A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel — Reading Notes

There was great ado at starting, and when we finally steamed out of New York harbor past the "Goddess of Liberty" one fine morning, the air was rent with the screeching of steam sirens and the tooting of whistles. The "Goddess" stood calm and silent on her pedestal; she looked virtuous (which was natural to her, being made of metal), but her stoic indifference was somewhat upset by an icy stalactite that hung from her classic nose. One of the passengers remarked that Bartholdi ought to have supplied her with a handkerchief, but this suggestion was considered flippant by his Philistine audience, and it made no impression whatever.

The list of passengers stood at seven hundred, and an extensive programme of entertainments was promoted for their amusement, consisting of balls, lectures, glees, games of bridge whist and progressive euchre, concerts, readings, and a bewildering schedule of functions, too numerous to mention; in fact, it was a case of three rings under one tent and a dozen side shows.

The passenger list comprised many examples of eccentric characters, rarely found outside of the pages of Dickens; the majority, however, were very interesting and refined people, and the exceptional types only served to accentuate the desirability and variety of their companionship on a voyage of this character. Here is a description of some of them, exaggerated perhaps in places, but not far from the facts when the peculiar conditions surrounding them are fully considered. Many of them were doing their best to attract attention in a harmless way, and in most cases they succeeded, as there is really nothing so immaterial that it escapes all notice from our fellows.

For instance, there was a human skyscraper, a giant, who had an immense pyramid of tousled hair--a Matterhorn of curls and pomatum--who gloried in its possession and scorned to wear hat, bonnet or cap. When it rained he went out to enjoy a good wetting, and came back a dripping bear. The sight made those of us who had but little hair atop our pates green with envy, as all we could now hope for was not hair but that the shellac finish on our polls might be dull and not shiny. This man also sat or stood in the sun by the hour to acquire that brick-red tan that is "quite English, you know;" and he got it, but it did not altogether match with the other coloring which nature had bestowed upon him. Then we had a "fidgetarian," who was one of the unlaundered ironies of life; he could not keep still for a moment. This specimen was from Throgg's Neck, and danced the carmagnole in concentric circles all by himself, twisting in and out between the waltzers evidently with the feeling that he was the "whole show," and that the other dancers were merely accessories to the draught he made, and followed in his wake. He was a half portion in the gold-filled class, and a charter member of the Forty-second Street Country Club.

We were also honored by the presence of Mrs. Handy Jay Andy, of Alexandry, who had "stunted considerable" in Europe, and was anxious to repeat the performance in the Levant. She didn't carry a pug dog, but she thought a "lady" ought to tote round with her something in captivity, so she compromised on a canary, which she bought in Smyrna, where all the good figs come from. She was a colored supplement to high-toned marine society.

No collection of this kind would be complete without a military officer, and we had him all right; we called him "the General," a man who jested at scars and who had a beard out of which a Pullman pillow might be easily constructed. On gala nights he decorated himself with medals, and on the whole was a very ornamental piece of human _bric-a-brac_. Of course we had the man with the green--but not too French green--hat. He had a curly duck's tail, dyed green, sticking up in its rear, so that the view from the back would resemble Emperor William. He attracted attention, but somehow seemed like an empty green bottle thrown in the surf.

Some of the ladies had their little peculiarities also. There was Mrs. Galley-West from North Fifth Avenue, New York, a "widow-lady," whose name went up on the social electric-light sign when she began to ride home in a limousine. She stated that everybody who was anybody in that great city knew who _she_ was and all about her. Nobody disputed her statements. As time elapsed she became very confidential, and one day stated that she was matrimonially inclined and intimated that she would welcome an introduction to an aged millionaire in delicate health, as it might result in her being able to carry out some ambitious plans she had made in "philomathy." By the time we reached Cairo she had lowered her figures to a very modest amount--but she is still a widow.

The human mushroom was also in evidence--the girl narrow and straight up-and-down, like a tube ending in a fishtail, with a Paquin wrap and a Virot hat, reinforced with a steel net wire neck-band--the very latest fads from Paris. Her gowns were grand, her hats were great, I tell you! When some one was warbling at the piano, she would put her elbow on the lid of the "baby grand," face the audience, and strike a stained-glass attitude that would make Raphael's cartoons look like subway posters.

