SOME RAMBLING NOTES OF AN IDLE EXCURSION

by Mark Twain

I. 

All the journeyings I had ever done had been purely in the way ofbusiness. The pleasant May weather suggested a novelty namely, a tripfor pure recreation, the bread-and-butter element left out. The Reverendsaid he would go, too; a good man, one of the best of men, although aclergyman. By eleven at night we were in New Haven and on board the NewYork boat. We bought our tickets, and then went wandering around hereand there, in the solid comfort of being free and idle, and of puttingdistance between ourselves and the mails and telegraphs. 

After a while I went to my stateroom and undressed, but the nightwas too enticing for bed. We were moving down the bay now, and it waspleasant to stand at the window and take the cool night breeze and watchthe gliding lights on shore. Presently, two elderly men sat downunder that window and began a conversation. Their talk was properlyno business of mine, yet I was feeling friendly toward the world andwilling to be entertained. I soon gathered that they were brothers, thatthey were from a small Connecticut village, and that the matter in handconcerned the cemetery. Said one:

"Now, John, we talked it all over amongst ourselves, and this is whatwe've done. You see, everybody was a-movin' from the old buryin'-ground, and our folks was 'most about left to theirselves, as you may say. Theywas crowded, too, as you know; lot wa'n't big enough in the first place;and last year, when Seth's wife died, we couldn't hardly tuck her in. She sort o' overlaid Deacon Shorb's lot, and he soured on her, so tospeak, and on the rest of us, too. So we talked it over, and I was fora lay out in the new simitery on the hill. They wa'n't unwilling, ifit was cheap. Well, the two best and biggest plots was No. 8 and No. 9--both of a size; nice comfortable room for twenty-six--twenty-sixfull-growns, that is; but you reckon in children and other shorts, andstrike an average, and I should say you might lay in thirty, or maybethirty-two or three, pretty genteel--no crowdin' to signify. "

"That's a plenty, William. Which one did you buy?"

"Well, I'm a-comin' to that, John. You see, No. 8 was thirteen dollars, No. 9 fourteen--"

"I see. So's't you took No. 8. "

"You wait. I took No. 9. And I'll tell you for why. In the first place, Deacon Shorb wanted it. Well, after the way he'd gone on about Seth'swife overlappin' his prem'ses, I'd 'a' beat him out of that No. 9 if I'd'a' had to stand two dollars extra, let alone one. That's the way I feltabout it. Says I, what's a dollar, anyway? Life's on'y a pilgrimage, says I; we ain't here for good, and we can't take it with us, says I. SoI just dumped it down, knowin' the Lord don't suffer a good deed to gofor nothin', and cal'latin' to take it out o' somebody in the courseo' trade. Then there was another reason, John. No. 9's a long way thehandiest lot in the simitery, and the likeliest for situation. It laysright on top of a knoll in the dead center of the buryin' ground; andyou can see Millport from there, and Tracy's, and Hopper Mount, anda raft o' farms, and so on. There ain't no better outlook from aburyin'-plot in the state. Si Higgins says so, and I reckon he ought toknow. Well, and that ain't all. 'Course Shorb had to take No. 8; wa'n'tno help for 't. Now, No. 8 jines onto No. 9, but it's on the slopeof the hill, and every time it rains it 'll soak right down onto theShorbs. Si Higgins says 't when the deacon's time comes, he better takeout fire and marine insurance both on his remains. "

Here there was the sound of a low, placid, duplicate chuckle ofappreciation and satisfaction. 

"Now, John, here's a little rough draft of the ground that I've madeon a piece of paper. Up here in the left-hand corner we've bunched thedeparted; took them from the old graveyard and stowed them one alongsideo' t'other, on a first-come-first-served plan, no partialities, withGran'ther Jones for a starter, on'y because it happened so, and windin'up indiscriminate with Seth's twins. A little crowded towards the end ofthe lay-out, maybe, but we reckoned 'twa'n't best to scatter the twins. Well, next comes the livin'. Here, where it's marked A, we're goin' toput Mariar and her family, when they're called; B, that's for BrotherHosea and hisn; C, Calvin and tribe. What's left is these two lotshere--just the gem of the whole patch for general style and outlook;they're for me and my folks, and you and yourn. Which of them would yourather be buried in?"

"I swan, you've took me mighty unexpected, William! It sort of startedthe shivers. Fact is, I was thinkin' so busy about makin' thingscomfortable for the others, I hadn't thought about being buried myself. "

"Life's on'y a fleetin' show, John, as the sayin' is. We've all got togo, sooner or later. To go with a clean record's the main thing. Factis, it's the on'y thing worth strivin' for, John. "

"Yes, that's so, William, that's so; there ain't no getting around it. Which of these lots would you recommend?"

"Well, it depends, John. Are you particular about outlook?"

"I don't say I am, William, I don't say I ain't. Reely, I don't know. But mainly, I reckon, I'd set store by a south exposure. "

"That's easy fixed, John. They're both south exposure. They take thesun, and the Shorbs get the shade. "

"How about site, William?"

"D's a sandy sile, E's mostly loom. "

"You may gimme E, then; William; a sandy sile caves in, more or less, and costs for repairs. "

"All right, set your name down here, John, under E. Now, if you don'tmind payin' me your share of the fourteen dollars, John, while we're onthe business, everything's fixed. "

After some Niggling and sharp bargaining the money was paid, and Johnbade his brother good night and took his leave. There was silence forsome moments; then a soft chuckle welled up from the lonely William, and he muttered: "I declare for 't, if I haven't made a mistake! It'sD that's mostly loom, not E. And John's booked for a sandy site afterall. "

There was another soft chuckle, and William departed to his rest also. 

The next day, in New York, was a hot one. Still we managed to get moreor less entertainment out of it. Toward the middle of the afternoon wearrived on board the stanch steamship Bermuda, with bag and baggage, andhunted for a shady place. It was blazing summer weather, until we werehalf-way down the harbor. Then I buttoned my coat closely; half an hourlater I put on a spring overcoat and buttoned that. As we passed thelight-ship I added an ulster and tied a handkerchief around the collarto hold it snug to my neck. So rapidly had the summer gone and wintercome again?

By nightfall we were far out at sea, with no land in sight. No telegramscould come here, no letters, no news. This was an uplifting thought. Itwas still more uplifting to reflect that the millions of harassed peopleon shore behind us were suffering just as usual. 

The next day brought us into the midst of the Atlantic solitudes--outof smoke-colored sounding into fathomless deep blue; no ships visibleanywhere over the wide ocean; no company but Mother Carey's chickenswheeling, darting, skimming the waves in the sun. There were someseafaring men among the passengers, and conversation drifted into matterconcerning ships and sailors. One said that "true as the needle to thepole" was a bad figure, since the needle seldom pointed to the pole. Hesaid a ship's compass was not faithful to any particular point, but wasthe most fickle and treacherous of the servants of man. It was foreverchanging. It changed every day in the year; consequently the amount ofthe daily variation had to be ciphered out and allowance made for it, else the mariner would go utterly astray. Another said there was a vastfortune waiting for the genius who should invent a compass that wouldnot be affected by the local influences of an iron ship. He said therewas only one creature more fickle than a wooden ship's compass, and thatwas the compass of an iron ship. Then came reference to the well knownfact that an experienced mariner can look at the compass of a new ironvessel, thousands of mile from her birthplace, and tell which way herhead was pointing when she was in process of building. 

Now an ancient whale-ship master fell to talking about the sort of crewsthey used to have in his early days. Said he:

"Sometimes we'd have a batch of college students Queer lot. Ignorant?Why, they didn't know the catheads from the main brace. But if you tookthem for fools you'd get bit, sure. They'd learn more in a month thananother man would in a year. We had one, once, in the Mary Ann, thatcame aboard with gold spectacles on. And besides, he was rigged out frommain truck to keelson in the nobbiest clothes that ever saw a fo'castle. He had a chestful, too: cloaks, and broadcloth coats, and velvet vests;everything swell, you know; and didn't the saltwater fix them out forhim? I guess not! Well, going to sea, the mate told him to go aloft andhelp shake out the foreto'gallants'l. Up he shins to the foretop, with his spectacles on, and in a minute down he comes again, lookinginsulted. Says the mate, 'What did you come down for?' Says the chap, 'P'r'aps you didn't notice that there ain't any ladders above there. 'You see we hadn't any shrouds above the foretop. The men bursted out ina laugh such as I guess you never heard the like of. Next night, which was dark and rainy, the mate ordered this chap to go aloft aboutsomething, and I'm dummed if he didn't start up with an umbrella and alantern! But no matter; he made a mighty good sailor before the voyagewas done, and we had to hunt up something else to laugh at. Yearsafterwards, when I had forgot all about him, I comes into Boston, mateof a ship, and was loafing around town with the second mate, and it sohappened that we stepped into the Revere House, thinking maybe we wouldchance the salt-horse in that big diningroom for a flyer, as theboys say. Some fellows were talking just at our elbow, and one says, 'Yonder's the new governor of Massachusetts--at that table over therewith the ladies. ' We took a good look my mate and I, for we hadn'teither of us ever see a governor before. I looked and looked at thatface and then all of a sudden it popped on me! But didn't give any sign. Says I, 'Mate, I've a notion to go over and shake hands with him. ' Sayshe 'I think I see you doing it, Tom. ' Says I, 'Mate I'm a-going to doit. ' Says he, 'Oh, yes, I guess so. Maybe you don't want to bet youwill, Tom?' Say I, 'I don't mind going a V on it, mate. ' Says he 'Put itup. ' 'Up she goes, ' says I, planking the cash. This surprised him. Buthe covered it, and says pretty sarcastic, 'Hadn't you better takeyour grub with the governor and the ladies, Tom?' Says I 'Upon secondthoughts, I will. ' Says he, 'Well Tom, you aye a dum fool. ' Says I, 'Maybe I am maybe I ain't; but the main question is, do you wan to risktwo and a half that I won't do it?' 'Make it a V, ' says he. 'Done, ' saysI. I started, him a giggling and slapping his hand on his thigh, he feltso good. I went over there and leaned my knuckle: on the table a minuteand looked the governor in the face, and says I, 'Mr. Gardner, don't youknow me? He stared, and I stared, and he stared. Then all of a suddenhe sings out, 'Tom Bowling, by the holy poker! Ladies, it's old TomBowling, that you've heard me talk about--shipmate of mine in the MaryAnn. ' He rose up and shook hands with me ever so hearty--I sort ofglanced around and took a realizing sense of my mate's saucer eyes--andthen says the governor, 'Plant yourself, Tom, plant yourself; you can'tcat your anchor again till you've had a feed with me and the ladies!' Iplanted myself alongside the governor, and canted my eye around towardmy mate. Well, sir, his dead-lights were bugged out like tompions; andhis mouth stood that wide open that you could have laid a ham in itwithout him noticing it. "

