The Ship-Dwellers: A Story of a Happy CruisePaine, Albert Bigelow
General
The Ship-Dwellers: A Story of a Happy Cruise
Paine, Albert Bigelow
Middle East -- Description and travel
In a moment I was at my port-hole, which is on the starboard side. We
had changed our course and were bearing more to the north. Directly in
front of me the sun was rising. The east was a mass of glowing
outlines--golden clouds and hill-tops mingled. It was the Orient--that
is what it was--the Far East; the sun rising over Africa! Something got
hold of me then--I hardly know what. Certainly I was not unhappy; but
then it was all so sudden and spectacular, and I had waited for it so
long.
I do not remember how I got dressed; only for a moment at a time could I
drag myself away from that port-hole. The sun rose higher--the outlines
of Morocco became more distinct, but they did not lose their wonder of
color--their glory of purple and gold. I realized now that the
prospectuses had not exaggerated the splendor of the East, even on their
gorgeous covers--that they could not do so if they tried. By the time I
was on deck we were running close enough to the lofty shores to make out
villages here and there and hill-top towers--the habitation and the
watch-towers of the Moors. How eagerly and minutely one scanned these
with the glass to distinguish the first sign of Oriental life--to get a
glimpse of the reality of what had so long been but a romance and a
dream. It was those people who had conquered Spain and built the
Alhambra.
What was going on inside those curious flat-topped houses and those
towers? Marvellous matters, no doubt, that had to do with nargileh and
magic and scimiters and flying carpets and scarcely imperceptible nods
to the executioner who always hovered among the draperies in the
background. The Reprobates appeared and declared there was no romance
anywhere in sight and never had been in that direction; that Morocco was
just a place of wretched government and miserable people whose chief
industries were laziness and crime. There are moments when I would be
willing for this ship to sink to properly punish the Reprobates.
The Diplomat was better. He said there was as much romance and magic
over there as ever, and more executioners; and the Diplomat knows. We
would pass Ceuta, the African Pillar of Hercules, before long, he told
us. The other pillar was the Rock of Gibraltar, which lay still farther
ahead.
We went over to the other side of the ship presently, for we were
overlooking the Bay of Trafalgar, where a little more than a hundred
years ago Horatio Nelson died, after convincing the combined navies of
France and Spain that it required something besides numbers to win a
victory. Nelson went into that fight with thirty-two vessels, little and
big, against forty of the combined fleets. He hoisted the signal,
"England expects every man to do his duty," and every man did it. One
half of the combined fleets struck their colors, and the rest made off,
or sank, and with them went Napoleon Bonaparte's scheme for invading
England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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