Among those present who came all the way from Medicine Hat was the cowboy girl, who could ride a mustang, toss a steer with a lariat, shoot a bear or climb a tree. She wore a sombrero, rolled up her sleeves, and was just _dying_ to show what she could do if she had only half a chance. She got it when we came to the donkey rides in Egypt. She was a "Dreadnaught girl," sure enough.

The claims of the pocket "Venus" from the "Soo," must not be forgotten. She was small and of the reversible, air-cooled, selective type, but as perfect as anything ever seen in a glass case. She wore a spray of soft-shell crab-apple blossoms in her hair, which stamped her with the bloom of Arcady. She spilled her chatter lavishly, and had the small change of conversation right at her finger-tips. She had an early-English look, and was deservedly popular with the boys.

The beet-sugar man from Colorado also had his place. This specialist put his table to sleep before we lost sight of land. He stifled his listeners with sugar statistics, informing them how many tons of beets the State produced and what they were worth in money; how much to expect from an acre, and the risks and profits of the industry: a collection of facts that were the mythology of alleged truth. If you were good the gods would make you a sugar-king in the world to come, and Colorado was to be financially sugar-cured in the sweet by-and-by. His whole song was a powerful anaesthetic, and many at the table did not know the meal was over till the steward woke them up.

One among our crowd who really mattered was a tall, gloomy, dyspeptic man, hard to approach, but once known he never failed to harp on his favorite string,--the old masters and the Barbizon school of painting. This man had all the ready veneer of the art connoisseur. He used to talk by the hour about the great pictures he had seen, and gave each artist a descriptive niche for what he thought him famous: such as, the _expression_ of Rubens; the _grace_ of Raphael; the _purity_ of Domenichino; the _correggiosity_ of Correggio; the _learning_ of Poussin; the _air_ of Guido; the _taste_ of Coraceis, and the _drawing_ of Michelangelo. This, of course, was all Greek to most of us, but it raised the tone of the smoking-room and enveloped the entire ship in a highly artistic atmosphere which no odors from the galley could overcome. Incidentally I may say, however, he didn't know all about them, for one day a wag set a trap for him by saying he had had a fine bit of Botticelli at dinner.

"My dear sir," exclaimed our "authority," "Botticelli isn't a cheese; he was a famous fiddler!"

"I have always had an impression he was an old master," said another passenger, who was an amused listener.

It is impossible for any large body of travelers to escape the man who by every device tries to impress his fellows with the idea that he is a Mungo Park on his travels, and so our harmless impostor had his "trunkage" plastered with labels from all parts of the world, sold to him by hotel porters, who deal in them. He wore the fez, of course, and sported a Montenegrin order on his lapel; he had Turkish slippers; he carried a Malacca cane; he wrapped himself in a Mohave blanket and he wore a Caracas carved gold ring on his four-in-hand scarf. But his crowning effort was in wearing the great traveling badge, the English fore-and-aft checked cap, with its ear flaps tied up over the crown, leaving the front and rear scoops exposed. Not all of the passengers carried this array of proofs, but many dabbled in them just a little bit. It doesn't do, however, when assuming this role to have had your hair cut in Rome, New York, or to have bought your "pants" in Paris, Texas, for if you are guilty in those matters you will give the impression of being a mammoth comique on his annual holiday.

The dear lady who delights in "piffle," and to whom "pifflage" is the very breath of life, had also her niche in our affairs. She hailed from Egg Harbor and was an antique guinea hen of uncertain age. When you are thinking of the "white porch of your home," she will tell you she "didn't sleep a wink last night!" that "the eggs on this steamer are not what they ought to be," that the cook doesn't know how to boil them, and that as her husband is troubled with insomnia her son is quite likely to run down from the harbor to meet her at the landing two months hence. Then she will turn to the query by asking if you think the captain is a fit man to run this steamer; if the purser would be likely to change a sovereign for her; what tip she should give her steward; whether you think Mrs. Galley-West's pearls are real, and whether the Customs are as strict with passengers as they used to be; whether any real cure for seasickness has yet been found, and why are they always painting the ship? Not being able to think of anything else she leaves her victim, to his infinite relief. Oh you! iridescent humming-bird!

