainage Canal. When I want a change of climate I’ll stay in Chicago

where it’s always changing, and where it sometimes changes for the

better.”

I took an ounce of dry sherry at nine-thirty and again at ten, and soon

after arose to give my bones a needed rest. After some shivering from

the unaccustomed cold, some unintentional collisions and gyrations

about the room, and some expressions of opinion about the luxury and

healthfulness of sea voyages, followed now and then by a short recess

in my bunk in order to press my bruised scalp into shape and allow the

whirl in my head to subside, I succeeded at last in getting my winter

flannels and heavy suit out of my trunk and on me. As the result of the

night’s wakefulness and the morning’s exercise of bracing and holding

on while dressing, I actually felt a desire to eat, and resolved to do

it before I changed my mind.

There were not many at table, for most of those who had arisen early

had already changed their mind. As I couldn’t conceive of anything

worse than going back to my cabin, I lay down on the cushioned benches

along the wall of the dining-room and gained some of the rest I had

lost during the noisy night. We were going ahead again but only at the

rate of seven knots an hour, were already nearly twenty-four hours

behind our schedule time, and were likely to lose another twenty-four

before reaching New Orleans. To try to go faster would have put us in

danger of breaking the screw propeller, of losing our loose rudder

and of cracking open at the part of our shell that had struck on the

reef. In fact, we had been voyaging under conditions that according to

natural laws and insurance statistics should have resulted in a wreck,

and were content to be careful. Better two more days of comparative

purgatory than to take up hastily and without preparation a longer

residence in some more uncertain place.

CHAPTER V

The Didactics of Seasickness

Breaking the Sabbath--Giving up--Humiliation--Beef Tea Versus

Coffee--A Disappointed Engineer--English without Grammar--The

Lecture--Pathology--She-sickness--A Rebuke--Symptoms--A Homœopathic

Cure--The Passive Treatment--A Reproach--Conclusions--A Suggestion and

a Vote of Thanks.

During the first day of the “norther” both the ship and myself came

through without any but threatened accidents, although neither of us

was seaworthy. The next morning, however, my stomach broke the Sabbath

and my pride had a fall. To arise early on Sunday is a bad habit; we

are commanded to make Sunday a day of rest, I ought to have known

better.

I arose in time for “coffee” and found the “norther” breaking the

Sabbath, but did not take the hint. I stumbled out of bed and was

precipitated across the stateroom, balancing and plunging from door to

washstand and from bunk to trunk. I got one foot in my trousers and

fell over, tried it again and sat down on the floor, holding on with

my right hand while I pulled up my left suspender, and vice versa.

Suddenly my stomach felt as if it were going to _break_, as the Germans

say. I quickly ducked my head and allowed myself to be thrown into my

bunk, and called up Christian Science, as I had successfully done the

day before. But it was Sunday and she wouldn’t work. It would have been

a feather in Doctor Brower’s hat to have caught me. But he probably was

too busy himself to be out hunting for feathers. After a short rest I

took some sherry, which is not a calendar saint, and it worked, for in

half an hour I was able to finish my toilet and go to the dining-room

and publicly drink a cupful of beef tea. The ship coffee did not tempt

me, which was a point in its favor. Indeed, if all coffee were poor it

would be better--it would have less opportunity to do harm in the world.

I lay around in the dining-room after a light breakfast and listened

to instructive talks about yellow fever, leprosy, etc., but was

particularly interested and enlightened by a non-professional Western

gentleman who had gone to Panama in search of a job; one of those

travelers who, like Walter Raleigh, had never eaten with a fork. He

claimed to be an experienced engineer (whether civil or locomotive, he

did not say) who had not been able to procure any kind of work there

with a larger salary than thirty dollars a month, although Wallace was

drawing much more than that. Hence he had kicked some of the mud off

his feet and was on his way back to “God’s earth.” He could not praise

De Lesseps and the French enough. The French employed _white_ men and

paid them like gentlemen.

But the most interesting part of his long and loud conversation was the

illustration it afforded of how the English language can be used to

express vividly and intelligibly all sorts of sentiments for hours at

a stretch without conforming to a single rule of grammar. It was a most

complete triumph of synesis over syntax, of eloquence over elegance.

How he had learned to disregard the rules of grammar so unerringly was

marvelous. The unequivocal force and fluent ferocity of his expressions

afforded a striking compliment to our self-made language. Foreigners

think that the English language has no grammar, and it was the mission

of the engineer to prove that it could do without it. He expressed

himself much more clearly and impressively than a large proportion of

men do whose speech is all grammar. He said:

“Them French was cracker-jacks, and no joke. They wasn’t afeared

to employ white men, nohow; and they knowed how to treat ’em. The

Amerikins won’t employ nobody but niggers or such as works for niggers’

wages. They’ll never get the blamed banana canal digged no way. They

ain’t nothin’ doin’, nor won’t be while them fellers is bossin’ the

job, and it’s up to you and I to show ’em up. A man kin go down there

and work until he pegs out, but he can’t get no pay fur it--only

hell. The hull business ain’t got nuther head nor tail, it needs

preorganization, and that’s what it ain’t got. As to Wallace, him and

me ain’t old cronies, but we know each other, and that’s enough.” I

concluded that he was a locomotive engineer, a _loco_ as the Spanish

would call him.

As it was Sunday and there was no ordained preacher aboard, and Doctor

Senn wouldn’t preach, and Doctor Brower couldn’t preach while the wind

blew, I delivered a medical lecture on seasickness, believing that the

best way of benefiting them morally was by material instruction. I felt

that I could speak from experience, and that there were those about

me who could appreciate from experience. We could at least hold an

experience meeting. I began:

“Seasickness may be defined as an uncertain attitude followed by a

certain act. It is one of the most ancient and orthodox of known

ailments. The Greeks called it nausea or boatsickness, and it has

changed neither in name, in nature nor in the manner of manifesting

itself. It is thus as immutable as the Catholic religion, although it

depends upon the weather, which, during the past few centuries, has

undergone many changes, like the Protestant. It resembles religion in

that it has no pathology; it resembles disease in that it makes people

sick. It depends neither upon germs nor upon imagination as do the

modern orthodox ailments.”

At this there was a murmur of dissent and slight temporary inattention.

Raising my voice, therefore, like a lawyer, I proceeded:

“To illustrate: When a woman has hysteria she wishes you to treat

_her_, and not the disease; but when she is seasick, she wishes you to

treat the disease, and let her alone.”

Doctor Morrow, the tall, lardaceous, disgustingly healthy and

handsome-looking young doctor from California, who could laugh more

eloquently than he could talk, interrupted me and wanted to know if it

wasn’t _she_-sickness that I referred to.

“No, sir,” I said, “I refer to seasickness. Seasickness does not wear

off during the daytime and does not depend upon conditions within, but

on conditions without the body. In order that seasickness or Greek

nausea may exist there must be a boat and a breeze--a zephyr, as the

Greeks called it. ’Tis interesting to note that the discovery by the

Greeks that the disease was a boat-sickness, or disease of the boat,

led them to personify the boat. And this is why a boat is called _she_

instead of it. The word nausea originally had an _h_ in it, and was

spelled nau-she-a.”

“Then the Greeks did consider it a she-sickness,” butted in Doctor

Morrow, who was still harping on women--a man of one idea.

“Doctor Morrow, you have yet to learn the silence of medicine, which,

in practice, is as important as the science. And as for the art, the

Greeks would have made a statue of Hercules out of you, and would

have given you muscle in place of fat, form in place of speech, poise

instead of avoirdupois. A want of silence is often more meaningless

than a want of speech. The disease could not have been _she_-sickness,

although if you insist on gender, you might call it _her_-sickness

since the disease can be said to affect _her_, but can not be said to

affect _she_. Both Greek and grammar are against it.”

He was silenced, even to his laugh.

“The symptoms are exaggerated but honorable hiccups, a persistent but

harmless disinclination to retain food, and an indifference to danger

that makes one willing to be thrown overboard without having the

courage or energy to insist upon being thrown.

“The treatment is always successful, for the patients all get well.

As an illustration of how a complete cure may thus be effected I will

relate the case of a confessed homœopath who, I am ashamed to say,

crossed the Atlantic in the same boat in which I did. He prescribed for

himself pure water taken according to homœopathic ‘dilution,’ viz., ten

drops of water in a tumblerful of whiskey, two tablespoonfuls to be

taken every half hour or two while awake. And he continued thus taking

water until we arrived at our destination. I met him three days after,

and asked him if he had been seasick. He said that he had felt bad

since _leaving_ the boat, but couldn’t remember having felt sickness of

any kind _on_ the boat. This was a perfect remedy in his case, and the

proper one for those who believe in homœopathy.”

“Hear, hear!” “Y-o-u-reka!” “Down with homœopathy,” and other

spontaneous applause greeted me from all sides, and encouraged me to

continue talking.

“But there is another class of cases and another kind of treatment,

viz., the passive or starvation treatment, which is homœopathy carried

to its true and logical end and aim.

“It consists in going to bed and eating nothing and drinking water

from a teaspoon until the boat has given up plunging, or arrives at

its destination. If the patient is still able to do so he then arises

and assumes the activities and indulgences of life, and temporarily

recovers. This is the fat man’s remedy. His stomach is relieved of

its fat and of its fullness. It gives him the prolonged fast that

his burdened system needs and which he has not the self-denial and

fortitude to take on shore. It constitutes the benefit of a sea voyage

upon his health, and is the only obesity cure worthy of trial, except

the one employed by Panama cabdrivers upon their horses.