There was great applause at the conclusion of the old captain's story;then, after a moment's silence, a grave, pale young man said:

"Had you ever met the governor before?"

The old captain looked steadily at this inquirer awhile, and then gotup and walked aft without making any reply. One passenger after anotherstole a furtive glance at the inquirer; but failed to make him out, andso gave him up. It took some little work to get the talk-machineryto running smoothly again after this derangement; but at length aconversation sprang up about that important and jealously guardedinstrument, a ship's timekeeper, its exceeding delicate accuracy, andthe wreck and destruction that have sometimes resulted from its varyinga few seemingly trifling moments from the true time; then, in duecourse, my comrade, the Reverend, got off on a yarn, with a fairwind and everything drawing. It was a true story, too--about CaptainRounceville's shipwreck--true in every detail. It was to this effect:

Captain Rounceville's vessel was lost in mid-Atlantic, and likewise hiswife and his two little children. Captain Rounceville and seven seamenescaped with life, but with little else. A small, rudely constructedraft was to be their home for eight days. They had neither provisionsnor water. They had scarcely any clothing; no one had a coat but thecaptain. This coat was changing hands all the time, for the weather wasvery cold. Whenever a man became exhausted with the cold, they put thecoat on him and laid him down between two shipmates until the garmentand their bodies had warmed life into him again. Among the sailors was aPortuguese who knew no English. He seemed to have no thought of his owncalamity, but was concerned only about the captain's bitter loss of wifeand children. By day he would look his dumb compassion in the captain'sface; and by night, in the darkness and the driving spray and rain, hewould seek out the captain and try to comfort him with caressing patson the shoulder. One day, when hunger and thirst were making their sureinroad; upon the men's strength and spirits, a floating barrel was seenat a distance. It seemed a great find, for doubtless it contained foodof some sort. A brave fellow swam to it, and after long and exhaustingeffort got it to the raft. It was eagerly opened. It was a barrel ofmagnesia! On the fifth day an onion was spied. A sailor swam off and gotit. Although perishing with hunger, he brought it in its integrity andput it into the captain's hand. The history of the sea teachesthat among starving, shipwrecked men selfishness is rare, and awonder-compelling magnanimity the rule. The onion was equally dividedinto eight parts, and eaten with deep thanksgivings. On the eighth daya distant ship was sighted. Attempts were made to hoist an oar, withCaptain Rounceville's coat on it for a signal. There were many failures, for the men were but skeletons now, and strengthless. At last successwas achieved, but the signal brought no help. The ship faded out ofsight and left despair behind her. By and by another ship appeared, andpassed so near that the castaways, every eye eloquent with gratitude, made ready to welcome the boat that would be sent to save them. Butthis ship also drove on, and left these men staring their unutterablesurprise and dismay into each other's ashen faces. Late in the day, still another ship came up out of the distance, but the men noted witha pang that her course was one which would not bring her nearer. Theirremnant of life was nearly spent; their lips and tongues were swollen, parched, cracked with eight days' thirst; their bodies starved; and herewas their last chance gliding relentlessly from them; they would notbe alive when the next sun rose. For a day or two past the men had losttheir voices, but now Captain Rounceville whispered, "Let us pray. "The Portuguese patted him on the shoulder in sign of deep approval. Allknelt at the base of the oar that was waving the signal-coat aloft, andbowed their heads. The sea was tossing; the sun rested, a red, raylessdisk, on the sea-line in the west. When the men presently raised theirheads they would have roared a hallelujah if they had had a voice--theship's sails lay wrinkled and flapping against her masts--she was goingabout! Here was rescue at last, and in the very last instant of timethat was left for it. No, not rescue yet--only the imminent prospect ofit. The red disk sank under the sea, and darkness blotted out the ship. By and by came a pleasant sound-oars moving in a boat's rowlocks. Nearerit came, and nearer-within thirty steps, but nothing visible. Then adeep voice: "Hol-lo!" The castaways could not answer; their swollentongues refused voice. The boat skirted round and round the raft, started away--the agony of it!--returned, rested the oars, close athand, listening, no doubt. The deep voice again: "Hol-lo! Where are ye, shipmates?" Captain Rounceville whispered to his men, saying: "Whisperyour best, boys! now--all at once!" So they sent out an eightfoldwhisper in hoarse concert: "Here!", There was life in it if itsucceeded; death if it failed. After that supreme moment CaptainRounceville was conscious of nothing until he came to himself on boardthe saving ship. Said the Reverend, concluding:

"There was one little moment of time in which that raft could be visiblefrom that ship, and only one. If that one little fleeting moment hadpassed unfruitful, those men's doom was sealed. As close as that doesGod shave events foreordained from the beginning of the world. Whenthe sun reached the water's edge that day, the captain of that ship wassitting on deck reading his prayer-book. The book fell; he stooped topick it up, and happened to glance at the sun. In that instant thatfar-off raft appeared for a second against the red disk, its needlelikeoar and diminutive signal cut sharp and black against the brightsurface, and in the next instant was thrust away into the dusk again. But that ship, that captain, and that pregnant instant had had theirwork appointed for them in the dawn of time and could not fail of theperformance. The chronometer of God never errs!"

There was deep, thoughtful silence for some moments. Then the grave, pale young man said:

"What is the chronometer of God?"

II. 

At dinner, six o'clock, the same people assembled whom we had talkedwith on deck and seen at luncheon and breakfast this second day out, and at dinner the evening before. That is to say, three journeyingship-masters, a Boston merchant, and a returning Bermudian who had beenabsent from his Bermuda thirteen years; these sat on the starboard side. On the port side sat the Reverend in the seat of honor; the pale youngman next to him; I next; next to me an aged Bermudian, returning to hissunny islands after an absence of twenty-seven years. Of course, ourcaptain was at the head of the table, the purser at the foot of it. Asmall company, but small companies are pleasantest. 

No racks upon the table; the sky cloudless, the sun brilliant, the bluesea scarcely ruffled; then what had become of the four married couples, the three bachelors, and the active and obliging doctor from the ruraldistricts of Pennsylvania?--for all these were on deck when wesailed down New York harbor. This is the explanation. I quote from mynote-book:

 Thursday, 3. 30 P. M. Under way, passing the Battery. The large party, of four married couples, three bachelors, and a cheery, exhilarating doctor from the wilds of Pennsylvania, are evidently traveling together. All but the doctor grouped in camp-chairs on deck. 

 Passing principal fort. The doctor is one of those people who has an infallible preventive of seasickness; is flitting from friend to friend administering it and saying, "Don't you be afraid; I know this medicine; absolutely infallible; prepared under my own supervision. " Takes a dose himself, intrepidly. 

 4. 15 P. M. Two of those ladies have struck their colors, notwithstanding the "infallible. " They have gone below. The other two begin to show distress. 

 5 P. M. Exit one husband and one bachelor. These still had their infallible in cargo when they started, but arrived at the companionway without it. 

 5. 10. Lady No. 3, two bachelors, and one married man have gone below with their own opinion of the infallible. 

 5. 20. Passing Quarantine Hulk. The infallible has done the business for all the party except the Scotchman's wife and the author of that formidable remedy. 

 Nearing the Light-Ship. Exit the Scotchman's wife, head drooped on stewardess's shoulder. 

 Entering the open sea. Exit doctor!

The rout seems permanent; hence the smallness of the company at tablesince the voyage began. Our captain is a grave, handsome Hercules ofthirty-five, with a brown hand of such majestic size that one cannoteat for admiring it and wondering if a single kid or calf could furnishmaterial for gloving it. 

Conversation not general; drones along between couples. One catches asentence here and there. Like this, from Bermudian of thirteen years'absence: "It is the nature of women to ask trivial, irrelevant, andpursuing questions--questions that pursue you from a beginningin nothing to a run-to-cover in nowhere. " Reply of Bermudian oftwenty-seven years' absence: "Yes; and to think they have logical, analytical minds and argumentative ability. You see 'em begin to whet upwhenever they smell argument in the air. " Plainly these be philosophers. 

Twice since we left port our engines have stopped for a couple ofminutes at a time. Now they stop again. Says the pale young man, meditatively, "There!--that engineer is sitting down to rest again. "

Grave stare from the captain, whose mighty jaws cease to work, andwhose harpooned potato stops in midair on its way to his open, paralyzedmouth. Presently he says in measured tones, "Is it your idea that theengineer of this ship propels her by a crank turned by his own hands?"

