Canada for Gentlemen | Page 2

I am writing in
the saloon of the S.S. "Montreal," Sunday evening, August 30th (I
believe), and it is due to the constructural defects thereof that my
writing is of a somewhat shaky character, the above saloon being
placed almost immediately over the propeller, whose various
eccentricities in the way of jumping and shaking are more than
distinctly felt. However, I do not want to begin by telling you about the
end of our voyage, so I will make a commencement at the time we lost
sight of the heads and hats of those who saw us off at Dawlish Station.
I feel rather ashamed to say I felt at that time very little depression of
spirits, perhaps the pipe to which I immediately had recourse had a
comforting influence; perhaps my familiarity with all objects on the
road, at least as far as Star Cross, made me feel as though I had not yet
left home; or perhaps, it was the secret consciousness that all the
Seymours, Lintons, and Harleys had promised to be on the Warren to
see us wave our heads out of the window. Whatever the course might
have been during the whole of our railway journey, our stay at the hotel,
and even some hours subsequently, I felt almost jolly, but what a world
of misery lies implied in that underlined "some." However, I won't
anticipate, but relate from the beginning the history of my ideas and
experiences up to the present time. There is little that you do not
already know connected with our departure from the docks and our
journey as far as the last light ship, that is concerning incidents which
would appear to be worth mentioning. We were rather fortunate in
seeing nearly all the most celebrated of the Atlantic steamers. The "City
of Rome" was lying alongside a wharf within a stone's throw of us, the
"Alaska," "Arizona," "America," and "Oregon," were all passing in or
out, or lying at the wharves, these being I believe the four fastest ocean
steamers afloat. The Allan boat "Peruvian" left the dock just astern of
us, and as we afterwards discovered, arrived twelve hours before us.
We very soon found, when dinner time came round that we were going
to live like fighting cocks; there was a tremendous spread, soup, fish,
entrées, joints, entrees, sweets, cheese, dessert and bills of fare. We
looked forward to ten days of systematic fattening, an excellent
preparation as we thought for our troubles to come in the way of

struggles for bread, in the country to which we were journeying. What
a mistake! That meal we fattened, also at the ensuing meal, a kind of
high tea at six o'clock we continued the process. At breakfast next
morning all operations were suspended, and by the time the sun shone
in the zenith for the second time, the modus operandi was completely
inverted, and we thinned many inches in as many minutes. All the
preparations for carrying out our original intentions stared us in the face,
but we turned anything but a hungry eye upon them; to tell the prosaic
truth we were both sea-sick. Not a fair knock down exactly, for while
on deck I was all right. What started the malady was the sleeping
cabin--such an abomination of closeness, stuffiness, and all the odours
under the sun I never smelt--it was literally enough to knock one down.
Not that the cabins themselves are badly ventilated, but they vent into
the gangways outside, which in bad weather are themselves very short
of fresh air. Only on two days were we able to have our port-hole open,
and then not for the whole day. The first day on board was very
pleasant, nice weather, and lots of excitement in watching the different
coasts we passed, and studying our fellow passengers. We were never
out of sight of land until it got too dark to see it. Before England was
hull down, the Isle of Man was hull up, and then before that faded, the
coast of Ireland would have been in sight had it not been invisible.
When daylight went down a breeze sprang up, blowing steadily from
the westward, still it was all very jolly, and we went to bed very
comfortably and slept very soundly till we woke up. The day had just
broken, and it was a fine breezy morning. At first I was delighted to
feel myself dancing about. I sat up and looked out of my port-hole and
watched the sea for a bit; suddenly she rose to an extra big one; I could
feel her "tilting up," and I had to lean forward a bit to maintain my
balance, then the stern tilted up and I leant back a good long way, then