“We have an illustration of the efficacy of the passive treatment in

Doctor Frank. He stays in bed and rests his stomach. He neither eats

nor drinks, yet not one of you is improving in health as he is. It is

the repudiation of our food and the ridicule of our remedies, since the

patient has nothing to do but not to eat and drink. If his patients

knew of this and had common sense instead of blind faith, Doctor Frank

would not have to go to sea to starve. Our patients should therefore

know what we _do_, but not what we do _not_ do. For a lot of doctors

to embark in a boat and have everything their own way, and learn

nothing and do nothing about boat-sickness, except to get it, is a

reproach to our profession. You talk knowingly, but you must remember

that boat-sickness is not a mere postprandial-ephemera. You ought to

know that one should not only fast on board but also on land before

boarding. How not to eat is an oriental delicacy----”

Here I was interrupted with such long-continued applause and discussion

and such frivolous interrogations that I concluded that they were unfit

to be reformed, and did not wish to learn how not to eat. How _not_

to eat is one of the lost arts. In keeping with the development of

the culinary art, man’s longevity has diminished in 6,000 years from

969 down to 70 years, and his teeth and appendix have been steadily

dwindling and will soon fall out. In a few thousand more years another

zero will be dropped from his age and the world will contain babes

only. But as my audience was unprepared for such a revelation, I closed

with the following short summary of my views:

“Therefore, seasickness is not a disease to be avoided, but a remedy to

be taken. You have much to learn, but much more to unlearn before you

can tell the world anything about it. You must become as babes, and be

unborn and born again before you can unlearn and learn again.”

“Every man to his berth,” shouted Morrow, who was entirely devoid of a

sense of humor. He regarded my lecture as a joke.

A vote of thanks was passed with the request that, if I should talk

again, I take up the subject she-sickness, which they considered more

interesting and more in my line. They were still harping on women, and

I resolved to cast no more pearls, remembering that all big D’s do not

stand for doctor.

CHAPTER VI

The Last Day at Sea and the First on Land

A Bad Headache and a Bitter Dose--A Poem--The Singing Cherubs--A Sign

of Fair Weather--Promised Feasting--Eating Oneself into Premature

Old Age, and Starving into a Ripe Old Age--A Delicate Question--A

Business Meeting--Drawing up Resolutions to Exonerate the Captain--The

Eads and Jetties--An Enjoyable Toilet--A Hook Apiece--The Penalty

of Early Rising--A Cold Day--Discovery of the Preston--Unfavorable

Comparison--New Orleans and Oysters--Absinthe--A Fraudulent Automobile

Ride--Advice to Young Men--A Corrected Advertisement--The French

Quarter and Legendary New Orleans

The next morning was Monday, our last day on the “ocean wave” and

“rolling deep,” with all its poetry and pantomime. We were due at New

Orleans Tuesday forenoon and were happy in anticipation of soon being

back on prosaic land again.

When I awoke I knew that the “norther” was weakening, for the motion of

the boat was quite consistent with an elaborate toilet, and produced no

uncomfortable sensations. In fact, the cool, invigorating United States

air made all of us feel lively and disposed us to object to coffee and

jam sandwiches as a substitute for something to eat.

Everybody was well and on deck except Doctor Waite, who had a

headache. When I had about completed my elaborate toilet (which

consisted not of any extra finery, but rather of an elaboration and

deliberation in the adjustment of the same old weather-worn and

salted-down garments), I opened my stateroom door just in time to be

in at the finish of an interesting sick headache. Doctor Waite had

sent for Doctor Hughes, one of those prescribing neurologists who

place their confidence in medicine rather than in their Maker, who

pursue their cases to death, and dose them until they die. He wore a

gentle, white-haired, sugar-cure expression on his face, and suggested

an overflowing fountain of professional kindness in the tones of his

voice. But he was giving her one of those old-fashioned bitter draughts

such as only neurologists know how to compound--not harmful but worse,

and which depend largely upon their taste to cure the patient of all

further desire for diseases or drugs. She, womanlike, swallowed the

dose as if it had been the gospel. It was hardly down, however, before

it returned as if from a volcano, and threatening to carry away the

crown of her head. She was frightened at the suddenness and intensity

of the paroxysm and disgusted by the terrible taste, or she would have

noticed the immediate relief that followed. In her sudden fright she

exclaimed:

“Oh, Doctor, you’ve killed me; you’ve killed me. Ugh! This is terrible.”

“Madam!” said Doctor Hughes in his soft and gentle way, “you misjudge

me. I may be a killing _man_ but I’m not a killing _doctor_. Ahem!”

Doctor Waite had to laugh at him; and her headache passed off. She

expressed a determination, however, not to have another until she was

safe at home.

At the breakfast table one of the doctors, whose identity I will not

betray, read the following poem:

Low she lay with aching head,

Mingling moan with smothered sigh.

“Dose her,” all the doctors said;

“Dose her, Hughes, or she will die.”

Dosed her with his deadly stuff

Till she groaned, “My end is nigh.”

Then the doctors said, “Enough!

Make her laugh, Hughes, or she’ll cry.”

“I’m a killing man,” he coughed,

“But no killing doctor--see?”

She forgot the dose, and laughed.

She was cured, and _it_ was he.

Hughes-dee-dum and Hughes-dee-dee.

We had hardly finished criticising the impropriety of thus making

public the privacy of the sick-chamber when we were startled by a

hilarious hullabaloo outside, a strident inharmony of jubilant vocal

sounds emulating and imitating the cadence of song. We looked toward

the port-hole windows, and there stood Fasting Frank and Heavenly

Hughes leaning on their elbows and smiling like cherubs, and singing

popular songs at the top of their voices. I blushed at the undignity of

it. Doctors! Professors! Fathers! I felt embarrassed. They would not

have done it before their families and patients. But I was glad to

see them, for I knew that if Doctor Frank had come out of his hole in

the wall fair weather and a calm sea had come in earnest. The greeting

we gave him was vociferous and as undignified as his behavior. His

seasickness had been a premeditated means of increasing his popularity

without exerting himself. He had fasted himself into favor. To see him

smile like a child, and then howl like a Dervish after a five-days’

fast and close confinement, made us regard him as a suffering hero who

no longer suffered, although anyone who couldn’t eat could do the same.

We persuaded him to come in to “coffee,” although he declared that it

was against his principles to eat or drink at sea. He wasn’t ready to

be tempted yet.

“Tut, tut!” I said, “A cup of coffee and half a roll can not upset you,

now that the storm is over.”

“Half a roll, man!” he cried. “Do you know what it is to eat half a

roll after a five-days’ fast? _Half a roll!_ Do you know how good it

feels to fill up a complete and perfect vacuum in you when you get

started? Do you know how good it feels to have your stomach full of

solid greasy food after it has been digesting itself for a week?”

“Do I know?” said I. “It is the man who denies himself that knows the

joys of indulgence. To habitually suffer from prolonged and painful

hunger before each meal, and always stop when you have taken a few

mouthfuls and your appetite is at its fiery zenith, is the best

training for the mad enjoyment of a full and filling meal that I know

of; and I know of it. You are young yet. Wait until you get the gout

and you’ll be thankful for half a roll. You’re not rich enough to

appreciate half of a dry roll. Your time is coming.”

“Why, you’re just the man I am seeking,” he exclaimed. “I am hunting

for a fellow who is as starved as I am and as you look. When we get to

New Orleans to-morrow morning, we will have an oyster supper, postponed

from to-night; at noon we’ll have an oyster supper for lunch, and

before we take the night train to Chicago we will have another oyster

supper. Just think of it, if we were not thirty-six hours late we would

have the three suppers in us now.”

“Doctor Frank,” I said, “you are going to make yourself sick in

earnest, for on land you will not have seasickness to cure and curb you

of your overeating. I will eat these three suppers with you and get my

stomach full for once--and then swear off forever.”

Here Doctor Morrow interrupted me. “Full for once? Full forever, you

mean! You have only been full once since we left Bocas--you have kept

at that sherry between meals and claret at meals----”

“Doctor Morrow, I refer to food--food only. On dry land I drink neither

sherry nor claret, only water at different temperatures and dilutions.

I am glad to say that I am not as you are. I do not intend to harden my

arteries and bring on premature arteriosclerosis by overeating. You eat

twice as much as you ought to eat every day of your life, except when

you are ‘off your food,’ as the result of it, and when nature evens up

by _forcing_ you to fast. I intend to curb my appetite. To make use of

a paradox, I might say that I am going to starve myself to a good old

age.”

“You’ve done it already.”

“Look here, Morrow, you’re a great man, thanks to your appetite. But

beware! A man is also as old as his appetite makes him. You’ll die of

old age by the time you are forty. If I had your appetite I’d have been

dead ten years ago. You are the most unpromising insurance risk here

except Doctor Newman, who was never made to be an old man and knows

it, and who can thus eat himself to death with impunity. There is hope

for the others. Doctor Frank fasts occasionally, and thus postpones

the day of reckoning. Doctor Senn is smoked through and through, and

smoked bodies undergo no farther change or decay. Doctor Brower is

water-soaked, and water-soaked timber sometimes lasts a long time.

Doctor Hughes and I are drying up, and when we are thoroughly dried we

will last longer than any of you.”