The pale young man studies over this a moment, then lifts up hisguileless eyes, and says, "Don't he?"

Thus gently falls the death-blow to further conversation, and the dinnerdrags to its close in a reflective silence, disturbed by no sounds butthe murmurous wash of the sea and the subdued clash of teeth. 

After a smoke and a promenade on deck, where is no motion to discomposeour steps, we think of a game of whist. We ask the brisk and capablestewardess from Ireland if there are any cards in the ship. 

"Bless your soul, dear, indeed there is. Not a whole pack, true for ye, but not enough missing to signify. "

However, I happened by accident to bethink me of a new pack in a moroccocase, in my trunk, which I had placed there by mistake, thinking it tobe a flask of something. So a party of us conquered the tedium of theevening with a few games and were ready for bed at six bells, mariner'stime, the signal for putting out the lights. 

There was much chat in the smoking-cabin on the upper deck afterluncheon to-day, mostly whaler yarns from those old sea-captains. Captain Tom Bowling was garrulous. He had that garrulous attention tominor detail which is born of secluded farm life or life at sea on longvoyages, where there is little to do and time no object. He would sailalong till he was right in the most exciting part of a yarn, and thensay, "Well, as I was saying, the rudder was fouled, ship driving beforethe gale, head-on, straight for the iceberg, all hands holding theirbreath, turned to stone, top-hamper giving 'way, sails blown to ribbons, first one stick going, then another, boom! smash! crash! duck your headand stand from under! when up comes Johnny Rogers, capstan-bar in hand, eyes a-blazing, hair a-flying... No, 'twa'n't Johnny Rogers... Lemme see... Seems to me Johnny Rogers wa'n't along that voyage; he was alongone voyage, I know that mighty well, but somehow it seems to me that hesigned the articles for this voyage, but--but--whether he come along ornot, or got left, or something happened--"

And so on and so on till the excitement all cooled down and nobody caredwhether the ship struck the iceberg or not. 

In the course of his talk he rambled into a criticism upon New Englanddegrees of merit in ship building. Said he, "You get a vessel built awaydown Maine-way; Bath, for instance; what's the result? First thing youdo, you want to heave her down for repairs--that's the result! Well, sir, she hain't been hove down a week till you can heave a dog throughher seams. You send that vessel to sea, and what's the result? She wetsher oakum the first trip! Leave it to any man if 'tain't so. Well, you let our folks build you a vessel--down New Bedford-way. What's theresult? Well, sir, you might take that ship and heave her down, and keepher hove down six months, and she'll never shed a tear!"

Everybody, landsmen and all, recognized the descriptive neatness ofthat figure, and applauded, which greatly pleased the old man. A momentlater, the meek eyes of the pale young fellow heretofore mentioned cameup slowly, rested upon the old man's face a moment, and the meek mouthbegan to open. 

"Shet your head!" shouted the old mariner. 

It was a rather startling surprise to everybody, but it was effectivein the matter of its purpose. So the conversation flowed on instead ofperishing. 

There was some talk about the perils of the sea, and a landsmandelivered himself of the customary nonsense about the poor marinerwandering in far oceans, tempest-tossed, pursued by dangers, everystorm-blast and thunderbolt in the home skies moving the friends bysnug firesides to compassion for that poor mariner, and prayers for hissuccor. Captain Bowling put up with this for a while, and then burst outwith a new view of the matter. 

"Come, belay there! I have read this kind of rot all my life in poetryand tales and such-like rubbage. Pity for the poor mariner! sympathy forthe poor mariner! All right enough, but not in the way the poetry putsit. Pity for the mariner's wife! all right again, but not in the way thepoetry puts it. Look-a here! whose life's the safest in the whole worldThe poor mariner's. You look at the statistics, you'll see. So don't youfool away any sympathy on the poor mariner's dangers and privations andsufferings. Leave that to the poetry muffs. Now you look at the otherside a minute. Here is Captain Brace, forty years old, been at seathirty. On his way now to take command of his ship and sail south fromBermuda. Next week he'll be under way; easy times; comfortable quarters;passengers, sociable company; just enough to do to keep his mind healthyand not tire him; king over his ship, boss of everything and everybody;thirty years' safety to learn him that his profession ain't a dangerousone. Now you look back at his home. His wife's a feeble woman; she's astranger in New York; shut up in blazing hot or freezing cold lodgings, according to the season; don't know anybody hardly; no company but herlonesomeness and her thoughts; husband gone six months at a time. She has borne eight children; five of them she has buried without herhusband ever setting eyes on them. She watches them all the long nightstill they died--he comfortable on the sea; she followed them to thegrave she heard the clods fall that broke her heart he comfortable onthe sea; she mourned at home, weeks and weeks, missing them every dayand every hour--he cheerful at sea, knowing nothing about it. Now lookat it a minute--turn it over in your mind and size it: five childrenborn, she among strangers, and him not by to hearten her; buried, and him not by to comfort her; think of that! Sympathy for the poormariner's perils is rot; give it to his wife's hard lines, where itbelongs! Poetry makes out that all the wife worries about is the dangersher husband's running. She's got substantialer things to worry over, I tell you. Poetry's always pitying the poor mariner on account of hisperils at sea; better a blamed sight pity him for the nights he can'tsleep for thinking of how he had to leave his wife in her very birthpains, lonesome and friendless, in the thick of disease and trouble anddeath. If there's one thing that can make me madder than another, it'sthis sappy, damned maritime poetry!"

Captain Brace was a patient, gentle, seldom speaking man, with apathetic something in his bronzed face that had been a mystery up tothis time, but stood interpreted now since we had heard his story. Hehad voyaged eighteen times to the Mediterranean, seven times to India, once to the arctic pole in a discovery-ship, and "between times" hadvisited all the remote seas and ocean corners of the globe. But he saidthat twelve years ago, on account of his family, he "settled down, " andever since then had ceased to roam. And what do you suppose was thissimple-hearted, lifelong wanderer's idea of settling down and ceasing toroam? Why, the making of two five-month voyages a year between Surinamand Boston for sugar and molasses!

Among other talk to-day, it came out that whale-ships carry no doctor. The captain adds the doctorship to his own duties. He not only givesmedicines, but sets broken limbs after notions of his own, or sawsthem off and sears the stump when amputation seems best. The captain isprovided with a medicine-chest, with the medicines numbered instead ofnamed. A book of directions goes with this. It describes diseases andsymptoms, and says, "Give a teaspoonful of No. 9 once an hour, " or "Giveten grains of No. 12 every half-hour, " etc. One of our sea-captainscame across a skipper in the North Pacific who was in a state of greatsurprise and perplexity. Said he:

"There's something rotten about this medicine-chest business. One ofmy men was sick--nothing much the matter. I looked in the book: it saidgive him a teaspoonful of No. 15. I went to the medicine-chest, andI see I was out of No. 15. I judged I'd got to get up a combinationsomehow that would fill the bill; so I hove into the fellow half ateaspoonful of No. 8 and half a teaspoonful of No. 7, and I'll be hangedif it didn't kill him in fifteen minutes! There's something about thismedicine-chest system that's too many for me!"

There was a good deal of pleasant gossip about old Captain "Hurricane"Jones, of the Pacific Ocean--peace to his ashes! Two or three ofus present had known him; I particularly well, for I had made foursea-voyages with him. He was a very remarkable man. He was born in aship; he picked up what little education he had among his shipmates;he began life in the forecastle, and climbed grade by grade to thecaptaincy. More than fifty years of his sixty-five were spent at sea. He had sailed all oceans, seen all lands, and borrowed a tint from allclimates. When a man has been fifty years at sea he necessarily knowsnothing of men, nothing of the world but its surface, nothing of theworld's thought, nothing of the world's learning but it's a B C, andthat blurred and distorted by the unfocused lenses of an untrained mind. Such a man is only a gray and bearded child. That is what old HurricaneJones was--simply an innocent, lovable old infant. When his spirit wasin repose he was as sweet and gentle as a girl; when his wrath was up hewas a hurricane that made his nickname seem tamely descriptive. Hewas formidable in a fight, for he was of powerful build and dauntlesscourage. He was frescoed from head to heel with pictures and mottoestattooed in red and blue India ink. I was with him one voyage when hegot his last vacant space tattooed; this vacant space was around hisleft ankle. During three days he stumped about the ship with his anklebare and swollen, and this legend gleaming red and angry out from aclouding of India ink: "Virtue is its own R'd. " (There was a lack ofroom. ) He was deeply and sincerely pious, and swore like a fishwoman. Heconsidered swearing blameless, because sailors would not understand anorder unillumined by it. He was a profound biblical scholar--that is, hethought he was. He believed everything in the Bible, but he had his ownmethods of arriving at his beliefs. He was of the "advanced" schoolof thinkers, and applied natural laws to the interpretation of allmiracles, somewhat on the plan of the people who make the six days ofcreation six geological epochs, and so forth. Without being aware of it, he was a rather severe satire on modern scientific religionists. Sucha man as I have been describing is rabidly fond of disquisition andargument; one knows that without being told it. 

One trip the captain had a clergyman on board, but did not know he wasa clergyman, since the passenger-list did not betray the fact. He tooka great liking to this Reverend Mr. Peters, and talked with him a greatdeal; told him yarns, gave him toothsome scraps of personal history, andwove a glittering streak of profanity through his garrulous fabric thatwas refreshing to a spirit weary of the dull neutralities of undecoratedspeech. One day the captain said, "Peters, do you ever read the Bible?"

