Around the World in Seventy-Two Days | Page 3

enjoyed one day's vacation. It is not surprising then that I looked on
this trip as a most delightful and much needed rest.
The evening before I started I went to the office and was given £200 in
English gold and Bank of England notes. The gold I carried in my
pocket. The Bank of England notes were placed in a chamois-skin bag
which I tied around my neck. Besides this I took some American gold
and paper money to use at different ports as a test to see if American
money was known outside of America.
Down in the bottom of my hand-bag was a special passport, number
247, signed by James G. Blaine, Secretary of State. Someone suggested
that a revolver would be a good companion piece for the passport, but I
had such a strong belief in the world's greeting me as I greeted it, that I
refused to arm myself. I knew if my conduct was proper I should
always find men ready to protect me, let them be Americans, English,
French, German or anything else.
It is quite possible to buy tickets in New York for the entire trip, but I
thought that I might be compelled to change my route at almost any
point, so the only transportation I had provided on leaving New York
was my ticket to London.
When I went to the office to say good-bye, I found that no itinerary had
been made of my contemplated trip and there was some doubt as to
whether the mail train which I expected to take to Brindisi, left London

every Friday night. Nor did we know whether the week of my expected
arrival in London was the one in which it connected with the ship for
India or the ship for China. In fact when I arrived at Brindisi and found
the ship was bound for Australia, I was the most surprised girl in the
world.
I followed a man who had been sent to a steamship company's office to
try to make out a schedule and help them arrange one as best they could
on this side of the water. How near it came to being correct can be seen
later on.
I have been asked very often since my return how many changes of
clothing I took in my solitary hand-bag. Some have thought I took but
one; others think I carried silk which occupies but little space, and
others have asked if I did not buy what I needed at the different ports.
One never knows the capacity of an ordinary hand-satchel until dire
necessity compels the exercise of all one's ingenuity to reduce every
thing to the smallest possible compass. In mine I was able to pack two
traveling caps, three veils, a pair of slippers, a complete outfit of toilet
articles, ink-stand, pens, pencils, and copy-paper, pins, needles and
thread, a dressing gown, a tennis blazer, a small flask and a drinking
cup, several complete changes of underwear, a liberal supply of
handkerchiefs and fresh ruchings and most bulky and uncompromising
of all, a jar of cold cream to keep my face from chapping in the varied
climates I should encounter.
That jar of cold cream was the bane of my existence. It seemed to take
up more room than everything else in the bag and was always getting
into just the place that would keep me from closing the satchel. Over
my arm I carried a silk waterproof, the only provision I made against
rainy weather. After-experience showed me that I had taken too much
rather than too little baggage. At every port where I stopped at I could
have bought anything from a ready-made dress down, except possibly
at Aden, and as I did not visit the shops there I cannot speak from
knowledge.
The possibilities of having any laundry work done during my rapid

progress was one which had troubled me a good deal before starting. I
had equipped myself on the theory that only once or twice in my
journey would I be able to secure the services of a laundress. I knew
that on the railways it would be impossible, but the longest railroad
travel was the two days spent between London and Brindisi, and the
four days between San Francisco and New York. On the Atlantic
steamers they do no washing. On the Peninsular and Oriental
steamers--which everyone calls the P. & O. boats--between Brindisi
and China, the quartermaster turns out each day a wash that would
astonish the largest laundry in America. Even if no laundry work was
done on the ships, there are at all of the ports where they stop plenty of
experts waiting to show what Orientals can do in the washing line. Six
hours is ample time for