ABSTRACT
Concerning voyages, for most people, probably “least said soonest mended.” After all, it is but a three weeks’ affair at longest, made as pleasant as possible by courteous and obliging officers, by cricket matches and chess tournaments, concerts and mock trials, a dance on deck or even a magic lantern exhibition some still evening. There is something almost uncanny about the gay life on board, particularly at night—the bright saloon, the music and the evening dresses, out there in the midst of that great lonely ocean, where in weeks you may scarcely sight another trail of smoke. For the Pacific is no such frequented highway as the Atlantic, at least as yet; birds though there are, beautiful gray and white gulls, and Mother Carey’s chickens, and the broad-winged frigate bird, wheeling and dipping like Homer’s sea fowl— “Who through dread troughs of the unharvested brine, Seeking his prey, drenches dark wings in the foam.”