"Well--yes. "

"I judge it ain't often, by the way you say it. Now, you tackle itin dead earnest once, and you'll find it 'll pay. Don't you getdiscouraged, but hang right on. First, you won't understand it; but byand by things will begin to clear up, and then you wouldn't lay it downto eat. "

"Yes, I have heard that said. "

"And it's so, too. There ain't a book that begins with it. It laysover 'm all, Peters. There's some pretty tough things in it--there ain'tany getting around that--but you stick to them and think them out, andwhen once you get on the inside everything's plain as day. "

"The miracles, too, captain?"

"Yes, sir! the miracles, too. Every one of them. Now, there's thatbusiness with the prophets of Baal; like enough that stumped you?"

"Well, I don't know but--"

"Own up now; it stumped you. Well, I don't wonder. You hadn't had anyexperience in raveling such things out, and naturally it was too manyfor you. Would you like to have me explain that thing to you, and showyou how to get at the meat of these matters?"

"Indeed, I would, captain, if you don't mind. "

Then the captain proceeded as follows: "I'll do it with pleasure. First, you see, I read and read, and thought and thought, till I gotto understand what sort of people they were in the old Bible times, andthen after that it was all clear and easy. Now this was the way I putit up, concerning Isaac--[This is the captain's own mistake]--and theprophets of Baal. There was some mighty sharp men among the publiccharacters of that old ancient day, and Isaac was one of them. Isaachad his failings--plenty of them, too; it ain't for me to apologizefor Isaac; he played it on the prophets of Baal, and like enough he wasjustifiable, considering the odds that was against him. No, all I sayis, 'twa'n't any miracle, and that I'll show you so's't you can see ityourself. 

"Well, times had been getting rougher and rougher for prophets--thatis, prophets of Isaac's denomination. There was four hundred and fiftyprophets of Baal in the community, and only one Presbyterian; that is, if Isaac was a Presbyterian, which I reckon he was, but it don't say. Naturally, the prophets of Baal took all the trade. Isaac was prettylow-spirited, I reckon, but he was a good deal of a man, and no doubthe went a-prophesying around, letting on to be doing a land-officebusiness, but 'twa'n't any use; he couldn't run any opposition to amountto anything. By and by things got desperate with him; he sets his headto work and thinks it all out, and then what does he do? Why, hebegins to throw out hints that the other parties are this and that andt'other--nothing very definite, maybe, but just kind of underminingtheir reputation in a quiet way. This made talk, of course, and finallygot to the king. The king asked Isaac what he meant by his talk. SaysIsaac, 'Oh, nothing particular; only, can they pray-down fire fromheaven on an altar? It ain't much, maybe, your majesty, only can they doit? That's the idea. ' So the king was a good deal disturbed, and he wentto the prophets of Baal, and they said, pretty airy, that if he hadan altar ready, they were ready; and they intimated he better get itinsured, too. 

"So next morning all the children of Israel and their parents and theother people gathered themselves together. Well, here was that greatcrowd of prophets of Baal packed together on one side, and Isaac walkingup and down all alone on the other, putting up his job. When time wascalled, Isaac let on to be comfortable and indifferent; told the otherteam to take the first innings. So they went at it, the whole fourhundred and fifty, praying around the altar, very hopeful, and doingtheir level best. They prayed an hour--two hours--three hours--and soon, plumb till noon. It wa'n't any use; they hadn't took a trick. Ofcourse they felt kind of ashamed before all those people, and well theymight. Now, what would a magnanimous man do? Keep still, wouldn't he? Ofcourse. What did Isaac do? He graveled the prophets of Baal every wayhe could think of. Says he, 'You don't speak up loud enough; your god'sasleep, like enough, or maybe he's taking a walk; you want to holler, you know'--or words to that effect; I don't recollect the exactlanguage. Mind, I don't apologize for Isaac; he had his faults. 

"Well, the prophets of Baal prayed along the best they knew how all theafternoon, and never raised, a spark. At last, about sundown, they wereall tuckered out, and they owned up and quit. 

"What does Isaac do now? He steps up and says to some friends ofhis there, 'Pour four barrels of water on the altar!' Everybody wasastonished; for the other side had prayed at it dry, you know, and gotwhitewashed. They poured it on. Says he, 'Heave on four more barrels. 'Then he says, 'Heave on four more. ' Twelve barrels, you see, altogether. The water ran all over the altar, and all down the sides, and filled upa trench around it that would hold a couple of hogsheads-'measures, ' itsays; I reckon it means about a hogshead. Some of the people were goingto put on their things and go, for they allowed he was crazy. Theydidn't know Isaac. Isaac knelt down and began to pray; he strung along, and strung along, about the heathen in distant lands, and about thesister churches, and about the state and the country at large, and aboutthose that's in authority in the government, and all the usual program, you know, till everybody had got tired and gone to thinking aboutsomething else, and then, all of a sudden, when nobody was noticing, heouts with a match and rakes it on the under side of his leg, and pff!up the whole thing blazes like a house afire! Twelve barrels of water?Petroleum, sir, PETROLEUM! that's what it was!"

"Petroleum, captain?"

"Yes, sir, the country was full of it. Isaac knew all about that. Youread the Bible. Don't you worry about the tough places. They ain't toughwhen you come to think them out and throw light on them. There ain't athing in the Bible but what is true; all you want is to go prayerfullyto work and cipher out how 'twas done. "

At eight o'clock on the third morning out from New York, land wassighted. Away across the sunny waves one saw a faint dark stripestretched along under the horizon-or pretended to see it, for the creditof his eyesight. Even the Reverend said he saw it, a thing which wasmanifestly not so. But I never have seen any one who was morally strongenough to confess that he could not see land when others claimed thatthey could. 

By and by the Bermuda Islands were easily visible. The principal onelay upon the water in the distance, a long, dull-colored body; scallopedwith slight hills and valleys. We could not go straight at it, but hadto travel all the way around it, sixteen miles from shore, because it isfenced with an invisible coral reef. At last we sighted buoys, bobbinghere and there, and then we glided into a narrow channel among them, "raised the reef, " and came upon shoaling blue water that soon furthershoaled into pale green, with a surface scarcely rippled. Now came theresurrection hour; the berths gave up their dead. Who are these palespecters in plug-hats and silken flounces that file up the companionwayin melancholy procession and step upon the deck? These are they whichtook the infallible preventive of seasickness in New York harbor andthen disappeared and were forgotten. Also there came two or three facesnot seen before until this moment. One's impulse is to ask, "Where didyou come aboard?"

We followed the narrow channel a long time, with land on both sides--lowhills that might have been green and grassy, but had a faded lookinstead. However, the land-locked water was lovely, at any rate, withits glittering belts of blue and green where moderate soundings were, and its broad splotches of rich brown where the rocks lay near thesurface. Everybody was feeling so well that even the grave, pale youngman (who, by a sort of kindly common consent, had come latterly to bereferred to as "The Ass") received frequent and friendly notice--whichwas right enough, for there was no harm in him. 

At last we steamed between two island points whose rocky jaws allowedonly just enough room for the vessel's body, and now before us loomedHamilton on her clustered hillsides and summits, the whitest mass ofterraced architecture that exists in the world, perhaps. 

It was Sunday afternoon, and on the pier were gathered one or twohundred Bermudians, half of them black, half of them white, and all ofthem nobbily dressed, as the poet says. 

Several boats came off to the ship, bringing citizens. One of thesecitizens was a faded, diminutive old gentleman, who approached our mostancient passenger with a childlike joy in his twinkling eyes, haltedbefore him, folded his arms, and said, smiling with all his might andwith all the simple delight that was in him, "You don't know me, John!Come, out with it now; you know you don't!"

The ancient passenger scanned him perplexedly, scanned the napless, threadbare costume of venerable fashion that had done Sunday service noman knows how many years, contemplated the marvelous stovepipe hat ofstill more ancient and venerable pattern, with its poor, pathetic oldstiff brim canted up "gallusly" in the wrong places, and said, with ahesitation that indicated strong internal effort to "place" the gentleold apparition, "Why... Let me see... Plague on it... There's somethingabout you that... Er... Er... But I've been gone from Bermuda fortwenty-seven years, and... Hum, hum ... I don't seem to get at it, somehow, but there's something about you that is just as familiar to meas--"

"Likely it might be his hat, " murmured the Ass, with innocent, sympathetic interest. 

So the Reverend and I had at last arrived at Hamilton, the principaltown in the Bermuda Islands. A wonderfully white town; white as snowitself. White as marble; white as flour. Yet looking like none of these, exactly. Never mind, we said; we shall hit upon a figure by and by thatwill describe this peculiar white. 

It was a town that was compacted together upon the sides and tops ofa cluster of small hills. Its outlying borders fringed off and thinnedaway among the cedar forests, and there was no woody distance of curvingcoast or leafy islet sleeping upon the dimpled, painted sea, but wasflecked with shining white points--half-concealed houses peeping out ofthe foliage. The architecture of the town was mainly Spanish, inherited from the colonists of two hundred and fifty years ago. Someragged-topped cocoa-palms, glimpsed here and there, gave the land atropical aspect. 

There was an ample pier of heavy masonry; upon this, under shelter, weresome thousands of barrels containing that product which has carried thefame of Bermuda to many lands, the potato. With here and there an onion. That last sentence is facetious; for they grow at least two onions inBermuda to one potato. The onion is the pride and joy of Bermuda. Itis her jewel, her gem of gems. In her conversation, her pulpit, herliterature, it is her most frequent and eloquent figure. In Bermudametaphor it stands for perfection--perfection absolute. 

