The Innocents Abroad

Chapter 2

Occasionally, during the following month, I dropped in at 117 Wall Street

to inquire how the repairing and refurnishing of the vessel was coming

on, how additions to the passenger list were averaging, how many people

the committee were decreeing not "select" every day and banishing in

sorrow and tribulation. I was glad to know that we were to have a little

printing press on board and issue a daily newspaper of our own. I was

glad to learn that our piano, our parlor organ, and our melodeon were to

be the best instruments of the kind that could be had in the market. I

was proud to observe that among our excursionists were three ministers of

the gospel, eight doctors, sixteen or eighteen ladies, several military

and naval chieftains with sounding titles, an ample crop of "Professors"

of various kinds, and a gentleman who had "COMMISSIONER OF THE UNITED

STATES OF AMERICA TO EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA" thundering after his name

in one awful blast! I had carefully prepared myself to take rather a

back seat in that ship because of the uncommonly select material that

would alone be permitted to pass through the camel's eye of that

committee on credentials; I had schooled myself to expect an imposing

array of military and naval heroes and to have to set that back seat

still further back in consequence of it maybe; but I state frankly that I

was all unprepared for this crusher.

I fell under that titular avalanche a torn and blighted thing. I said

that if that potentate must go over in our ship, why, I supposed he must

--but that to my thinking, when the United States considered it necessary

to send a dignitary of that tonnage across the ocean, it would be in

better taste, and safer, to take him apart and cart him over in sections

in several ships.

Ah, if I had only known then that he was only a common mortal, and that

his mission had nothing more overpowering about it than the collecting of

seeds and uncommon yams and extraordinary cabbages and peculiar bullfrogs

for that poor, useless, innocent, mildewed old fossil the Smithsonian

Institute, I would have felt so much relieved.

During that memorable month I basked in the happiness of being for once

in my life drifting with the tide of a great popular movement. Everybody

was going to Europe--I, too, was going to Europe. Everybody was going to

the famous Paris Exposition--I, too, was going to the Paris Exposition.

The steamship lines were carrying Americans out of the various ports of

the country at the rate of four or five thousand a week in the aggregate.

If I met a dozen individuals during that month who were not going to

Europe shortly, I have no distinct remembrance of it now. I walked about

the city a good deal with a young Mr. Blucher, who was booked for the

excursion. He was confiding, good-natured, unsophisticated,

companionable; but he was not a man to set the river on fire. He had the

most extraordinary notions about this European exodus and came at last to

consider the whole nation as packing up for emigration to France. We

stepped into a store on Broadway one day, where he bought a handkerchief,

and when the man could not make change, Mr. B. said:

"Never mind, I'll hand it to you in Paris."

"But I am not going to Paris."

"How is--what did I understand you to say?"

"I said I am not going to Paris."

"Not going to Paris! Not g---- well, then, where in the nation are you

going to?"

"Nowhere at all."

"Not anywhere whatsoever?--not any place on earth but this?"

"Not any place at all but just this--stay here all summer."

My comrade took his purchase and walked out of the store without a word

--walked out with an injured look upon his countenance. Up the street

apiece he broke silence and said impressively: "It was a lie--that is my

opinion of it!"

In the fullness of time the ship was ready to receive her passengers.

I was introduced to the young gentleman who was to be my roommate, and

found him to be intelligent, cheerful of spirit, unselfish, full of

generous impulses, patient, considerate, and wonderfully good-natured.

Not any passenger that sailed in the Quaker City will withhold his

endorsement of what I have just said. We selected a stateroom forward of

the wheel, on the starboard side, "below decks." It bad two berths in

it, a dismal dead-light, a sink with a washbowl in it, and a long,

sumptuously cushioned locker, which was to do service as a sofa--partly

--and partly as a hiding place for our things. Notwithstanding all this

furniture, there was still room to turn around in, but not to swing a cat

in, at least with entire security to the cat. However, the room was

large, for a ship's stateroom, and was in every way satisfactory.

The vessel was appointed to sail on a certain Saturday early in June.

A little after noon on that distinguished Saturday I reached the ship and

went on board. All was bustle and confusion. [I have seen that remark

before somewhere.] The pier was crowded with carriages and men;

passengers were arriving and hurrying on board; the vessel's decks were

encumbered with trunks and valises; groups of excursionists, arrayed in

unattractive traveling costumes, were moping about in a drizzling rain

and looking as droopy and woebegone as so many molting chickens. The

gallant flag was up, but it was under the spell, too, and hung limp and

disheartened by the mast. Altogether, it was the bluest, bluest

spectacle! It was a pleasure excursion--there was no gainsaying that,

because the program said so--it was so nominated in the bond--but it

surely hadn't the general aspect of one.

Finally, above the banging, and rumbling, and shouting, and hissing of

steam rang the order to "cast off!"--a sudden rush to the gangways--a

scampering ashore of visitors-a revolution of the wheels, and we were

off--the pic-nic was begun! Two very mild cheers went up from the

dripping crowd on the pier; we answered them gently from the slippery

decks; the flag made an effort to wave, and failed; the "battery of guns"

spake not--the ammunition was out.

We steamed down to the foot of the harbor and came to anchor. It was

still raining. And not only raining, but storming. "Outside" we could

see, ourselves, that there was a tremendous sea on. We must lie still,

in the calm harbor, till the storm should abate. Our passengers hailed

from fifteen states; only a few of them had ever been to sea before;

manifestly it would not do to pit them against a full-blown tempest until

they had got their sea-legs on. Toward evening the two steam tugs that

had accompanied us with a rollicking champagne-party of young New Yorkers

on board who wished to bid farewell to one of our number in due and

ancient form departed, and we were alone on the deep. On deep five

fathoms, and anchored fast to the bottom. And out in the solemn rain, at

that. This was pleasuring with a vengeance.

It was an appropriate relief when the gong sounded for prayer meeting.

The first Saturday night of any other pleasure excursion might have been

devoted to whist and dancing; but I submit it to the unprejudiced mind if

it would have been in good taste for us to engage in such frivolities,

considering what we had gone through and the frame of mind we were in.

We would have shone at a wake, but not at anything more festive.

However, there is always a cheering influence about the sea; and in my

berth that night, rocked by the measured swell of the waves and lulled by

the murmur of the distant surf, I soon passed tranquilly out of all

consciousness of the dreary experiences of the day and damaging

premonitions of the future.