“How about me?” asked Doctor Waite.

“I cannot pass upon your case, for the nourishing and keeping qualities

of eggs are uncertain. In a cold climate you might live quite a long

time.”

While I was talking, all had left the dining-room except Doctor Waite,

who arose to follow them. I knew that she was exceedingly conscientious

and truthful, and I determined to ask her a question about a matter

which was troubling my conscience.

“Doctor Waite, you have asked me a question; may I ask you an equally

important one in return?”

“Why, certainly, Doctor, and I shall try and be as frank as you were

when I asked mine.”

“I merely wish to ask you if you have noticed anything wrong about me?”

She said she had noticed that I had been in a critical state of mind

ever since we left Colón.

“In a critical state? Is that so? Am I as _bad_ off as that?”

“You have raked us over the coals pretty _badly_.”

“Is that so? I often do things badly. I’ll try and do it _better_

hereafter. But have I been acting out of the ordinary? Has my

articulation been distinct? I sometimes talk without listening to

myself, and----”

“And so do not always know what you are saying,” she said with a little

laugh. “Well, if I must speak out I should say that you are talking

somewhat unintelligibly now. I hadn’t paid enough attention before to

notice it.”

“Well, I feel very much obliged to you for not noticing it. There is no

harm in talking unintelligibly when you are not noticed. I wish I knew

whether I have been enjoying myself or not. Having a good time is much

more unsatisfactory when you don’t know it. At home I have a good time

working hard, but I know it; on this voyage I have worked much harder

at having a good time, and didn’t know I had it. At home I shall work

off this tired feeling. In fact, I should have explained before----”

“Never explain anything to a woman, Doctor. Explanations and arguments

never convince us. We are apt to take them as jokes to be laughed at.”

“Well, women are right. They laugh much more effectually than they

reason. To laugh at us is one of woman’s rights. And we laugh _with_

them to show that we approve of woman’s rights. But I merely wanted to

get an honest professional opinion, and didn’t know how. They are so

hard to find. I have been calculating how much alcoholic liquor I have

consumed since landing at Colón a little over two weeks ago. I have

drunk half a pint of whiskey, two quart bottles of beer, three quart

bottles of wine and a quart of soft drinks. Think of the mixture! I

have kept on drinking regularly and have not, to my knowledge, been

intoxicated. I have felt well during the whole time until now, but now

I’m beginning to feel bad. What I want to know is whether I have been

irresponsible during the whole time and am just beginning to clear

up, or whether I have been sober the whole of the time and am just

beginning to feel the effects of all I have taken.”

She again laughed three or four notes as she answered:

“Well, there has certainly been something unusual about you, but

whether it was due to the disturbance of the liquid in the sea or in

the bottles I will not attempt to decide. In the first place, I never

saw you so critical in Chicago as you have been on board. In the second

place, you have been offering and recommending wine to ladies, which

you never do in Chicago. In the third place, you have criticised my

eating, which no other gentleman has done.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll do it as a _doctor_ hereafter, not as a

gentleman. As a return favor I will ask of you not to speak of my

condition to any one in Chicago. I suppose the delegates all know of

it. But I’ll shut their mouths; I’ll treat them in New Orleans, etc.”

“But, Doctor, they would refuse to take treatment. They will not be

sick on dry land. Sherry will be superfluous there.”

She finally got away from me and my questions, and went to prepare

egg-nogs for the convalescing ladies. She beats the world making

egg-nogs--for ladies. Men don’t like them.

Later we held a business meeting of the passengers in the dining-room

in order to give substantial expression of our gratitude to the

gentlemanly crew of the S. S. Brighton for our rescue from the reefs

in the lagoon of Chiriqui on a dark and rainy night; also to the

captain who had so successfully stood the trial of his first trip

as a commander and had consulted the heavens so diligently for us,

predicting stormy weather with unerring accuracy. We feared that the

adventure of the reefs might be used by his enemies and the United

Fruit Company as an excuse for depriving him of his command of the

smallest, most rickety and most sure-to-go-down boat of the line.

We also took up a subscription which netted each man of the crew a

dollar for having risked his life for us when the boat struck and stuck

on the bottom where it really belonged.

We then drew up the following resolutions in honor of the captain, to

be presented by him to the United Fruit Company. We made them strong

and striking in order that they might not be put aside unnoticed:

“WHEREAS, the S. S. Brighton did, between the night of Jan. 10 and the

morning of Jan. 11, 1905, come to rest on a reef in Chiriqui Lagoon,

and thus imperil the lives of her passengers and the reputation of her

captain;

“WHEREAS, the S. S. Brighton was not made for man but for bananas;

“WHEREAS, in a time of danger, when the moon and stars failed and

darkness prevailed, when the passengers were suffering from the fear

of death and the feeling of nausea, the captain was cool and collected

and waited in patience until the sun arose and the cock crew and the

ship forced its way backward into deep water;

“WHEREAS, we deliberately and of our own free will, chose the said

Brighton, and were, thus responsible for our mistake, and the company

of its own free will chose the captain and is thus responsible for his

mistakes;

“WHEREAS, we should not have been caught out at night in the absence

of the heavenly bodies, or of the phosphorescence of the waves, or of

the fireflies of the beach to indicate to the negro pilot where we

were at;

“THEREFORE, be it resolved that we, the benighted and bereeft

passengers of the S. S. Brighton, do hereby express and extend our

thanks to the captain and the ship for successfully getting us off the

bottom and out of danger;

“RESOLVED, that we assume the blame for the accident in that we added

weight to the ship and worry to the captain;

“RESOLVED, that we promise nevermore to put this responsibility upon

the ship, but will stay at home and attend to our own affairs;

“RESOLVED, that we beg clemency and favor for the gallant captain, and

that he be given a pilot who can see in the dark;

“FINALLY, we, the survivors of the last but not least eventful voyage

of the S. S. Brighton, do petition that the ship be enlarged as fast

as possible, that basins be attached to the pillow-ends of the bunks,

that the allowance of wash water be doubled, that the electric lights

be not put out at midnight, that evaporated cream be provided for

coffee instead of condensed milk, and that bananas and bric-a-brac

hereafter be carried to the exclusion of passengers.

“Signed.”

There was a prolonged discussion as to whether we should all sign

these resolutions individually or whether merely the president, Doctor

Brower, and the secretary of the meeting, Doctor Morrow, should sign

officially. The secretary was finally forced to sign them alone.

We were to arrive at the jetties at 10 P. M. according to the captain’s

consultations with the heavenly bodies. Now if the captain had any

shortcomings it was not a lack of devotion to the heavenly bodies,

which he consulted frequently and fervently. But he never succeeded

in fixing correctly the time of arrival anywhere. It was I who had

_faith_ in the heavenly bodies, yet never consulted them, who could

prophesy unerringly. Whenever the captain announced the time I added

two hours. So when we were told that we would arrive at the jetties at

10 P. M., I knew that we would arrive at midnight.

About half of the passengers had never seen the jetties, for on their

trip to Panama they had passed out of the river after bedtime. And now

that they were to _enter_ the river after dark they were inconsolable.

Next to Panama they desired to see the jetties, about which they had

heard and read so much. They asked all sorts of questions about them;

what jetties meant, what Eads meant, what jetties and Eads looked like.

The sun sank in Oriental splendor behind his green and golden

bedcurtains as we went to dinner, and the unfortunates complained of

the sun for setting before we got to the Eads and jetties. They blamed

the captain for not having sailed faster during the storm in order to

arrive before sundown. They were not content with having escaped the

dangers of the reef, as well as having kept the rudder and saved the

screw and crew during the storm. With them the jetties were the thing,

the dangers passed were nothing. Who cares for dangers that are passed?

They wished that they had waited for the Preston, or that the Brighton

would anchor outside all night.

We told them that they could sit up and see the lights, and so could

tell everybody that they had seen the Eads and jetties.

As they kept on asking what the Eads and jetties looked like, they

received various answers. Some said they looked like lighthouses on

piers; others that they were like Greek temples covered with electric

lights; others said that they were nude figures of lions bearing

immense candelabra on their heads and electric lights on their tails;

others said that they were a narrow channel running out at sea--mere

longitudinal space. When we got through answering them they were

discouraged, for they would not be able to describe the Eads and

jetties to their friends at home.

They, of course, took the captain’s word that we would pass the jetties

at 10 P. M. and paid no attention to my assurance that we would pass

them at midnight. At ten o’clock they were gaping and shivering on deck

like tired ghosts on a moonless night, and wished they had gone to bed.

By eleven it was evident that I had told them the truth about the time

of passing the jetties, so they placed a sentinel to watch the Eads and

jetties and report what he saw, that they might describe them to their

friends.

I enjoyed making my toilet the following morning as I had not for

a long time. To be able to stand still and stretch both arms above

my head leisurely and without danger of falling; to be able to gape

without having a tooth knocked loose by an approaching shelf or edge

of a bunk; to be able to get the right foot in the right trouser leg

at the first attempt; to be able, while washing, to stoop down without

a head-on dive; to find both shoes on the same side of the room, and

my clothes hanging on the nail just as I had hung them: these were

luxuries that made me forget my previous misery. Reaction from misery

is, after all, the best substitute for happiness. Real happiness is too

rare and impalpable, and is enjoyed in the past and future only.