The Bermudian weeping over the departed exhausts praise when he says, "He was an onion!" The Bermudian extolling the living hero bankruptsapplause when he says, "He is an onion!" The Bermudian setting his sonupon the stage of life to dare and do for himself climaxes all counsel, supplication, admonition, comprehends all ambition, when he says, "Be anonion!"

When parallel with the pier, and ten or fifteen steps outside it, we anchored. It was Sunday, bright and sunny. The groups upon thepier--men, youths, and boys-were whites and blacks in about equalproportion. All were well and neatly dressed; many of them nattily, afew of them very stylishly. One would have to travel far before he wouldfind another town of twelve thousand inhabitants that could representitself so respectably, in the matter of clothes, on a freight-pier, without premeditation or effort. The women and young girls, black andwhite, who occasionally passed by, were nicely clad, and many wereelegantly and fashionably so. The men did not affect summer clothingmuch, but the girls and women did, and their white garments were good tolook at, after so many months of familiarity with somber colors. 

Around one isolated potato-barrel stood four young gentlemen, two black, two white, becomingly dressed, each with the head of a slender canepressed against his teeth, and each with a foot propped up on thebarrel. Another young gentleman came up, looked longingly at the barrel, but saw no rest for his foot there, and turned pensively away to seekanother barrel. He wandered here and there, but without result. Nobodysat upon a barrel, as is the custom of the idle in other lands, yetall the isolated barrels were humanly occupied. Whosoever had a footto spare put it on a barrel, if all the places on it were not alreadytaken. The habits of all peoples are determined by their circumstances. The Bermudians lean upon barrels because of the scarcity of lamp-posts. 

Many citizens came on board and spoke eagerly to the officers--inquiringabout the Turco-Russian war news, I supposed. However, by listeningjudiciously I found that this was not so. They said, "What is the priceof onions?" or, "How's onions?" Naturally enough this was their firstinterest; but they dropped into the war the moment it was satisfied. 

We went ashore and found a novelty of a pleasant nature: there wereno hackmen, hacks, or omnibuses on the pier or about it anywhere, andnobody offered his services to us, or molested us in any way. I said itwas like being in heaven. The Reverend rebukingly and rather pointedlyadvised me to make the most of it, then. We knew of a boarding-house, and what we needed now was somebody to pilot us to it. Presentlya little barefooted colored boy came along, whose raggedness wasconspicuously not Bermudian. His rear was so marvelously bepatched withcolored squares and triangles that one was half persuaded he had got itout of an atlas. When the sun struck him right, he was as good to followas a lightning-bug. We hired him and dropped into his wake. He pilotedus through one picturesque street after another, and in due coursedeposited us where we belonged. He charged nothing for his map, and buta trifle for his services: so the Reverend doubled it. The little chapreceived the money with a beaming applause in his eye which plainlysaid, "This man's an onion!"

We had brought no letters of introduction; our names had been misspelledin the passenger-list; nobody knew whether we were honest folk orotherwise. So we were expecting to have a good private time in casethere was nothing in our general aspect to close boarding-house doorsagainst us. We had no trouble. Bermuda has had but little experience ofrascals, and is not suspicious. We got large, cool, well-lighted roomson a second floor, overlooking a bloomy display of flowers and floweringshrubscalia and annunciation lilies, lantanas, heliotrope, jasmine, roses, pinks, double geraniums, oleanders, pomegranates, bluemorning-glories of a great size, and many plants that were unknown tome. 

III. 

We took a long afternoon walk, and soon found out that that exceedinglywhite town was built of blocks of white coral. Bermuda is a coralisland, with a six-inch crust of soil on top of it, and every man hasa quarry on his own premises. Everywhere you go you see square recessescut into the hillsides, with perpendicular walls unmarred by crackor crevice, and perhaps you fancy that a house grew out of the groundthere, and has been removed in a single piece from the mold. If you do, you err. But the material for a house has been quarried there. They cutright down through the coral, to any depth that is convenient--ten totwenty feet--and take it out in great square blocks. This cutting isdone with a chisel that has a handle twelve or fifteen feet long, and isused as one uses a crowbar when he is drilling a hole, or a dasher whenhe is churning. Thus soft is this stone. Then with a common handsaw theysaw the great blocks into handsome, huge bricks that are two feet long, a foot wide, and about six inches thick. These stand loosely piledduring a month to harden; then the work of building begins. 

The house is built of these blocks; it is roofed with broad coral slabsan inch thick, whose edges lap upon each other, so that the roof lookslike a succession of shallow steps or terraces; the chimneys are builtof the coral blocks, and sawed into graceful and picturesque patterns;the ground-floor veranda is paved with coral blocks; also the walk tothe gate; the fence is built of coral blocks--built in massive panels, with broad capstones and heavy gate-posts, and the whole trimmed intoeasy lines and comely shape with the saw. Then they put a hard coat ofwhitewash, as thick as your thumb-nail, on the fence and all over thehouse, roof, chimneys, and all; the sun comes out and shines on thisspectacle, and it is time for you to shut your unaccustomed eyes, lestthey be put out. It is the whitest white you can conceive of, and theblindingest. A Bermuda house does not look like marble; it is a muchintenser white than that; and, besides, there is a dainty, indefinablesomething else about its look that is not marble-like. We put in a greatdeal of solid talk and reflection over this matter of trying to find afigure that would describe the unique white of a Bermuda house, and wecontrived to hit upon it at last. It is exactly the white of the icingof a cake, and has the same unemphasized and scarcely perceptiblepolish. The white of marble is modest and retiring compared with it. 

After the house is cased in its hard scale of whitewash, not a crack, orsign of a seam, or joining of the blocks is detectable, from base-stoneto chimney-top; the building looks as if it had been carved from asingle block of stone, and the doors and windows sawed out afterward. Awhite marble house has a cold, tomb-like, unsociable look, and takesthe conversation out of a body and depresses him. Not so with a Bermudahouse. There is something exhilarating, even hilarious, about its vividwhiteness when the sun plays upon it. If it be of picturesque shape andgraceful contour--and many of the Bermudian dwellings are--it will sofascinate you that you will keep your eyes on it until they ache. Oneof those clean-cut, fanciful chimneys--too pure and white for thisworld--with one side glowing in the sun and the other touched with asoft shadow, is an object that will charm one's gaze by the hour. I knowof no other country that has chimneys worthy to be gazed at and gloatedover. One of those snowy houses, half concealed and half glimpsedthrough green foliage, is a pretty thing to see; and if it takes one bysurprise and suddenly, as he turns a sharp corner of a country road, itwill wring an exclamation from him, sure. 

Wherever you go, in town or country, you find those snowy houses, andalways with masses of bright-colored flowers about them, but with novines climbing their walls; vines cannot take hold of the smooth, hardwhitewash. Wherever you go, in the town or along the country roads, among little potato farms and patches or expensive country-seats, thesestainless white dwellings, gleaming out from flowers and foliage, meetyou at every turn. The least little bit of a cottage is as white andblemishless as the stateliest mansion. Nowhere is there dirt or stench, puddle or hog-wallow, neglect, disorder, or lack of trimness andneatness. The roads, the streets, the dwellings, the people, theclothes--this neatness extends to everything that falls under the eye. It is the tidiest country in the world. And very much the tidiest, too. 

Considering these things, the question came up, Where do the poor live?No answer was arrived at. Therefore, we agreed to leave this conundrumfor future statesmen to wrangle over. 

What a bright and startling spectacle one of those blazing whitecountry palaces, with its brown-tinted window-caps and ledges, and greenshutters, and its wealth of caressing flowers and foliage, would be inblack London! And what a gleaming surprise it would be in nearly anyAmerican city one could mention, too!

Bermuda roads are made by cutting down a few inches into the solid whitecoral--or a good many feet, where a hill intrudes itself--and smoothingoff the surface of the road-bed. It is a simple and easy process. Thegrain of the coral is coarse and porous; the road-bed has the look ofbeing made of coarse white sugar. Its excessive cleanness and whitenessare a trouble in one way: the sun is reflected into your eyes withsuch energy as you walk along that you want to sneeze all the time. OldCaptain Tom Bowling found another difficulty. He joined us in our walk, but kept wandering unrestfully to the roadside. Finally he explained. Said he, "Well, I chew, you know, and the road's so plagued clean. "

We walked several miles that afternoon in the bewildering glare of thesun, the white roads, and the white buildings. Our eyes got to painingus a good deal. By and by a soothing, blessed twilight spread its coolbalm around. We looked up in pleased surprise and saw that it proceededfrom an intensely black negro who was going by. We answered his militarysalute in the grateful gloom of his near presence, and then passed oninto the pitiless white glare again. 

The colored women whom we met usually bowed and spoke; so did thechildren. The colored men commonly gave the military salute. They borrowthis fashion from the soldiers, no doubt; England has kept a garrisonhere for generations. The younger men's custom of carrying small canesis also borrowed from the soldiers, I suppose, who always carry a cane, in Bermuda as everywhere else in Britain's broad dominions. 

The country roads curve and wind hither and thither in the delightfulestway, unfolding pretty surprises at every turn: billowy masses ofoleander that seem to float out from behind distant projections like thepink cloud-banks of sunset; sudden plunges among cottages and gardens, life and activity, followed by as sudden plunges into the sombertwilight and stillness of the woods; flitting visions of whitefortresses and beacon towers pictured against the sky on remotehilltops; glimpses of shining green sea caught for a moment throughopening headlands, then lost again; more woods and solitude; and by andby another turn lays bare, without warning, the full sweep of theinland ocean, enriched with its bars of soft color and graced with itswandering sails. 

