The Innocents Abroad | Page 7

I offer no apologies for any departures from the usual style of travel-
writing that may be charged against me--for I think I have seen with
impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly, whether
wisely or not.
In this volume I have used portions of letters which I wrote for the

Daily Alta California, of San Francisco, the proprietors of that journal
having waived their rights and given me the necessary permission. I
have also inserted portions of several letters written for the New York
Tribune and the New York Herald.
THE AUTHOR. SAN FRANCISCO.

CHAPTER I.
For months the great pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy Land
was chatted about in the newspapers everywhere in America and
discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the way of
excursions--its like had not been thought of before, and it compelled
that interest which attractive novelties always command. It was to be a
picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, instead of freighting an
ungainly steam ferry--boat with youth and beauty and pies and
doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a
grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long summer day's
laborious frolicking under the impression that it was fun, were to sail
away in a great steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing, and
take a royal holiday beyond the broad ocean in many a strange clime
and in many a land renowned in history! They were to sail for months
over the breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean; they were to
scamper about the decks by day, filling the ship with shouts and
laughter--or read novels and poetry in the shade of the smokestacks, or
watch for the jelly-fish and the nautilus over the side, and the shark, the
whale, and other strange monsters of the deep; and at night they were to
dance in the open air, on the upper deck, in the midst of a ballroom that
stretched from horizon to horizon, and was domed by the bending
heavens and lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and the
magnificent moon--dance, and promenade, and smoke, and sing, and
make love, and search the skies for constellations that never associate
with the "Big Dipper" they were so tired of; and they were to see the
ships of twenty navies--the customs and costumes of twenty curious
peoples--the great cities of half a world--they were to hob-nob with

nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and princes, grand
moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires! It was a brave
conception; it was the offspring of a most ingenious brain. It was well
advertised, but it hardly needed it: the bold originality, the
extraordinary character, the seductive nature, and the vastness of the
enterprise provoked comment everywhere and advertised it in every
household in the land. Who could read the program of the excursion
without longing to make one of the party? I will insert it here. It is
almost as good as a map. As a text for this book, nothing could be
better:
EXCURSION TO THE HOLY LAND, EGYPT, THE CRIMEA,
GREECE, AND INTERMEDIATE POINTS OF INTEREST.
BROOKLYN, February 1st, 1867
The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming
season, and begs to submit to you the following programme:
A first-class steamer, to be under his own command, and capable of
accommodating at least one hundred and fifty cabin passengers, will be
selected, in which will be taken a select company, numbering not more
than three-fourths of the ship's capacity. There is good reason to believe
that this company can be easily made up in this immediate vicinity, of
mutual friends and acquaintances.
The steamer will be provided with every necessary comfort, including
library and musical instruments.
An experienced physician will be on board.
Leaving New York about June 1st, a middle and pleasant route will be
taken across the Atlantic, and passing through the group of Azores, St.
Michael will be reached in about ten days. A day or two will be spent
here, enjoying the fruit and wild scenery of these islands, and the
voyage continued, and Gibraltar reached in three or four days.
A day or two will be spent here in looking over the wonderful
subterraneous fortifications, permission to visit these galleries being

readily obtained.
From Gibraltar, running along the coasts of Spain and France,
Marseilles will be reached in three days. Here ample time will be given
not only to look over the city, which was founded six hundred years
before the Christian era, and its artificial port, the finest of the kind in
the Mediterranean, but to visit Paris during the Great Exhibition; and
the beautiful city of Lyons, lying intermediate, from the heights of
which,