Doctor Senn and I each had one hook upon which to hang our overcoats,

heavy suits, belts, hats and the garments we removed at night. And I

was glad that there had been no occupant of the sofa bunk to share

these two hooks with us, for there would then have been no alternative

but to throw our city clothes overboard where they would have been

better preserved. I never knew to how much use one hook could be put

until we tested the possibilities on the Brighton; nor did I realize

the condition clothes could get into from hanging in a bunch upon one

nail for a week.

At “coffee” I found the whole company. Those who had sat up and

shivered while watching for the “Eads” and jetties looked hollow-eyed.

The vigilants had retired at eleven o’clock, but had lain awake a long

time with disappointment and cold feet, and had arisen early, famished

and unrefreshed, and had shivered and shifted about cold corners and

corridors for a couple of hours waiting for lukewarm coffee and jam to

start the depressed circulation through their congealed capillaries.

Although it was a cold January day and ice had formed during the

night, the river looked beautiful in the morning sunlight as we came

nearer to New Orleans. Doctor Waite was even more enthusiastic in her

appreciation than were the ladies who were not doctors, a thing which

I could not understand. I always had supposed that a busy surgical

life would take nearly all of the womanly out of a person. I had often

observed such an effect upon others as well as upon myself.

When we arrived off the docks of the United Fruit Company the first

thing we noticed was the S. S. Preston, the large boat that had not

arrived at Colón when we left, and for which we did not wait because

we wanted to save time and avoid the crowd. We expected the delegates

to return in it _en masse_ and crowd it until it would become more

uncomfortable than the smaller, unpopular boat, the Brighton, that

detestable little, breakdown little, slow poke of a rat-trap which no

one was supposed to take, but which nearly every one did take. The

Preston had sailed from Colón two days later than the Brighton and had

arrived at New Orleans two days earlier. On a scheduled five-days’ trip

she had beaten us by four days. She had provided a stateroom for each

passenger or married couple, had not struck a reef, and had only broken

one sailor’s leg--which didn’t signify as Doctor Palmer was there to

set it immediately. She had kept her screw in the water and her deck

out of the water, and thus had allowed passengers to eat, sleep and

wear dry clothes. Some of us felt like blowing up the Brighton and the

United Fruit Company, one with dynamite and the other with damning it.

We arrived at the docks in time for me to take the morning train for

Chicago and thus escape Doctor Frank and his three deadly oyster

suppers. But the suspicions of Uncle Sam had to be allayed, and before

we had signed papers and suffered the conventional derangement of our

baggage and bric-a-brac, the train had gone and I was doomed to eat

oysters and drink gin fizz and absinthe with a starved man. It is not

pleasant, after you have eaten more than you want, to sit half an hour

or so and watch a starved man giving way to the eager ecstasy of slowly

oncoming repletion. It seems to be the uppermost desire of every one

upon arriving at New Orleans to eat a dish of oysters. In fact, it is

remarkable what an amount of enjoyment the human being gets out of

what it puts into its stomach, forgetting that an organ which affords

such universal and almost continuous enjoyment deserves, like Hamlet’s

“Players,” to be well used.

After satisfying our curiosity by taking a silver fizz, a drink which

had made a reputation for a certain saloon in New Orleans, Doctors

Frank and Newman and I had our eleven o’clock breakfast (the postponed

oyster supper) at a French restaurant near the St. Charles. I myself

could only eat half a dozen of those large and luscious oysters, but

I will not destroy the reader’s good opinion, if he have one, of my

comrades by telling how many they ate. However, we finally stopped

eating, promising ourselves other oyster meals before the time for the

evening trains to depart, and went to a saloon in the French quarter to

increase our knowledge by taking a drink of the absinthe that had made

New Orleans and this saloon famous for twenty years. I swallowed my

dose and pretended that it was good. Absinthe makes people lie. It is

the essence of seasickness and mendacity, and good only for those who,

like horses, can’t get sick at the stomach and can’t tell the truth.

When I have an enemy I will treat him to absinthe, but I will not drink

it with him. Doctor Frank liked it on account of its reputation, just

as his patients like him. Doctor Newman looked at his emptied glass and

grunted, then rolled his head solemnly from side to side and opened his

mouth as if he were going to say something important; but nothing came

out.

In the afternoon after all hands had had their oyster lunches, we were

attracted by the “sight-seeing auto” standing in front of the St.

Charles. Circulars were scattered about, advertising “Two delightful

tours daily and Sunday, leaving St. Charles Hotel daily at 10 A. M.

and 2 P. M.” I have thought it worth while to print a copy of the

advertised description of the tour in order to show the reader how

quackery flourishes and is respected in business life as well as in

professional. I formerly supposed that the medical, legal and sporting

professions were the only ones which could successfully impose their

frauds upon the public, but I am now hunting for the only profession

or business that does not. I would advise all young men to divide the

business public into two classes, viz., enemies and friends. The former

will want his money to enrich themselves at his expense; the latter

will solicit it to ruin both him and themselves--but him at any rate.

Above all he should beware of the latter, that his money may not ruin

_both_.

DESCRIPTION OF TOUR

The largest automobile in the world takes its way through the modern

business and residential sections of New Orleans as well as that most

mystical and picturesque part known as the “French Quarter.” Here

every square has its realistic or legendary lore and here will be seen

the descendants of the French and Spanish noblesse and that peculiar

type of American civilization--the creole of Louisiana.

Below are given a

FEW ATTRACTIONS OF THIS TOUR

St. Charles Hotel.

A Ride Along the Great Levees.

Canal Street.

Steamboat Landing.

The Custom House and Post Office

(Corner stone laid by Henry Clay).

Liberty Monument.

Building costing $4,000,000.00.

Lafayette Square.

Henry Clay Monument.

Mississippi River Packets.

Algiers.

Immense Sugar Refinery.

Jackson Square.

Former “Plantations of the King.”

Place d’Armes.

Royal Street.

City Hall (1850).

New Court House and Jail.

Orpheum Theater.

Y. M. C. A. Building.

First Sugar Refinery in Louisiana

(1794).

Statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Lee Circle.

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.

St. Louis Cemetery No. 2.

St. Louis Cemetery No. 3.

Pickwick Club.

Chess, Checker and Whist Club.

Building in which Mardi Gras Balls

are held.

Statue of Benjamin Franklin.

Statue of John McDonough.

Beautiful St. Charles Avenue.

First Presbyterian Church.

Home of the Famous “Sazerac

Cocktail.”

Old French Market.

House where Gen. Lafayette was

entertained.

Old Basin.

Carondelet Canal.

Most Ancient Cemetery in New

Orleans.

Monument to Gen. Jackson.

Bourbon Street.

First Church to be built in

Louisiana.

Building in which transfer of

Louisiana Purchase was made to

U. S.

Old Antique Shops.

Ancient Court House.

Old Cabildo--house of Spanish,

French and American Governments.

St. Louis Cathedral (first built

in 1718).

Famous French Opera House.

Old St. Louis Hotel (now Hotel

Royal).

Tulane and Crescent Theatres.

Cotton Exchange.

Boston Club.

The famous auto passes these and many more points of interest,

traversing the historic byways and grand boulevards of this quaint

old city. An expert guide accompanies each tour and points out each

interesting feature and tells of the past grandeur and romance and the

future greatness of New Orleans.

ONE DOLLAR--THE ROUND TRIP

Leave St. Charles Hotel

Seats Reserved in Advance. Telephone, St. Charles Hotel News Stand.

Main 1600

There was a fifty-cent touring auto that started once a day from the

corner of Canal and St. Charles Street, but the best was none too good

for us (as the sequel proved) and we chose the dollar tour because the

price was higher and the advertising circulars more numerous.

The description should have commenced thus:

“The largest and most old-fashioned and used-up automobile takes its

way at a snail’s pace through the modern business and residential

sections of New Orleans as well as that most delusive and dilapidated

part known as the “French quarter.” Here every square inch has its

realistic or legendary lore of which our guide knows not a thing and

says not a word--therefore don’t bother him with questions. And here

will be seen the descendants and decadents of the French and Spanish

noblesse--and great has been the descent--and that peculiar type of

American civilization, the creole of Louisiana. All of these things and

many more will not be pointed out to you.

“The infamous auto passes by these and many more points of no more

interest, traversing the historic byways and grand boulevards of this

grand old city. A pert guy accompanies each tour and puts out each

interesting feature, and says nothing about the present, and knows

nothing about the past grandeur and romance, and the future greatness

of New Orleans.”

If the company will change the circular to read as I have corrected

it, I will recommend it as an honest one trying to live up to its

advertisement. Otherwise I must condemn it as a corrupt Philadelphia

company, a buyer of cast-off automobiles and off-caste young men,

which are sent to far-off cities to play tricks upon visitors. The

company runs automobiles in Washington and Philadelphia as well, and

sends uninstructed strangers to act as guys and guides. They depend for

their success upon the reputation of some of the well-conducted tours

in other cities, notably Chicago. They avoid trouble by collecting the

fares before they start.

On our way through the French quarter Doctor Frank tried in vain to get

a single word from the guy about “the past grandeur and romance” or the

“legendary lore,” or about the history of the places. The guy had never

studied history nor read the newspapers, and had not even learned to

speak a little piece about either history, legend, romance or “rot.”

He could not even tell a lie. He pointed his finger at a few business

houses, pronounced the names of clubs, and showed us the charred walls

of a club house that had been burned the day before, and pronounced

it the latest thing in ruins. He showed us the house of a rich man,

and when we came to the oldest Protestant church he stood up and said,

“This is the First Presbyterian Church,” and sat down. When we got back

he also showed us the New St. Charles Hotel, and we knew at least that

he was giving this last “attraction” its right name.