Take any road you please, you may depend upon it you will not stay init half a mile. Your road is everything that a road ought to be: it isbordered with trees, and with strange plants and flowers; it is shadyand pleasant, or sunny and still pleasant; it carries you by theprettiest and peacefulest and most homelike of homes, and throughstretches of forest that lie in a deep hush sometimes, and sometimes arealive with the music of birds; it curves always, which is a continualpromise, whereas straight roads reveal everything at a glance and killinterest. Your road is all this, and yet you will not stay in it half amile, for the reason that little seductive, mysterious roads are alwaysbranching out from it on either hand, and as these curve sharply alsoand hide what is beyond, you cannot resist the temptation to desert yourown chosen road and explore them. You are usually paid for your trouble;consequently, your walk inland always turns out to be one of the mostcrooked, involved, purposeless, and interesting experiences a body canimagine. There is enough of variety. Sometimes you are in the levelopen, with marshes thick grown with flag-lances that are ten feet highon the one hand, and potato and onion orchards on the other; next, youare on a hilltop, with the ocean and the islands spread around you;presently the road winds through a deep cut, shut in by perpendicularwalls thirty or forty feet high, marked with the oddest and abrupteststratum lines, suggestive of sudden and eccentric old upheavals, andgarnished with here and there a clinging adventurous flower, and hereand there a dangling vine; and by and by your way is along the sea edge, and you may look down a fathom or two through the transparent water andwatch the diamond-like flash and play of the light upon the rocks andsands on the bottom until you are tired of it--if you are so constitutedas to be able to get tired of it. 

You may march the country roads in maiden meditation, fancy free, byfield and farm, for no dog will plunge out at you from unsuspected gate, with breath-taking surprise of ferocious bark, notwithstanding it isa Christian land and a civilized. We saw upward of a million cats inBermuda, but the people are very abstemious in the matter of dogs. Twoor three nights we prowled the country far and wide, and never once wereaccosted by a dog. It is a great privilege to visit such a land. Thecats were no offense when properly distributed, but when piled theyobstructed travel. 

As we entered the edge of the town that Sunday afternoon, we stoppedat a cottage to get a drink of water. The proprietor, a middle-agedman with a good face, asked us to sit down and rest. His dame broughtchairs, and we grouped ourselves in the shade of the trees by the door. Mr. Smith--that was not his name, but it will answer--questioned usabout ourselves and our country, and we answered him truthfully, as ageneral thing, and questioned him in return. It was all very simpleand pleasant and sociable. Rural, too; for there was a pig and a smalldonkey and a hen anchored out, close at hand, by cords to their legs, ona spot that purported to be grassy. Presently, a woman passed along, andalthough she coldly said nothing she changed the drift of our talk. SaidSmith:

"She didn't look this way, you noticed? Well, she is our next neighboron one side, and there's another family that's our next neighbors on theother side; but there's a general coolness all around now, and we don'tspeak. Yet these three families, one generation and another, have livedhere side by side and been as friendly as weavers for a hundred andfifty years, till about a year ago. "

"Why, what calamity could have been powerful enough to break up so old afriendship?"

"Well, it was too bad, but it couldn't be helped. It happened like this:About a year or more ago, the rats got to pestering my place a gooddeal, and I set up a steel trap in my back yard. Both of these neighborsrun considerable to cats, and so I warned them about the trap, becausetheir cats were pretty sociable around here nights, and they might getinto trouble without my intending it. Well, they shut up their cats fora while, but you know how it is with people; they got careless, and sureenough one night the trap took Mrs. Jones's principal tomcat into campand finished him up. In the morning Mrs. Jones comes here with thecorpse in her arms, and cries and takes on the same as if it was achild. It was a cat by the name of Yelverton--Hector G. Yelverton--atroublesome old rip, with no more principle than an Injun, though youcouldn't make her believe it. I said all a man could to comfort her, butno, nothing would do but I must pay for him. Finally, I said I warn'tinvesting in cats now as much as I was, and with that she walked off ina huff, carrying the remains with her. That closed our intercourse withthe Joneses. Mrs. Jones joined another church and took her tribe withher. She said she would not hold fellowship with assassins. Well, by andby comes Mrs. Brown's turn--she that went by here a minute ago. She hada disgraceful old yellow cat that she thought as much of as if he wastwins, and one night he tried that trap on his neck, and it fitted himso, and was so sort of satisfactory, that he laid down and curled up andstayed with it. Such was the end of Sir John Baldwin. "

"Was that the name of the cat?"

"The same. There's cats around here with names that would surpriseyou. Maria" (to his wife), "what was that cat's name that eat a keg ofratsbane by mistake over at Hooper's, and started home and got struck bylightning and took the blind staggers and fell in the well and was 'mostdrowned before they could fish him out?"

"That was that colored Deacon Jackson's cat. I only remember the lastend of its name, which was Hold-The-Fort-For-I-Am-Coming Jackson. "

"Sho! that ain't the one. That's the one that eat up an entire box ofSeidlitz powders, and then hadn't any more judgment than to go and takea drink. He was considered to be a great loss, but I never could see it. Well, no matter about the names. Mrs. Brown wanted to be reasonable, butMrs. Jones wouldn't let her. She put her up to going to law for damages. So to law she went, and had the face to claim seven shillings andsixpence. It made a great stir. All the neighbors went to court. Everybody took sides. It got hotter and hotter, and broke up all thefriendships for three hundred yards around friendships that had lastedfor generations and generations. 

"Well, I proved by eleven witnesses that the cat was of a low characterand very ornery, and warn't worth a canceled postage-stamp, anyway, taking the average of cats here; but I lost the case. What could Iexpect? The system is all wrong here, and is bound to make revolutionand bloodshed some day. You see, they give the magistrate a poor littlestarvation salary, and then turn him loose on the public to gouge forfees and costs to live on. What is the natural result? Why, he neverlooks into the justice of a case--never once. All he looks at is whichclient has got the money. So this one piled the fees and costs andeverything on to me. I could pay specie, don't you see? and he knewmighty well that if he put the verdict on to Mrs. Brown, where itbelonged, he'd have to take his swag in currency. "

"Currency? Why, has Bermuda a currency?"

"Yes--onions. And they were forty per cent. Discount, too, then, becausethe season had been over as much as three months. So I lost my case. Ihad to pay for that cat. But the general trouble the case made was theworst thing about it. Broke up so much good feeling. The neighbors don'tspeak to each other now. Mrs. Brown had named a child after me. But shechanged its name right away. She is a Baptist. Well, in the course ofbaptizing it over again it got drowned. I was hoping we might get to befriendly again some time or other, but of course this drowning the childknocked that all out of the question. It would have saved a world ofheartbreak and ill blood if she had named it dry. "

I knew by the sigh that this was honest. All this trouble and all thisdestruction of confidence in the purity of the bench on account of aseven-shilling lawsuit about a cat! Somehow, it seemed to "size" thecountry. 

At this point we observed that an English flag had just been placed athalf-mast on a building a hundred yards away. I and my friends werebusy in an instant trying to imagine whose death, among the islanddignitaries, could command such a mark of respect as this. Then ashudder shook them and me at the same moment, and I knew that wehad jumped to one and the same conclusion: "The governor has gone toEngland; it is for the British admiral!"

At this moment Mr. Smith noticed the flag. He said with emotion:

"That's on a boarding-house. I judge there's a boarder dead. "

A dozen other flags within view went to half-mast. 

"It's a boarder, sure, " said Smith. 

"But would they half-mast the flags here for a boarder, Mr. Smith?"

"Why, certainly they would, if he was dead. "

That seemed to size the country again. 

IV. 

The early twilight of a Sunday evening in Hamilton, Bermuda, is analluring time. There is just enough of whispering breeze, fragrance offlowers, and sense of repose to raise one's thoughts heavenward; andjust enough amateur piano music to keep him reminded of the otherplace. There are many venerable pianos in Hamilton, and they all playat twilight. Age enlarges and enriches the powers of some musicalinstruments--notably those of the violin--but it seems to set a piano'steeth on edge. Most of the music in vogue there is the same that thosepianos prattled in their innocent infancy; and there is something verypathetic about it when they go over it now, in their asthmatic secondchildhood, dropping a note here and there where a tooth is gone. 

We attended evening service at the stately Episcopal church on the hill, where five or six hundred people, half of them white and the otherhalf black, according to the usual Bermudian proportions; and all welldressed--a thing which is also usual in Bermuda and to be confidentlyexpected. There was good music, which we heard, and doubtless--a goodsermon, but there was a wonderful deal of coughing, and so only the highparts of the argument carried over it. As we came out, after service, Ioverheard one young girl say to another:

"Why, you don't mean to say you pay duty on gloves and laces! I only paypostage; have them done up and sent in the Boston Advertiser. "

There are those that believe that the most difficult thing to createis a woman who can comprehend that it is wrong to smuggle; and that animpossible thing to create is a woman who will not smuggle, whether orno, when she gets a chance. But these may be errors. 

We went wandering off toward the country, and were soon far down inthe lonely black depths of a road that was roofed over with the densefoliage of a double rank of great cedars. There was no sound of any kindthere; it was perfectly still. And it was so dark that one could detectnothing but somber outlines. We strode farther and farther down thistunnel, cheering the way with chat. 

