Nasby in Exile: or, Six Months of Travel in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, with many things not of travel — John Locke — John Shaqi
Nasby in Exile: or, Six Months of Travel in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, with many things not of travel
John Locke · en
DEAR MOTHER:--While there is everything to interest one from the
interior in a sea voyage, I confess that I have not enjoyed the
passage at all. I have no heart for it for my mind is perpetually
on you and my home in the far West. (_You see it will please the
old lady to know I am thinking of her all the time. Didn't I scoop
in that jack pot nicely last evening? Hadn't a thing in my hand,
and Filkins actually opened it with three deuces._) The ship is one
of the strongest and best on the ocean, and is commanded and manned
by the best sailors on the sea. The passengers are all good,
serious people, with perhaps one exception. There is one young man
from New York of dissolute habits, who has a bottle of whisky in
his room, and who actually tried to tempt me to play cards with
him. But he is known and avoided by the entire company.
We have regular services in the grand saloon, every morning, and
occasional meetings for vocal exercises and conversation at other
hours. I have just come from one, at which--
"You are not going to send this infernal aggregation of lies to your
mother, are you?" I asked.
"Why not? She don't know any better, and it will make her feel good. I
have my opinion of a man who won't give his old mother a pleasure when
he can just as well as not. I will, you bet?"
"But such atrocious lies!"
[Sidenote: TIBBITTS' LETTER.]
"I'll chance that. I can stand lies of that kind when they are told in
so good a cause. I love my mother, I do. Let's see, where was I? Oh
yes."
I have just come from one at which the discussion was mostly on the
progress of missions in the Far West. (_The old lady is Treasurer
of a society for the conversion of the Apaches, or some other
tribe._) Just now the sailors are heaving a log, which they do to
ascertain the speed the ship is making. Mr. Inman, the owner of
this ship, is a very wealthy man, and he has everything of the
best. He furnishes his vessel with nothing but black walnut logs to
heave, while the others use pine or poplar. Captain Leitch is a
very humane man, and never uses profane language to his crew. On
other ships the men who go aloft are compelled to climb tarred rope
ladders, but Captain Leitch has passenger elevators rigged to the
masts, such as you saw in the Palmer House in Chicago, in which
they sit comfortably and are hoisted up by a steam engine.
"Great heavens! You are not surely going to send that?"