Should any reader doubt the truth of my words let him ask Dr. J. Frank

of Chicago, whose stomach was full after his five days of fasting, and

who therefore felt in a mood to be pleased with anything half-way

entertaining or reasonable. He will say that I have not told the truth,

but only a portion of it, and he will probably complete the recitation

of the truth and give it some of the color that belongs to it. He was

anxious to learn something about the town, but learned nothing. He

would even have been glad to tell the guy a thing or two about historic

and legendary New Orleans, or to give him a piece of his mind, if the

fellow had been capable of appreciating either thing, or anything. The

fellow didn’t know what he saw and probably would not have understood

what he heard. Anyway he did not care to see or hear. He was satisfied

with himself and his salary, and we had not the heart to interfere with

his happiness, as he had with ours.[5]

[5] In justice to the local Manhattan Auto-Car Co., whose office

is at 211 St. Charles St., I wish to say that I was again in New

Orleans in December 1907, and had a satisfactory ride in one of their

vehicles. Our guide, whose name was Ryniger, was as lively and full of

information as the one described above was stupid and ignorant. Those

who take the trip should select his car.

CHAPTER VII

Traveling North by Way of the South

Off for Chicago--Trying a Southern Railway--The Sleeping-car Mattress,

One of the Luxuries of the World--Courting Sleep--Astonishing

Discovery of Daylight--Spurious Insomnia--Missing a Cold Bath--A

Strange Stranger--Mobile--The Battle House Restaurant--Patriotic

Coffee--Delicacy Versus Flavor--Five-cent Café-au-lait--Milk Versus

Cream--Central American Bitter Coffee--Cereal Coffee--The Best

Substitute--The Stranger and the Conductor--Compelled to Keep a Saloon

in His Own House--Hugging a Young Lady--Tears and the Bottle--The

Capital of Alabama--Mismanaging a Cigar--Putting His Boots to

Bed--More Ice-water--Cakes and Lemons--Breakfast on the Train--An

Unaccountable Disappointment--Drowning Sorrow in Drink--The Great

American Treating Habit.

After our oyster supper my comrades started for Chicago via the

Illinois Central Railway, and as I was committed to the Louisville and

Nashville route, we parted company. My train was scheduled to start

at 8 P. M., but a train which was to connect with us was indefinitely

late, and as we could not safely go backward in the dark in search

of it, we had to wait. Finally the expected happened, the loiterer

arrived, and we started off at a soothing pace that put me to sleep.

At home where I had a comfortable bed, a quiet room and everything my

own way, I couldn’t go to sleep like that. In Chicago the pace is too

fast. Fortunately I had taken the precaution to ask the porter to call

me at six o’clock, that I might breakfast at a genuine U. S. hotel in

Montgomery, where the train was to rest from seven to nine.

I awoke and turned over a few times in the course of the night, as one

does on sleeping-car mattresses. I did it, however, just to feel how

soft and comfortable the mattress was, and to congratulate myself. Any

one who does not appreciate a sleeping-car mattress can learn to by

taking passage in the S. S. Brighton. Let him ask the purser, steward

or any of the officers of one of the small fruit boats about the

Pullman mattress. Let him serve on one of them for two or three years

and then try the Pullman bed. If I were a Carnegie, a Peter Cooper,

or any other conscientious multi-millionaire, living or dead, I would

create a fund with some of the money I couldn’t enjoy in Heaven or on

earth, for the purpose of enabling all employees of fruit boats to live

on land. Why do not the fruit-boatmen strike for better beds? Workmen

on land strike for everything they want, and get it; and everybody

tolerates the general inconvenience of it. We are all willing to help.

I noticed after two or three waking spells that the train was always

stationary, but inferred that it was the stopping that disturbed and

wakened me, for I was not accustomed to sleeping without noise and

motion. After a time I became convinced that I could not go to sleep

without their assistance, and waited impatiently for the train to begin

its rumbling and bumping motion. As it did not start I concluded that

it had stopped to take a long rest at Mobile, where it was due at 11:40

P. M., and that the time of day was therefore the middle of the night.

I felt like blaming the Southern railroads for the way they allowed

their express trains to lie around on side-tracks all along the line,

waiting to miss connections, instead of hustling to make time and

accommodate nervous people. I criticised them for their schedule habit

of leaving New Orleans at 8 P. M. in order to loaf about Mobile and

visit for two hours at Montgomery. My train could just as well have

left at midnight and have given me an opportunity to go to the French

opera with Doctor and Mrs. Palmer and have an oyster supper with them

afterward, as to pretend to leave at eight, lie waiting for late trains

until after nine, then shuffle off like a tramp-train and constantly

wake me by standing still. A sleeping car should not try to imitate a

bedroom in a country hotel.

I strove to become accustomed to the quiet and to will myself to sleep.

I kept turning myself over like a pancake that must sooner or later get

done. I turned on my side and tried to snore myself off. But snoring

loves an audience, and I didn’t have any. It occurred to me that I was

kept awake by the enjoyment of the to me unusual comfort of the bed, so

I turned on my side and put my under arm behind me to keep myself from

being too comfortable. When I couldn’t endure that position any longer

I uncovered my head to be able to hear what was going on, and thus

listen myself to sleep, but there were no noises. I threw down the

cover and tried to keep cool, but the car was warm. I tried all of the

stunts known to insomniacs, from complicated and inverted methods of

counting to the solution of problems and the composition of scientific

lectures, but they only made me hungry. Apparently I had not eaten

oysters enough in New Orleans to last through the attack, so I ate two

apples which I happened to have in my overcoat pocket. But eating never

did agree with me, and I became more wide awake than ever. In bed I was

no better off than an ordinary millionaire. His money could not buy

Nature’s gift to the poor, and my science could not produce it. I knew

that we were not lying at Montgomery or it would have been daylight and

the porter would have called me. Hence I concluded that my arrival in

the United States had brought back my old insomnia and that there was

no remedy for it but expatriation or a sailor’s life.

Finally I became utterly discouraged at having lost almost an entire

night’s rest, for I was too much of a veteran to expect any more sleep

that night. So I sat up and pulled aside the window curtain to see

if there were any signs of dawn. To my astonishment I let in bright

sunlight. The window curtain had fitted so tightly in the window frame

that the usual morning ray of light had not penetrated. I had mistaken

the shimmer of light about the edges of the curtains for the night

lights of the station. I rang for the porter and asked him why it was

daylight.

“Dunno, sah,” he answered, “’cept it’s eight o’clock, and we’s waitin’

heah at Mobile foh a broken bridge to git mended.”

All of my insomnia had evidently been since about 6 A. M., and after

eight hours of sleep, or two hours more than my average when I am

sleeping well. I now knew that I had acquired the insomnia habit, and

was destined to be a victim of insomnia no matter how well I slept. A

bridge over which we were to pass was disabled, and by waiting until it

was repaired, instead of going right along regardless, like a Northern

express train, we missed a cold morning bath--being given no chance to

choose between the bath and the extra nap. The train ahead of us had

taken our bath. But like all dyspeptics who fret before arising, I felt

consoled and cheerful after getting up and letting in the sunlight and

realizing that the world was still getting on all right.

As the bridge could not be sufficiently repaired for traffic until

noon, I concluded to make the best of the situation and hunt up a good

cup of coffee. Mobile was the capital of the French possessions in

America 200 years ago, long before old New Orleans was born. In the

antebellum days Mobile was the hothouse of the Southern aristocracy and

is now one of the richest towns in the old South in proportion to its

population. I would find a good cup of café-au-lait in Mobile.

While I was making my toilet, a man of about seventy years, with scant

white hair and delicate features, entered the dressing-room with a pint

bottle of whiskey in his hand, and addressed me cordially.

“Have a drop, stranger?”

“Is it French coffee?” I asked.

“No, it’s Kentucky corn juice. Try some?”

“No, I thank you. I always begin the day with a drink of pure water.”

“And end it with a drink of pure whiskey, eh? I commence with water

too, but I can’t take it pure before breakfast.”

After taking a stomachful of equal parts of whiskey and water, he

warmed up and became talkative. He told me he had boarded the train at

midnight and had awaked in the morning at the same place from which

he had started. He said the train had held its own and hadn’t drifted

any, and that he had known it wouldn’t; but he had engaged his berth

to sleep in and was going to fulfill his part of the contract like a

law-abiding citizen.

I told him that this delay was only one of many mishaps that had

befallen me, that I had experienced nothing but delays since I had left

home six weeks before, and would arrive there nearly a week behind

time. I had been singularly unfortunate.

“Young man!” he exclaimed in a startling, sepulchral voice that

quivered slightly, like that of an orator giving a cue to the emotion

he is about to evoke. “Young man, you don’t know what you are talking

about.”

“You’re right,” I answered; “I have had insomnia since six o’clock this

morning, and my bearings are a little bit off. I never complain of

_real_ troubles, for they are blessings in disguise. They are good for

us. Fancied troubles are the blighting ones.”

“Suppose that you had been kept away from your home on account of your

health for three months, and were now called home to a dying wife, and

couldn’t make any better progress than I have since I started last

night? You don’t know what real troubles are, young man.”

Here he took another drink of his poison and I expressed as much

sympathy as I could, considering the novelty of the exhibition, and

started out in search of _my_ poison, viz., café-au-lait.