Presently the chat took this shape: "How insensibly the character of thepeople and of a government makes its impress upon a stranger, and giveshim a sense of security or of insecurity without his taking deliberatethought upon the matter or asking anybody a question! We have been inthis land half a day; we have seen none but honest faces; we have notedthe British flag flying, which means efficient government and goodorder; so without inquiry we plunge unarmed and with perfect confidenceinto this dismal place, which in almost any other country would swarmwith thugs and garroters--"

'Sh! What was that? Stealthy footsteps! Low voices! We gasp, we close uptogether, and wait. A vague shape glides out of the dusk and confrontsus. A voice speaks--demands money!

"A shilling, gentlemen, if you please, to help build the new Methodistchurch. "

Blessed sound! Holy sound! We contribute with thankful avidity to thenew Methodist church, and are happy to think how lucky it was that thoselittle colored Sunday-school scholars did not seize upon everythingwe had with violence, before we recovered from our momentary helplesscondition. By the light of cigars we write down the names of weightierphilanthropists than ourselves on the contribution cards, and then passon into the farther darkness, saying, What sort of a government dothey call this, where they allow little black pious children, withcontribution cards, to plunge out upon peaceable strangers in the darkand scare them to death?

We prowled on several hours, sometimes by the seaside, sometimes inland, and finally managed to get lost, which is a feat that requires talent inBermuda. I had on new shoes. They were No. 7's when I started, but werenot more than 5's now, and still diminishing. I walked two hours inthose shoes after that, before we reached home. Doubtless I could havethe reader's sympathy for the asking. Many people have never had theheadache or the toothache, and I am one of those myself; but every bodyhas worn tight shoes for two or three hours, and known the luxury oftaking them off in a retired place and seeing his feet swell up andobscure the firmament. Once when I was a callow, bashful cub, I took aplain, unsentimental country girl to a comedy one night. I had known hera day; she seemed divine; I wore my new boots. At the end of the firsthalf-hour she said, "Why do you fidget so with your feet?" I said, "DidI?" Then I put my attention there and kept still. At the end of anotherhalf-hour she said, "Why do you say, 'Yes, oh yes!' and 'Ha, ha, oh, certainly! very true!' to everything I say, when half the time those areentirely irrelevant answers?" I blushed, and explained that I had been alittle absent-minded. At the end of another half-hour she said, "Please, why do you grin so steadfastly at vacancy, and yet look so sad?" Iexplained that I always did that when I was reflecting. An hour passed, and then she turned and contemplated me with her earnest eyes and said, "Why do you cry all the time?" I explained that very funny comediesalways made me cry. At last human nature surrendered, and I secretlyslipped my boots off. This was a mistake. I was not able to get them onany more. It was a rainy night; there were no omnibuses going our way;and as I walked home, burning up with shame, with the girl on onearm and my boots under the other, I was an object worthy of somecompassion--especially in those moments of martyrdom when I had topass through the glare that fell upon the pavement from street-lamps. Finally, this child of the forest said, "Where are your boots?" andbeing taken unprepared, I put a fitting finish to the follies of theevening with the stupid remark, "The higher classes do not wear them tothe theater. "

The Reverend had been an army chaplain during the war, and while we werehunting for a road that would lead to Hamilton he told a story about twodying soldiers which interested me in spite of my feet. He said that inthe Potomac hospitals rough pine coffins were furnished by government, but that it was not always possible to keep up with the demand; so, whena man died, if there was no coffin at hand he was buried without one. One night, late, two soldiers lay dying in a ward. A man came in witha coffin on his shoulder, and stood trying to make up his mind which ofthese two poor fellows would be likely to need it first. Both of thembegged for it with their fading eyes--they were past talking. Then oneof them protruded a wasted hand from his blankets and made a feeblebeckoning sign with the fingers, to signify, "Be a good fellow; putit under my bed, please. " The man did it, and left. The lucky soldierpainfully turned himself in his bed until he faced the other warrior, raised himself partly on his elbow, and began to work up a mysteriousexpression of some kind in his face. Gradually, irksomely, but surelyand steadily, it developed, and at last it took definite form as apretty successful wink. The sufferer fell back exhausted with hislabor, but bathed in glory. Now entered a personal friend of No. 2, the despoiled soldier. No. 2 pleaded with him with eloquent eyes, tillpresently he understood, and removed the coffin from under No. 1's bedand put it under No. 2's. No. 2 indicated his joy, and made some moresigns; the friend understood again, and put his arm under No. 2'sshoulders and lifted him partly up. Then the dying hero turned the dimexultation of his eye upon No. 1, and began a slow and labored work withhis hands; gradually he lifted one hand up toward his face; it grew weakand dropped back again; once more he made the effort, but failed again. He took a rest; he gathered all the remnant of his strength, and thistime he slowly but surely carried his thumb to the side of his nose, spread the gaunt fingers wide in triumph, and dropped back dead. Thatpicture sticks by me yet. The "situation" is unique. 

The next morning, at what seemed a very early hour, the little whitetable-waiter appeared suddenly in my room and shot a single word out ofhimself "Breakfast!"

This was a remarkable boy in many ways. He was about eleven years old;he had alert, intent black eyes; he was quick of movement; there wasno hesitation, no uncertainty about him anywhere; there was a militarydecision in his lip, his manner, his speech, that was an astonishingthing to see in a little chap like him; he wasted no words; his answersalways came so quick and brief that they seemed to be part of thequestion that had been asked instead of a reply to it. When he stoodat table with his fly-brush, rigid, erect, his face set in a cast-irongravity, he was a statue till he detected a dawning want in somebody'seye; then he pounced down, supplied it, and was instantly a statueagain. When he was sent to the kitchen for anything, he marched uprighttill he got to the door; he turned hand-springs the rest of the way. 

"Breakfast!"

I thought I would make one more effort to get some conversation out ofthis being. 

"Have you called the Reverend, or are--"

"Yes s'r!"

"Is it early, or is--"

"Eight-five. "

"Do you have to do all the 'chores, ' or is there somebody to give youa--"

"Colored girl. "

"Is there only one parish in this island, or are there--"

"Eight!"

"Is the big church on the hill a parish church, or is it--"

"Chapel-of-ease!"

"Is taxation here classified into poll, parish, town, and--"

"Don't know!"

Before I could cudgel another question out of my head, he was below, hand-springing across the back yard. He had slid down the balusters, headfirst. I gave up trying to provoke a discussion with him. Theessential element of discussion had been left out of him; his answerswere so final and exact that they did not leave a doubt to hangconversation on. I suspect that there is the making of a mighty man ora mighty rascal in this boy--according to circumstances--but they aregoing to apprentice him to a carpenter. It is the way the world uses itsopportunities. 

During this day and the next we took carriage drives about the islandand over to the town of St. George's, fifteen or twenty miles away. Suchhard, excellent roads to drive over are not to be found elsewhere outof Europe. An intelligent young colored man drove us, and acted asguide-book. In the edge of the town we saw five or six mountain-cabbagepalms (atrocious name!) standing in a straight row, and equidistant fromeach other. These were not the largest or the tallest trees I have everseen, but they were the stateliest, the most majestic. That row ofthem must be the nearest that nature has ever come to counterfeitinga colonnade. These trees are all the same height, say sixty feet;the trunks as gray as granite, with a very gradual and perfect taper;without sign of branch or knot or flaw; the surface not looking likebark, but like granite that has been dressed and not polished. Thus allthe way up the diminishing shaft for fifty feet; then it begins to takethe appearance of being closely wrapped, spool-fashion, with graycord, or of having been turned in a lathe. Above this point there is anoutward swell, and thence upward for six feet or more the cylinder is abright, fresh green, and is formed of wrappings like those of an earof green Indian corn. Then comes the great, spraying palm plume, alsogreen. Other palm trees always lean out of the perpendicular, or have acurve in them. But the plumb-line could not detect a deflection in anyindividual of this stately row; they stand as straight as the colonnadeof Baalbec; they have its great height, they have its gracefulness, theyhave its dignity; in moonlight or twilight, and shorn of their plumes, they would duplicate it. 

The birds we came across in the country were singularly tame; even thatwild creature, the quail, would pick around in the grass at ease whilewe inspected it and talked about it at leisure. A small bird of thecanary species had to be stirred up with the butt-end of the whip beforeit would move, and then it moved only a couple of feet. It is said thateven the suspicious flea is tame and sociable in Bermuda, and will allowhimself to be caught and caressed without misgivings. This should betaken with allowance, for doubtless there is more or less brag about it. In San Francisco they used to claim that their native flea could kick achild over, as if it were a merit in a flea to be able to do that; as ifthe knowledge of it trumpeted abroad ought to entice immigration. Such athing in nine cases out of ten would be almost sure to deter a thinkingman from coming. 

We saw no bugs or reptiles to speak of, and so I was thinking of sayingin print, in a general way, that there were none at all; but onenight after I had gone to bed, the Reverend came into my room carryingsomething, and asked, "Is this your boot?" I said it was, and he said hehad met a spider going off with it. Next morning he stated that just atdawn the same spider raised his window and was coming in to get a shirt, but saw him and fled. 

I inquired, "Did he get the shirt?"

"No. "

"How did you know it was a shirt he was after?"

"I could see it in his eye. "

We inquired around, but could hear of no Bermudian spider capable ofdoing these things. Citizens said that their largest spiders could notmore than spread their legs over an ordinary saucer, and that they hadalways been considered honest. Here was testimony of a clergyman againstthe testimony of mere worldlings--interested ones, too. On the whole, Ijudged it best to lock up my things. 

