: In Darkest Africa Vol. 2; or The Quest Rescue and Retreat of Emin Governor of Equatoria by Stanley Henry M Henry Morton - Africa Central Description and travel; Emin Pasha 1840-1892

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The Voyage Begins

I asked the first person I met, who happened to be the third officer, where I should go and what I should do. He told me to report at the quartermaster's office at the end of the promenade deck. A white-haired, taciturn gentleman in the uniform of a major, U.S.A., was occupying this apartment, together with a roly-poly clerk in a blue uniform which seemed to be something between naval and military. When I mentioned my name and showed my order for transportation, the senior officer grunted inarticulately, and waved me in the direction of his clerk, glaring at me meanwhile with an expression which combined singularly the dissimilar effects of a gimlet and a plane. The rotund junior contented himself with glancing suspiciously at the order and sternly at me. As if reassured, however, by my plausible countenance, he flipped over the pages of a ledger, told me the number of my stateroom, and hunted up a packet of letters, which he delivered with an acid reproof to me for not having reported before, saying that the letters had been accumulating for ten days.

I ambled about, clinging to the dressing-bag and looking for some one resembling a steward. At the foot of the ladder leading to the bridge I encountered two young girls descending therefrom with evidences of embarrassed mirth. They were Radcliffe girls, whose evil genius had led them to the bridge and to an indignant request to explain their presence there. They explained to no purpose, and, in response to a plaintive inquiry where to go, were severely told, "We don't know, but go down from here immediately." So they came down, crimson but giggling, and saw me roaming about with an expression at once wistful and complacent.

I found a steward and my stateroom at last, and a brown-haired, brown-eyed young woman in it who was also a pedagogue. We introduced ourselves, disposed of our parcels, and began to discuss the possibilities of the voyage. She was optimistically certain that she was not going to be seasick. I was pessimistically certain that I was. And she was wrong, and I was right. We were both gloriously, enthusiastically, madly seasick.

When we returned to the deck, it was crowded with passengers, the mail was coming aboard, and all sorts of bugle-calls were sounding, for we were carrying "casuals." It was a matter of wonder that so many persons should have gathered to bid adieu to a passenger list recruited from all parts of the Union. The dock was black with people, and our deck was densely crowded. Khaki-clad soldiers leaned over the side to shout to more khaki on the dock. An aged, poorly dressed woman was crying bitterly, with her arms about the neck of a handsome boy, one of our cabin passengers; and all about, the signs of intense feeling showed that the voyage marked no light interval of separation.

I stood at the forward rail of the promenade deck, and fell into conversation with a gentleman whom I had met in San Francisco and who was a fellow passenger. We agreed in being glad that none of our relatives were there to see us off; but, though we made much ado to seem matter-of-fact and quite strong-minded about expatriating ourselves, I noticed that he cleared his throat a great deal, and my chin annoyed me by a desire to tremble.

The gongs warned visitors ashore, and, just as all the whistles of San Francisco were blowing the noon hour, we backed away from the dock, and turned our head to sea. As the little line of green water between ship and dock widened to a streamlet and then to a river, the first qualm concerning the wisdom of the expedition struck its chilly way to my heart. Probably most of the passengers were experiencing the same doubts; and the captain suspected the fact, for he gave us fire drill just to distract our attention and to settle our nerves.

The sea was running heavily, and the wind was cold; I had not thought there could be such cold in July. The distance was obscured by a silvery haze which was not thick enough to be called a fog, but which lent a wintry aspect to sea and sky--a likeness increased by the miniature snow-field on each side of the bow as the water flung up and melted away in pools like bluish-white snow ice.

It was five o'clock when I gasped with a last effort of facetious misery, "And yet they say people come to sea for their health," and went below. The Farralones Islands, great pinky-gray needles of bleak rock, were sticking up somewhere in the silvery haze on our starboard side, and I loathed the Farralones Islands, and the clean white ship, and myself most of all for embarking upon an idiotic voyage.

Wretched as I was, I could not help gasping, "Are you enjoying your sea trip?" and she replied sepulchraily, "It isn't what it's cracked up to be." We could say no more. That time we groaned in unison.

The first two or three days of the voyage were spent in taking stock of our fellow passengers and in finding our friends. We were about seventy-five cabin passengers in all,--a small family, it is true. The ship was coaled through to Manila, the first stop being Guam. So we made acquaintance here and there, settling ourselves for no paltry five or six days' run, but for a whole month at sea. We all came on deck and took our fourteen laps--or less--around the promenade deck before breakfast. The first two or three nights, with a sort of congregational impulse, we drifted forward under the promenade awnings, and sang to the accompaniment of the cornetist on the troop deck. The soldiers sang too, and many an American negro melody, together with "On the Road to Mandalay" and other modern favorites, floated melodiously into the starlit silence of the Pacific. Our huge windsail flapped or bellied as the breeze fell or rose; the waves thumped familiarly against the sides; the masthead lantern burned clear as a star; and the real stars swung up and down as the bowsprit curtsied to each wave. In the intervals between songs a hush would fall upon us, and the sea noises were like effects in a theatre.

In a few days, however, our shyness and strangeness wore off. We no longer sang with the soldiers, but segregated ourselves into congenial groups; and under the electric lights the promenade deck looked, for all the world, like the piazza of a summer hotel.

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