I confess that I was considerably surprised at the old-fashioned

provincial aspect of the town, and concluded that it was a better place

than it appeared to be. Like New Orleans, it had a good harbor, had

wealth, was the seaport of a prosperous Southern state, and imported

bananas; yet it looked to me very much like a large country town of one

business street. It belonged to the older generation of cities, already

in a senile stage of existence. But the old aristocrats, who had been

too proud to engage in commercial pursuits or to encourage their sons

to do so, were nearly all dead, and the town, under the influence

of new ideas, was beginning a new life and taking on new growth and

development. So I resolved to test her with café-au-lait, and hurried

out in search of the Battle House of antebellum fame. I finally found

a shabby old building that had seen better days, with an unexpectedly

aristocratic-looking restaurant under it full of well-dressed negro

waiters, who bowed and scraped and ran on tiptoe as they always do

where the tipping system is in vogue. It was the waiters’ way of

announcing the fact to their victims. But the poor fellows (the

waiters) served them (their victims) with a sort of feverish anxiety,

and served them well and swell, and thus almost justified the system.

My waiter was not, however, as good a Frenchman in scholarship as in

manners, for although he understood my order for an omelette, he did

not understand “café-au-lait,” or “coffee with hot milk.” Hot milk was

too plebeian--cream was served in his restaurant.

After a long wait my breakfast came. The omelette was good, but the

rolls were American biscuit rolls, damp, soft, lukewarm and flavorless.

And the hot milk was in a tiny lunch-counter pitcher that held less

than two tablespoonfuls. The coffee was clear and unadulterated, and

therefore genuine United States made coffee. When U. S. makes coffee

that is clear, U. S. thinks she has made coffee. She uses good or bad

Mocha and Java in moderate quantity, but in order to make it clear

she puts an egg in it which hardens about the grounds before the full

flavor has been extracted, and thus much of the flavor remains at the

bottom of the pot to be boiled out and developed for the servants

and the waste-pail. Then the drinker covers up the taste with rich

cream, thinking that the flavor, being covered up, cannot get away.

Such coffee is comparatively harmless to the commonwealth, and on that

account deserves its popularity. It is one of the few popular things

that are harmless.

One of the advantages of café-au-lait is that the proportion of the

two ingredients can be varied to suit the taste or idiosyncrasy of

the drinker. Those who can not drink strong coffee can diminish the

proportion of coffee with milk until but little coffee is used, and

those who can not drink full strength milk can reduce the quantity

of milk until but little milk is used. The palate will soon become

accustomed to what is habitually drunk and may finally be taught to

prefer either dilution.

I ate my breakfast and my hunger was appeased; but as I had started out

to get a hot drink rather than something to eat, I was not satisfied,

and the enjoyment of the meal was incomplete. I do not wish to say

anything derogatory to the Battle House restaurant, for the hotel has

died since (was burned up) and therefore deserves to be eulogized.

In fact, I wish to praise the restaurant on patriotic grounds. It

made American coffee and deserves praise for being American instead

of French, which in itself is the highest praise I can give. But it

did not occur to me to feel patriotic at the time. The temperature,

following the “norther,” was 36 degrees F., the most chilling and

unpatriotic temperature of the whole Fahrenheit system, and as I went

out into the street my thoughts were still upon a good, hot, comforting

cup of coffee. I therefore resolved to try again, and finally found

a low-down restaurant on the corner of Royal Street near the station

and got a cup of their cheap coffee, probably ordinary South American

or Central American, which might have been thickened and blackened

by a little chicory. It was not as clear and delicate as that of the

Battle House, but it had more flavor. I asked for hot milk and when I

had diluted the coffee nearly one half, the mixture still had flavor.

I could have drunk three or four cupfuls. The charge for it was five

cents. The price was the only bad thing about it, and I almost felt

un-American at having enjoyed five cents so hugely. I felt humiliated,

but I felt good.

The Central American coffee is quite bitter when well made. I was

told that in order to develop the bitter flavor the Central Americans

burn the coffee beans when they roast them, and thus render it more

bitter than natural. This scorching takes away some of its delicacy of

flavor and renders it unpalatable to many North Americans, but by using

plenty of sugar when it is taken black, or by diluting it with an equal

quantity of hot unskimmed milk and using but a small quantity of sugar,

its bitterness is modified and it has a richness of flavor that makes

it preferable to the so-called Mocha and Java as ordinarily made. It

differs from ordinary U. S. restaurant coffee as champagne from cider.

But, of course, many prefer cider.

Cereal coffee is possibly a good substitute for young people whose

nerves are more easily injured than their stomachs. But for middle-aged

and old people it is too heavy, for the amount of starch in it

which must be swallowed without mastication tends to produce acid

fermentation in the alimentary canal and hasten the advent of gout,

which is the goal of all good eaters and drinkers. Cereal coffee

has just one excuse for existing, but I’ve forgotten what it is.

Old-fashioned chicory has more flavor and is less fermentable, and

therefore is preferable for both the young and old. Pure coffee

contains no starch and not enough tannin to injure a canary bird, and

the stimulation of moderate coffee drinking is not very injurious to

people past middle age. The only real contraindication is youth--but

youth is always contradictory. Next to the sugar put into the coffee,

the most injurious feature is the manner of drinking it, viz., sipping

it while eating, and thus washing down food that should be chewed until

dissolved and washed down by the saliva.

But the best solution of the whole coffee problem is to sip a glass

of hot, slightly salted milk at the beginning and another at the end

of the meal, and to eat the meal dry between them. If persisted in to

the exclusion of coffee this hot milk habit will after a time take

away all desire for coffee drinking, which is a habit of civilization

and a very ancient and barbarous one. But many of us who consider

ourselves civilized have barbarous tastes and habits, and do not wish

to relinquish them. We bequeath the refining of our barbarous tastes to

posterity--to our heirs. Let them fight over them, as they do over the

other things.

After the train had finally pulled out I heard the sleeping-car

stranger telling the sleeping-car conductor of his misfortune and the

reason why he had been obliged to stay away from his home, which was in

Hyde Park, Chicago. He said he couldn’t stand the cold there, and that

it was impossible to get a hot drink within walking distance of his

house.

“Just imagine,” he said, “living in Chicago and not being able to get

a hot drink; to have to keep a saloon in your own house. There is

something wrong about a community that makes every man keep a private

saloon.”

“You’re right, sir. There must be something wrong about a city

that can not provide saloons enough for its citizens. They must be

tea-totalers,” replied the conductor sympathetically.

“Yes, and every one of ’em is tanning his stomach with tea and coffee.

Serves ’em right. Let ’em tan it, damn it! By the way, conductor, did

you see the fun a few minutes ago?”

“No, what was it?”

“I hugged a young lady, and she didn’t object. Yes, sir, I did it. As I

was passing her in the aisle she stumbled against me and I had to hug

her to keep from being knocked down. She begged my pardon and I excused

her, thinking that honors were even, ha, ha!”

“We’ll be looking for an elopement, next,” suggested the conductor.

“No,” he said, “my tongue is the only thing that would run away with me

now.”

After thus dwelling a while in a facetious manner on the details of

the romantic adventure, and repeating himself many times, he suddenly

remembered what he was there for and began to talk tearfully about

his wife, and pulled out his bottle and went into the smoking-room

for water. The old man was as young in his feelings as the day he was

born--he had a saving sense of humor. Those who are not gifted with a

sense of humor are born old; those with it die young. Notwithstanding

his troubles, the old man was dying young.

We arrived at Montgomery at 5 P. M. and had to change cars in order

to catch the train that had left New Orleans in the morning, twelve

hours after we had. By this time the old gentleman was dull and heavy

and did not wish to get off. He had paid for his berth expecting the

car to go on to Chicago, and insisted on keeping it. He said that he

had fulfilled his part of the contract. They put him off, however,

and I left the poor old fellow in the station while I went out for a

stroll through the main thoroughfare of the picturesque little capital

of Alabama in the heart of the South. It is a busy-looking place of

about 30,000 inhabitants, with crowded streets and attractive-looking

stores that seemed to be doing plenty of business. Following the main

thoroughfare, I soon came within sight of the state-house, which showed

off to great advantage on the hill at the head of the street. Beside it

I found the Confederate Soldiers’ Monument, which was a credit to the

state from a confederate point of view. It even created strong feelings

of admiration and sympathy in me, a lifelong republican and sinner.

When I returned to the train at half past six the old Hyde Parker,

who was forced to keep a private saloon in his own house, came aboard

with a full stock of wet goods in his system and a fresh stock in his

pocket. He sat in the smoking-room trying in vain to crack jokes and

smoke a cigar. His ideas were muddled and he had lost the knack of

managing a lighted cigar. He did not put the wrong end in his mouth

nor miss his mouth, but he repeatedly dropped it, let it go out twice,

chewed the end off, burned his fingers and finally threw it at the

cuspidor, missing his aim and scattering the ashes on our feet.

