Europe Revised | Page 4

page 81 purporting to show the undersigned leaping
head first into a German feather-bed does the undersigned a cruel
injustice. He has a prettier figure than that--oh, oh, much prettier!
The reader is earnestly entreated not to look at the picture on page 81. It
is the only blot on the McCutcheon of this book.
Respectfully,
The Author.

Chapter I

We Are Going Away From Here
Foreword.--It has always seemed to me that the principal drawback
about the average guidebook is that it is over-freighted with facts.
Guidebooks heretofore have made a specialty of facts--have abounded
in them; facts to be found on every page and in every paragraph.
Reading such a work, you imagine that the besotted author said to
himself, "I will just naturally fill this thing chock-full of facts"--and
then went and did so to the extent of a prolonged debauch.
Now personally I would be the last one in the world to decry facts as
such. In the abstract I have the highest opinion of them. But facts, as
someone has said, are stubborn things; and stubborn things, like
stubborn people, are frequently tiresome. So it occurred to me that
possibly there might be room for a guidebook on foreign travel which
would not have a single indubitable fact concealed anywhere about its
person. I have even dared to hope there might be an actual demand on
the part of the general public for such a guidebook. I shall endeavor to
meet that desire--if it exists.
While we are on the subject I wish to say there is probably not a
statement made by me here or hereafter which cannot readily be
controverted. Communications from parties desiring to controvert this
or that assertion will be considered in the order received. The line
forms on the left and parties will kindly avoid crowding. Triflers and
professional controverters save stamps.
With these few introductory remarks we now proceed to the first
subject, which is The Sea: Its Habits and Peculiarities, and the Quaint
Creatures Found upon Its Bosom.
From the very start of this expedition to Europe I labored under a
misapprehension. Everybody told me that as soon as I had got my sea
legs I would begin to love the sea with a vast and passionate love. As a
matter of fact I experienced no trouble whatever in getting my sea legs.
They were my regular legs, the same ones I use on land. It was my sea
stomach that caused all the bother. First I was afraid I should not get it,

and that worried me no little. Then I got it and was regretful. However,
that detail will come up later in a more suitable place. I am concerned
now with the departure.
Somewhere forward a bugle blares; somewhere rearward a bell jangles.
On the deck overhead is a scurry of feet. In the mysterious bowels of
the ship a mighty mechanism opens its metal mouth and speaks out
briskly. Later it will talk on steadily, with a measured and a regular
voice; but now it is heard frequently, yet intermittently, like the click of
a blind man's cane. Beneath your feet the ship, which has seemed until
this moment as solid as a rock, stirs the least little bit, as though it had
waked up. And now a shiver runs all through it and you are reminded
of that passage from Pygmalion and Galatea where Pygmalion says
with such feeling:
She starts; she moves; she seems to feel the thrill of life along her keel.
You are under way. You are finally committed to the great adventure.
The necessary good-bys have already been said. Those who in the
goodness of their hearts came to see you off have departed for shore,
leaving sundry suitable and unsuitable gifts behind. You have
examined your stateroom, with its hot and cold decorations, its running
stewardess, its all-night throb service, and its windows overlooking the
Hudson--a stateroom that seemed so large and commodious until you
put one small submissive steamer trunk and two scared valises in it.
You are tired, and yon white bed, with the high mudguards on it, looks
mighty good to you; but you feel that you must go on deck to wave a
fond farewell to the land you love and the friends you are leaving
behind.
You fight your way to the open through companionways full of
frenzied persons who are apparently trying to travel in every direction
at once. On the deck the illusion persists that it is the dock that is
moving and the ship that is standing still. All about you your fellow
passengers crowd the rails, waving and shouting messages to the
people on the dock; the people on the dock wave back and shout
answers. About every other person