Around the World in Seventy-Two Days | Page 4

them to perform their labors and when they
make a promise to have work done in a certain time, they are prompt to
the minute. Probably it is because they have no use for clothes
themselves, but appreciate at its full value the money they are to
receive for their labor. Their charges, compared with laundry prices in
New York, are wonderfully low.
So much for my preparations. It will be seen that if one is traveling
simply for the sake of traveling and not for the purpose of impressing
one's fellow passengers, the problem of baggage becomes a very simple
one. On one occasion--in Hong Kong, where I was asked to an official
dinner--I regretted not having an evening dress with me, but the loss of
that dinner was a very small matter when compared with the
responsibilities and worries I escaped by not having a lot of trunks and
boxes to look after.

CHAPTER II.
THE START.
ON Thursday, November 14, 1889, at 9.40.30 o'clock, I started on my
tour around the world.
Those who think that night is the best part of the day and that morning

was made for sleep, know how uncomfortable they feel when for some
reason they have to get up with--well, with the milkman.
I turned over several times before I decided to quit my bed. I wondered
sleepily why a bed feels so much more luxurious, and a stolen nap that
threatens the loss of a train is so much more sweet, than those hours of
sleep that are free from duty's call. I half promised myself that on my
return I would pretend sometime that it was urgent that I should get up
so I could taste the pleasure of a stolen nap without actually losing
anything by it. I dozed off very sweetly over these thoughts to wake
with a start, wondering anxiously if there was still time to catch the
ship.
Of course I wanted to go, but I thought lazily that if some of these good
people who spend so much time in trying to invent flying machines
would only devote a little of the same energy towards promoting a
system by which boats and trains would always make their start at noon
or afterwards, they would be of greater assistance to suffering
humanity.
I endeavored to take some breakfast, but the hour was too early to make
food endurable. The last moment at home came. There was a hasty kiss
for the dear ones, and a blind rush downstairs trying to overcome the
hard lump in my throat that threatened to make me regret the journey
that lay before me.
"Don't worry," I said encouragingly, as I was unable to speak that
dreadful word, goodbye; "only think of me as having a vacation and the
most enjoyable time in my life."
Then to encourage myself I thought, as I was on my way to the ship:
"It's only a matter of 28,000 miles, and seventy-five days and four
hours, until I shall be back again."
A few friends who told of my hurried departure, were there to say
good-bye. The morning was bright and beautiful, and everything
seemed very pleasant while the boat was still; but when they were
warned to go ashore, I began to realize what it meant for me.

"Keep up your courage," they said to me while they gave my hand the
farewell clasp. I saw the moisture in their eyes and I tried to smile so
that their last recollection of me would be one that would cheer them.
But when the whistle blew and they were on the pier, and I was on the
Augusta Victoria, which was slowly but surely moving away from all I
knew, taking me to strange lands and strange people, I felt lost. My
head felt dizzy and my heart felt as if it would burst. Only seventy-five
days! Yes, but it seemed an age and the world lost its roundness and
seemed a long distance with no end, and--well, I never turn back.
I looked as long as I could at the people on the pier. I did not feel as
happy as I have at other times in life. I had a sentimental longing to
take farewell of everything.
"I am off," I thought sadly, "and shall I ever get back?"
Intense heat, bitter cold, terrible storms, shipwrecks, fevers, all such
agreeable topics had been drummed into me until I felt much as I
imagine one would feel if shut in a cave of midnight darkness and told
that all sorts of horrors were waiting to gobble one up.
The morning was beautiful and the bay never looked lovelier. The ship
glided out smoothly and quietly, and the people on deck looked for
their