Two young men, who seemed to be commercial travelers, took a

kind-hearted interest in him and offered to help him to bed. But the

septuagenarian did not know the number of his berth and could not find

his ticket. He had left it in his overcoat and did not know where

his overcoat was. One of the young men went to the porter, found

the overcoat and number, and had the berth made up. He himself had

undoubtedly helped and been helped to bed on sundry occasions in the

past and was willing and qualified for the deed of sympathy. When he

returned the old man was offering to fight three of us. I knew that it

was one of the Hyde Parker’s tipsy jokes, but the others, not knowing

him as well as I did, took him seriously and insisted upon putting him

to bed. They were preparing to use kindly force if necessary. He then

started to unlace his shoes in the smoking-room and, upon being told by

the astonished young men not to take them off there, he said that he

wanted to put his shoes to bed first, and asked how they could get to

bed unless he put them there. Realizing that they took him in earnest,

he went on in that way for a while before he allowed them to lead him

off. He was not too far gone to have a little sport with them.

The next morning when I entered the dressing-room his empty whiskey

bottle lay on the washstand under the ice-water faucet, indicating that

he had been to the water already, and he sat near the window eating

sponge cakes out of a paper bag. He was sober and thoughtful and did

not seem to be enjoying his breakfast. I had a few limes left from the

stock laid in at Bocas del Toro and was sucking one.

“If you would suck one of these limes,” I said, “it would give a fine

lemon flavor to your cake.”

“Lemons don’t taste good, and they don’t agree with me,” he replied

with a sort of grimace.

“But I have studied foods and digestions for a quarter of a century,

and know what tastes good and digests well. That cake is too sweet.

Just try a lime with it.”

“Stranger,” he said, “I have tasted and digested food for nearly

_three_ quarters of a century and knew what tastes good before you were

thought of.”

“Surely you must have been mistaken all of this time,” I said, “or you

would agree with me, for I am a physician and have learned all about

taste and digestion. Hereafter, before deciding how a thing tastes, ask

me.”

“Well, Doctor, I’d like to know how whiskey tastes.”

“Like poison,” I answered.

“Well, I feel just like taking poison, and the poisoner the better,” he

said as he arose and started for the water tank.

I allowed him to poison himself while I went out to the dining-car

for breakfast. When I returned I found him smoking a black cigar and

looking quite pleasant. The poison had reached its cerebral destination

and had overcome the melancholy tension.

He asked me how the breakfast had tasted.

“Why, you have been eating breakfast for three quarters of a century

and ought to know,” I answered.

“I’ve lived just long enough, Doctor, to learn that eating breakfast

before working for it is a bad habit that follows civilization.”

“I agree with you there. It is a mere matter of taste after all. As a

doctor I eat breakfast before I work, not because it is a bad habit,

but because I am a doctor, and must know how it acts in order to be

able to treat others who do it. I eat to learn.”

“And I suppose they charged you a dollar for the lesson, for learning

how it tasted?”

“No,” I said, “this isn’t a dollar car. Meals are served _à la

carte_. You can get all you want for less than a dollar, unless you

have an officious waiter who puts on so much style for you that you

feel ashamed to take back what is left of your dollar. If you are a

grapefruit faddist your breakfast costs a quarter more. Or if you are

rich and don’t know any better you can take sweetened grapefruit,

breakfast food smothered with sugar, an omelette with jelly, melted

butter on toast, coffee sweetened into syrup, griddle cakes served

with honey and milk, and Apollinaris to wash it all down, and can

spend a couple of dollars and lay up disease for the future, as the

lady and gentleman across from me were doing. I had a fine large piece

of broiled white fish, with Saratoga potatoes, cornbread, two cups

of coffee and a pitcher of hot milk, all for eighty cents, less than

double the price of a common restaurant breakfast.”

“You have to pay something to keep the wheels going around,” he

remarked.

“Yes, and for the comfort and convenience,” I answered. “It’s worth it.

You can get chops for fifty cents, a tenderloin steak for sixty-five

cents, or eggs for twenty cents.”

The old man’s eyes opened wider and he began to swallow saliva as I

continued:

“They have a fine list of specials on the bill of fare this morning:

Spanish omelette, hashed chicken with poached eggs, shad’s roe with

bacon, and a lot of dainty dishes at popular prices.”

He put down his cigar and said, “I say, stranger, I’m getting hungry

for something good to eat, even if I don’t know what tastes good. I

believe I’ll go in and try it.”

When he came back I asked him if he had had a good breakfast.

“Yes, I had breakfast,” he said, and maintained a gloomy silence.

Whether my glowing description had led him to expect too much, or

whether the prices were unsatisfactory, or whether he had been taken

with one of his facetious attacks and had gotten himself into trouble

with the decorous and decorative dining-car conductor, or whether his

domestic troubles had gained the ascendency and spoiled his breakfast,

or whether a good meal did not agree with him as well as a good drink,

or whether it was getting too far past the time for another “smile,”

or what not, I could not ascertain. So I left him alone with his full

stomach and empty bottle and went to my seat in the sleeper.

When I returned a little later he was saying to two men who were

smoking with him:

“Gentlemen, I can’t help speaking of it. I have been buried in the pine

woods for three months and am now going home to bury my wife. Oh, it’s

_hard_! Where’s the porter? I _must_ have another drink.”

We tried to dissuade him and refused to join him, but he got his drink

in spite of our efforts.

“It’s _hard_, gentlemen. I remember how when my mother died, my father

called my brother and me to him and said, ‘Boys, your mother is dying.

She’ll never sit at the table with us again, never again.’ And to think

that now I am going home to tell my boys the same thing. Oh, it’s

_hard_! I _must_ have another drink. I can’t stand it.”

His voice was broken with emotion and his eyes full of tears as he

tried to persuade us to take a drink with him, but he had to take one

alone. _We_ had no excuse for getting drunk. We could not say, Joliet

like, “Drinking is such sweet sorrow, that I shall keep on drinking

till it be morrow.”

By noon he had taken five drinks that I knew of, besides having

finished his own bottle before breakfast, and was again telling jokes.

He had a specific remedy for grief.

The old man was a true American in his feelings and actions. He had

hesitated about paying a dollar for a breakfast on wheels with its

flying luxuries, and was not ashamed to be frugal in his diet, yet had

spent more than a dollar since breakfast for drinks, and had offered to

“treat” like a prince. And the fact that he was on his way home to the

bedside of a dying wife was not sufficient even temporarily to break

up his drinking habit. Surely we Americans are creatures of habit,

especially of the treating habit, which leads to the drinking habit. We

are the most hospitable people in the world. In other countries people

treat and entertain for a purpose; we do so without a purpose.

CHAPTER VIII

Did You Have at Pleasant Trip?

Home at Last--Too much Tropics--The Hold-up--Explaining about It at

Home, per Telephone, at the Hospital, at the Office--The Time of My

Life--An Exhausting Office Hour--Easier to Stay at Home--A Formulated

Answer--Its Nauseating Repetition--Talking It over with Another Victim.

I arrived at home late in the afternoon tired out mentally by six weeks

of discomfort and change of habits, and weakened physically by bodily

inactivity and continuous tropical heat. Even the enjoyment of the

medical meetings was associated with loss of sleep and overwork of the

digestive organs, and did nothing to rest the mind or invigorate the

body. I was in that excitable state of mind that usually accompanies an

impoverished state of blood in active people. And when my wife asked me

if I had had a pleasant trip I had to go into considerable unpleasant

detail to enable her to ask me why I went.

By the time I had divested myself of the dust and dilapidation of

travel, my son, who was as large as I, but not as old, came home and

startled me with the information that he had been held up by two

footpads at eleven o’clock the night before on the corner of Drexel

Boulevard and Forty-sixth Street.

“How dared you?” I exclaimed. “And within half a block of home. How did

you do it?”

“Oh, it was easy enough. I ran up against the muzzle of a pistol and

they did the rest.”

“But you should not have done it--you are too young. I am two and a

half times as old as you, and I haven’t done it yet. _I_ never ran up

to two footpads on a deserted boulevard at 11 P. M. One should always

reserve such experiences for the future. Don’t you know that it’s

dangerous to get frightened in that way?”

“Oh, _I_ wasn’t frightened. _They_ were frightened. They were in such

haste to run away that they only took my carfare and pocketbook.”

“So they took your carfare, your last nickel. It was a mean trick. They

ought to have been shot.”

“No; they were quite decent and friendly. When I asked them to give

back my fraternity meal ticket, which was all my pocketbook contained,

they said ‘Sure!’ and handed it out to me. They did not even take my

fraternity pin which was in plain sight.”

“Good for them! Fraternities originated among thieves, as fraternity

methods indicate. They showed, however, that there is something good

about fraternities by sharing your pocketbook with you. I suppose that

they also returned your watch?”

“No; they didn’t find it for I do not carry my fob by night. In their

hurry they forgot to feel of the watch pocket in my pants.”

“Don’t say pants, Heath; say trousers. Or, if you _will_ talk Dago, say

pantaloons. Pants and panties are undignified abbreviations. One would

think that you had been fraternizing with footpads all of your life.”

“And they did not discover my ring, which was concealed by my glove.”

“Well, my son, now that you have accomplished your object in coming

home so late of nights, I hope that you will consider that you have no

further excuse for making the street pavements work by night as well

as by day. And I trust you will also profit by the example of your

fraternal footpads never to do things in a hurry, even when you are

doing wrong. How did you get away from them?”

“They told me to hand over my bills. But when they learned that

receipted bills were the only kind I had, they told me to run. I said

‘Sure!’ and ran. And they ran in the opposite direction as fast as they

could. I ran to Forty-seventh Street and saw a policeman as far away as

I could see toward Fiftieth Street, walking toward me.”

