On a voyage everybody has confidences to make, private griefs to disclose, to everybody else. This is especially the case during the first few days out. We feel so lone and lorn; we have all undergone the misery of parting, the breaking of tender ties; we seem a huddle of human units shaken by chance into the same box, yet scarcely are we therein settled when we begin putting forth feelers of sympathy and recognition. There was one young man who seemed to me a master in the art of making desirable acquaintances for the trip. He entered upon his work ere the Golden Gate had sunk below the horizon. He had a friendly word for all. His approach and address were prepossessing. He spoke to me kindly. I was miserable and flung myself upon him for sympathy. The wretch was merely testing me as a _compagnon de voyage_. He found me unsuitable. He flung me from him with easy but cold politeness, and consorted with an “educated German gentleman.” I revenged myself by playing the same tactics on a sea-and love-sick German carriage-maker. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” you know. We touched at Magdalena Bay and Punta Arenas. We expected to stay at Punta Arenas twelve hours to discharge a quantity of flour. Four times twelve hours we remained there. Everybody became very tired of Costa Rica. The Costa Rican is not hurried in his movements. He took his own time in sending the necessary lighters for that flour. A boat load went off once in four hours. The Costa Ricans came on board, men and women, great and small, inspected the _Sacramento_, enjoyed themselves, went on shore again, lay down in the shade of their cocoanut palms, smoked their cigarettes and slept soundly, while the restless, uneasy load of humanity on the American steamer fretted, fumed, perspired, scolded at Costa Rican laziness and ridiculed the Costa Rican government, which revolutionizes once in six months, changes its flag once a year, taxes all improvements, and acts up to the principle that government was made for the benefit of those who govern. Many of the passengers went on shore. Some came back laden with tropical flowers, others full of brandy. The blossoms filled the vessel the whole night with perfume, while the brandy produced noise and badly-sung popular melodies.