Here and there on the country roads we found lemon, papaw, orange, lime, and fig trees; also several sorts of palms, among them the cocoa, thedate, and the palmetto. We saw some bamboos forty feet high, with stemsas thick as a man's arm. Jungles of the mangrove tree stood up out ofswamps; propped on their interlacing roots as upon a tangle of stilts. In drier places the noble tamarind sent down its grateful cloud ofshade. Here and there the blossomy tamarisk adorned the roadside. Therewas a curious gnarled and twisted black tree, without a single leaf onit. It might have passed itself off for a dead apple tree but for thefact that it had a a star-like, red-hot flower sprinkled sparsely overits person. It had the scattery red glow that a constellation mighthave when glimpsed through smoked glass. It is possible that ourconstellations have been so constructed as to be invisible throughsmoked glass; if this is so it is a great mistake. 

We saw a tree that bears grapes, and just as calmly and unostentatiouslyas a vine would do it. We saw an India-rubber tree, but out of season, possibly, so there were no shoes on it, nor suspenders, nor anythingthat a person would properly expect to find there. This gave it animpressively fraudulent look. There was exactly one mahogany tree on theisland. I know this to be reliable, because I saw a man who said he hadcounted it many a time and could not be mistaken. He was a man with aharelip and a pure heart, and everybody said he was as true as steel. Such men are all too few. 

One's eye caught near and far the pink cloud of the oleander and thered blaze of the pomegranate blossom. In one piece of wild wood themorning-glory vines had wrapped the trees to their very tops, anddecorated them all over with couples and clusters of great bluebells--afine and striking spectacle, at a little distance. But the dull cedar iseverywhere, and is the prevailing foliage. One does not appreciate howdull it is until the varnished, bright green attire of the infrequentlemon tree pleasantly intrudes its contrast. In one thing Bermuda iseminently tropical--was in May, at least--the unbrilliant, slightlyfaded, unrejoicing look of the landscape. For forests arrayed in ablemishless magnificence of glowing green foliage that seems to exult inits own existence and can move the beholder to an enthusiasm thatwill make him either shout or cry, one must go to countries that havemalignant winters. 

We saw scores of colored farmers digging their crops of potatoesand onions, their wives and children helping--entirely contented andcomfortable, if looks go for anything. We never met a man, or woman, orchild anywhere in this sunny island who seemed to be unprosperous, ordiscontented, or sorry about anything. This sort of monotony became verytiresome presently, and even something worse. The spectacle of an entirenation groveling in contentment is an infuriating thing. We felt thelack of something in this community--a vague, an indefinable, an elusivesomething, and yet a lack. But after considerable thought we made outwhat it was--tramps. Let them go there, right now, in a body. It isutterly virgin soil. Passage is cheap. Every true patriot in Americawill help buy tickets. Whole armies of these excellent beings can bespared from our midst and our polls; they will find a delicious climateand a green, kind-hearted people. There are potatoes and onions for all, and a generous welcome for the first batch that arrives, and elegantgraves for the second. 

It was the Early Rose potato the people were digging. Later in theyear they have another crop, which they call the Garnet. We buy theirpotatoes (retail) at fifteen dollars a barrel; and those colored farmersbuy ours for a song, and live on them. Havana might exchange cigars withConnecticut in the same advantageous way, if she thought of it. 

We passed a roadside grocery with a sign up, "Potatoes Wanted. " Anignorant stranger, doubtless. He could not have gone thirty steps fromhis place without finding plenty of them. 

In several fields the arrowroot crop was already sprouting. Bermuda usedto make a vast annual profit out of this staple before firearms cameinto such general use. 

The island is not large. Somewhere in the interior a man ahead of ushad a very slow horse. I suggested that we had better go by him; butthe driver said the man had but a little way to go. I waited to see, wondering how he could know. Presently the man did turn down anotherroad. I asked, "How did you know he would?"

"Because I knew the man, and where he lived. "

I asked him, satirically, if he knew everybody in the island; heanswered, very simply, that he did. This gives a body's mind a goodsubstantial grip on the dimensions of the place. 

At the principal hotel at St. George's, a young girl, with a sweet, serious face, said we could not be furnished with dinner, because we hadnot been expected, and no preparation had been made. Yet it was still anhour before dinner-time. We argued, she yielded not; we supplicated, she was serene. The hotel had not been expecting an inundation of twopeople, and so it seemed that we should have to go home dinnerless. Isaid we were not very hungry a fish would do. My little maid answered, it was not the market-day for fish. Things began to look serious; butpresently the boarder who sustained the hotel came in, and when the casewas laid before him he was cheerfully willing to divide. So we had muchpleasant chat at table about St. George's chief industry, the repairingof damaged ships; and in between we had a soup that had something in itthat seemed to taste like the hereafter, but it proved to be only pepperof a particularly vivacious kind. And we had an iron-clad chicken thatwas deliciously cooked, but not in the right way. Baking was notthe thing to convince this sort. He ought to have been put through aquartz-mill until the "tuck" was taken out of him, and then boiled tillwe came again. We got a good deal of sport out of him, but not enoughsustenance to leave the victory on our side. No matter; we had potatoesand a pie and a sociable good time. Then a ramble through the town, which is a quaint one, with interesting, crooked streets, and narrow, crooked lanes, with here and there a grain of dust. Here, as inHamilton, the dwellings had Venetian blinds of a very sensible pattern. They were not double shutters, hinged at the sides, but a single broadshutter, hinged at the top; you push it outward, from the bottom, andfasten it at any angle required by the sun or desired by yourself. 

All about the island one sees great white scars on the hill-slopes. These are dished spaces where the soil has been scraped off and thecoral exposed and glazed with hard whitewash. Some of these are aquarter-acre in size. They catch and carry the rainfall to reservoirs;for the wells are few and poor, and there are no natural springs and nobrooks. 

They say that the Bermuda climate is mild and equable, with never anysnow or ice, and that one may be very comfortable in spring clothing theyear round, there. We had delightful and decided summer weather in May, with a flaming sun that permitted the thinnest of raiment, and yet therewas a constant breeze; consequently we were never discomforted by heat. At four or five in the afternoon the mercury began to go down, and thenit became necessary to change to thick garments. I went to St. George'sin the morning clothed in the thinnest of linen, and reached home atfive in the afternoon with two overcoats on. The nights are said to bealways cool and bracing. We had mosquito-nets, and the Reverend said themosquitoes persecuted him a good deal. I often heard him slapping andbanging at these imaginary creatures with as much zeal as if they hadbeen real. There are no mosquitoes in the Bermudas in May. 

The poet Thomas Moore spent several months in Bermuda more than seventyyears ago. He was sent out to be registrar of the admiralty. I amnot quite clear as to the function of a registrar of the admiralty ofBermuda, but I think it is his duty to keep a record of all the admiralsborn there. I will inquire into this. There was not much doing inadmirals, and Moore got tired and went away. A reverently preservedsouvenir of him is still one of the treasures of the islands: I gatheredthe idea, vaguely, that it was a jug, but was persistently thwarted inthe twenty-two efforts I made to visit it. However, it was no matter, for I found out afterward that it was only a chair. 

There are several "sights" in the Bermudas, of course, but they areeasily avoided. This is a great advantage--one cannot have it in Europe. Bermuda is the right country for a jaded man to "loaf" in. There areno harassments; the deep peace and quiet of the country sink into one'sbody and bones and give his conscience a rest, and chloroform the legionof invisible small devils that are always trying to whitewash his hair. A good many Americans go there about the first of March and remain untilthe early spring weeks have finished their villainies at home. 

The Bermudians are hoping soon to have telegraphic communication withthe world. But even after they shall have acquired this curse it willstill be a good country to go to for a vacation, for there are charminglittle islets scattered about the inclosed sea where one could livesecure from interruption. The telegraph-boy would have to come in aboat, and one could easily kill him while he was making his landing. 

We had spent four days in Bermuda--three bright ones out of doors andone rainy one in the house, we being disappointed about getting a yachtfor a sail; and now our furlough was ended, and we entered into the shipagain and sailed homeward. 

We made the run home to New York quarantine in three days and fivehours, and could have gone right along up to the city if we had had ahealth permit. But health permits are not granted after seven in theevening, partly because a ship cannot be inspected and overhauledwith exhaustive, thoroughness except in daylight, and partly becausehealth-officers are liable to catch cold if they expose themselves tothe night air. Still, you can buy a permit after hours for five dollarsextra, and the officer will do the inspecting next week. Our ship andpassengers lay under expense and in humiliating captivity all night, under the very nose of the little official reptile who is supposed toprotect New York from pestilence by his vigilant "inspections. " Thisimposing rigor gave everybody a solemn and awful idea of the beneficentwatchfulness of our government, and there were some who wondered ifanything finer could be found in other countries. 

In the morning we were all a-tiptoe to witness the intricate ceremonyof inspecting the ship. But it was a disappointing thing. Thehealth-officer's tug ranged alongside for a moment, our purser handedthe lawful three-dollar permit fee to the health-officer's bootblack, who passed us a folded paper in a forked stick, and away we went. Theentire "inspection" did not occupy thirteen seconds. 

The health-officer's place is worth a hundred thousand dollars a yearto him. His system of inspection is perfect, and therefore cannot beimproved on; but it seems to me that his system of collecting his feesmight be amended. For a great ship to lie idle all night is a mostcostly loss of time; for her passengers to have to do the same thingworks to them the same damage, with the addition of an amount ofexasperation and bitterness of soul that the spectacle of thathealth-officer's ashes on a shovel could hardly sweeten. Now why wouldit not be better and simpler to let the ships pass in unmolested, andthe fees and permits be exchanged once a year by post.