“Well, I congratulate you,” I said, growing calmer as I realized that

he had had a useful experience, one that is not vouchsafed to every

college boy. “You are smarter than your father; your business horizon

is not bounded by the payment of bills. You came out ahead in your

bargain with the footpads; you gave them a nickel and they gave you

a meal ticket. Keep on getting the better of people and you will die

rich. I discovered the method too late to adopt it as a principle. If

I had my life to live over again, I would take a lesson from you. But

don’t forget to profit by this experience, viz., to wear gloves when

you wear a ring, and to spend all but your carfare before coming home

at night.”

He then asked me if I had had a nice time while away. After I had

explained to him that I had not derived as much of a sensation from my

six weeks and hundreds of dollars as he had from his five minutes and a

nickel, my younger son arrived and asked me the same question, and thus

made another explanation necessary.

Dinner was then ready. After dinner my married daughter called up my

wife by telephone and asked her if I had had a pleasant trip. My wife

answered:

“Oh, yes; but he is very tired. Traveling is so tiresome, etc., etc.,”

and thus evaded a direct answer. She couldn’t tell a lie, and she

wouldn’t tell the truth.

A little later Doctor Doering called me up and asked me if I had

had a pleasant trip. I explained in detail how storms at sea and

the inevitable and invariable miscalculations and misconnections of

Southern travel had interfered more or less with the accomplishment of

the objects of my medico-social holiday enterprise.

The next morning I stopped at the Woman’s Hospital and met Doctor

Martin, the great medical handshaker, at the hall door. He stepped up

to me with a radiant accentuated smile, shook me thoroughly and said:

“Why, hello, Byford! Did you have a pleasant trip?”

He had me by the hand and is stronger than he looks. Hence I could not

quickly get away, and proceeded to explain that I had seen the place

where it was thought that the canal was going to be dug, and where it

was thought that the meeting of the Medical Congress had been held, and

was more or less satisfied with my trip, particularly with the getting

back end of it.

After a few other evasive answers, applauded by genuine shakes, I

escaped from his grip and ran almost into the arms of the housekeeper.

She stopped a minute, looked at me with animated eyes and an expansive

smile and said:

“Why, Doctor Byford, how do you do? Did you have a pleasant trip?”

“Why--y-yes, very pleasant--that is--considering that I had to be

away from the hospital and my work. Very pleasant, but quite warm and

sunshiny, thank you.”

I escaped up stairs, but Doctor Steele stood grinning at the top. “Why,

how are you, Byford? Did you have a pleasant trip?”

“Yes, of course. It was a great success and I got back safely. I met

the Panama women and the Panapa men and saw the site of the Panamañana

canal and many other strange sights.”

I hurried away toward the wards as if very busy, although I had but one

patient in the hospital. She was there when I left for Panama, and had

apparently waited, womanlike, to ask me the question, for there seemed

to be nothing else the matter with her. But she paid me for my answer

and was welcome to it.

Before I could escape from the building Doctor Paddock caught sight of

me in time to stop me. He slowed up for a good talk, and exclaimed in

his hail-fellow-well-metest manner:

“Why, _Byford_, how are you, old fellow? Did you have a pleasant trip?”

I threw up my right hand in Patrick Henry style and cried as I rushed

by him toward the door:

“_Did_ I? I had the time of my life, the very time of my life! Ha, ha!”

I shot out of the door, lost my footing, and slid all the way down the

icy iron steps, reckless of life and limb, and was off for my office.

It is strange how one will forget one’s dignity and risk one’s life for

things and people that don’t pay. One should never lose one’s patience,

or one’s equilibrium in a hurry.

At the office the young lady attendant greeted me effusively (more so,

I thought, than the mere fact that I had come to keep my regular office

hour really called for), and wanted to know if I had had a pleasant

trip.

“The time of my life; the very loveliest time of my life,” I said, and

locked myself in my private room.

On account of having returned later than I had announced, I had an

unusually large number of patients that morning. Each one delayed

me at the end of the consultation by politely and kindly asking the

question. Evidently they considered it a sort of tail or tale to the

consultation, as a dessert belongs to a dinner or a wag to a dog.

Before I had gotten through with my patients Doctor Isham caught a

glimpse of me as I ushered one of them out, and rushed into me and

shook my hand with the spontaneous cordiality of true politeness.

He said that he did not wish to take up my time while patients were

waiting, but just wanted to ask me if I had had a pleasant trip.

“Why, sir,” I said jubilantly, “I just had the time of my life, that’s

all. Banquets, highballs and fancy balls enough to drown us and bury us

and decorate our graves. The Panamanians spent $25,000 on twenty-five

of us in four days, and seven of the twenty-five were from Chicago.

Chicago got a third, and probably more. In short, we had a hot time. If

you don’t believe it, go to Panama next Christmas and find out.”

After thus beating time for a while longer I got him out. When I had

taken the “dessert” with my last patient I felt quite exhausted, for,

as I have intimated before, life in the tropics thins the blood and

softens the muscles, and thus had diminished my powers of endurance.

While there I had not felt the need of good blood and firm muscles,

but upon assuming active duties in zero weather I missed them. When,

therefore, I started for home I was in a neurasthenic, irritable state

of mind. As I passed through the reception-room the sister of the

office attendant, who happened to be there, smiled and bowed to me and

wanted to know if I had had a pleasant trip.

“What’s that?” I said, less ceremoniously than I intended.

“Did you have a pleasant trip, Doctor?”

“Oh--why certainly. Why not? Do you suppose,” I said gaily, as I

backed toward the door, “that I could travel 2,400 miles and spend

$25,000 in four days without having a pleasant trip? Just spend $25,000

and travel 2,400 miles in four days and you’ll know what a pleasant

trip I had; you’ll have the time of your life. Then every one will ask

you if you had a pleasant trip, and you’ll have the time of your life

again. Good day.”

And so for several days my life was dominated by this conventionality

of polite speech. It would have been much easier to have staid at home

than to have gone through what I had, viz., five days of sickness on

the S. S. Limón; one night on the seasick Italian steamship; nearly

two weeks in the blood-hot city of Panama, dodging mosquitoes and not

daring to light the candle in my bedroom, laboriously tucking in the

mosquito bar all around every night in the dark, and hiding under it

for three hours in the middle of each day; perspiring continuously;

bathing in a washbowl; forced to eat and drink two banquets daily, that

kept me thin; treating and being treated to highballs half a dozen

times daily, that made me sick; being cheated by Chinamen, that made

me ashamed; having to see a brave rooster murdered and a tame bull

tortured and assassinated; spending a week stowed away in the S. S.

Brighton, while rocked by the trade-winds, tossed by a “norther” and

bedeviled by insomnia; becalmed for twelve hours between New Orleans

and Chicago; losing a bunch of keys, two umbrellas, five handkerchiefs,

my railroad ticket, a ten-dollar bill and a necktie fastener; being

caught fifty-five times in the rain and once in the water,--and then

having to write a book about it. But to be asked forty times a day for

forty days, “Did you have a pleasant trip?” cured me of all desire for

travel. Travel and travail are of the same origin. The next time I want

to go to Panama I will stay at home and read about it, and then talk

about it. Let others who care to go, read my book instead. The book

isn’t half as bad as the trip, and nobody will ask them about it, and

thus they will not be obliged to tell lies about it. In order to clear

my conscience for all time, I formulated an answer that I chose not to

consider a lie. I replied to everybody thus, “Pleasant trip? Why, I had

the time of my life. Read my book about it--’tis just like it.”

But even the repetition of the formula became as nauseating as forty

squabs (or squalls) in forty days, and I sometimes made myself

ridiculous by inventing uncompromising variations. But finally I

learned to be patient, and now feel that my trip to the tropics was

worth while, for it finished the development of my character. I have

become a man of patience, and say nothing whenever I feel as if I ought

to talk back.

I met Doctor Brower on the street one day and asked him if he had had

a pleasant trip. He stopped breathing for a second and looked at me

queerly, but finally smiled.

“Byford, do you know, I have heard that remark before.”

“Shake!” said I. “Misery loves company. I suppose that you have become

a confirmed liar by this time, and are writing a text-book full of

lies and bad advice.”

“Well, it’s terribly monotonous,” he answered, “to have to repeat to

every one you meet what a fine time you have had. But our trip was not

such a very bad one after all.”

“What? Come now, you don’t have to lie to me. You’re overdoing it.

Beware of the lying habit.”

“Well, it wasn’t very sweet but it was short. You ought to travel with

Doctor Senn to the North Pole, Lake Baikal, Vladivostok, tropical

India, and every other God-forsaken place on the footstool. You’d

consider this trip an interesting little nightmare to be laughed at

and forgotten, when compared with the prolonged punishment of trotting

around the globe after Senn, whose legs are made of solid steel. But

I’ve done with Senn as a traveling companion. His notion of joy and

mine are constitutionally different. Something is wrong with his idea

of enjoyment. I can’t diagnose his case because he has no nerves.

There’s something uncanny about him. He can’t be discouraged, killed or

made seasick. I’ve no patience with him.”

Transcriber's Notes:

Due to a printer’s error the first two lines of page 66 were repeated

(and misplaced) on to the top of page 65. Thus ‘which lay alongside

the pier, brought our task however to a most agreeable ending.’ has

been removed and a fullstop added to ‘full of passive praise’ at the

bottom of page 64. Whether two lines have been lost is unknown as all

editions of this work carry the same error.

Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Perceived typographical errors have been changed.