The men who yacht and those who motor are of course anxious to attract attention. The freshwater yachtsman (usually river or pond), plants his insignia of office on his cap. It is generally a combination of a spread-eagle and a "hydriad," surrounded by the stars and stripes. These things lift him above the level of those who would naturally be his peers, and effect his purpose. The motorer sports his car duster on all possible occasions, and thinks his goggles are necessary to protect his eyes from the glare of the sun on the deck of the steamer. He has large studs of motors, and always proposes to keep in front of the main squeeze. The chatter relating to cars and yachts when these men were in evidence was insistent and incessant. You were never allowed to forget for a moment that they owned cars, power boats and runabouts, and that their tours averaged thousands of miles. The man from the stogie sections does not, of course, fear to fire his fusee in this company and he always does it--it keeps up the steam.

A row of three extinct volcanoes was frequently to be seen seated side by side in the smoking-room, where they recounted the scenes of their youth with evident gusto. One would recall the days of '49, spring of '50, and tell his companions all about the excitement of mining in those early times,--"Glorious climate, California!" was the way he usually wound up his reminiscences. Another would draw his picture of the firing on Fort Sumter, and would assert that the battle of Antietam in which he took part was the hottest of the war. The favorite topic of the third raconteur was the flush times on Oil Creek in the early '60's, when he had drilled a dry hole near "Colonel Drake's" pioneer venture. And so it would go till it was time to "douse the glim." One thing they all agreed on--that the whiskey was good but the drinks were small on the _Cork_.

There was a young southern Colonel on board who was a charming companion and a good-natured, all-round fellow, always willing to do anything for anybody, young or old. The ladies soon found out his weakness, and they "pulled his leg" "right hard," as he would have put it. When ashore he bought them strawberries, ice-cream, wine, confectionery, lemonade, and anything else he could think of. He was a veritable packhorse, and many times when he was already loaded with impedimenta they would, as a matter of course, toss him wraps, umbrellas and fans, followed by photo's, _bric-a-brac_ and other purchases, till the man was fairly loaded to the gunwales. This they would do with an airy grace all their own, remarking perhaps:

"Here, Colonel, I see you haven't much to carry; take this on board for me like a good boy, won't you?"

He stood the strain like a Spartan to the bitter end, and when the trip was over he, like Lord Ullen, was left lamenting in the shuffle of the forgotten, and didn't even get a kiss in the final good-byes, when they fell as thick as the leaves in Vallombrosa.

The most picturesque and amusing man on board was a Mexican rubber planter from Guadalajara, known on the ship's list as Senor Cyrano de Bergerac. He hadn't a Roman nose--but that's a mere detail; he had a Numidian mane of blue-black hair which swung over his collar so that he looked like the leader of a Wild West show. He was a contradiction in terms: his voice proclaimed him a man of war, while all the fighting he ever did, so far as we knew, was with the flies on the Nile. To look at him was to stand in the presence of a composite picture of Agamemnon, Charles XII. and John L. Sullivan; but to hear him _shout_--ah! that voice was the megaphone of Boanerges! It held tones that put a revolving spur on every syllable and gave a dentist-drill feeling as they ploughed their way through space. It was alleged that when he struck his plantation and shouted at the depot as he leaped from the train that he had arrived, all the ranch hands fell down and crossed themselves, thinking it was the sound of the last trump and their time had come. We have no actual proof of it, but undoubtedly these announcements were heard on Mars, and might better be utilized as signals to that planet than anything that has yet been suggested. He had a fatal faculty of stringing together big words from Webster's "Unabridged," and connecting them with conjunctions quite irrespective of the sense, so that the product was like waves of hot air from a vast, reverberating furnace. It was the practice of this orator to jump from his seat at all gatherings without warning, and make detonating announcements on all kinds of subjects to the utterly helpless passengers, the captain, the officers and the stewards. These hardy sons of the sea, who had often faced imminent danger, would visibly flinch, set their faces and cover their ears till the ordeal was over. But they were never safe, as he made two or three announcements daily, and they had to listen to his thunder in all parts of the ship till it returned to New York. His incessant shouting was a flock of dinosauria in the amber of repose; it upset our nerves, but as it added to our opportunities for killing time, many forgave him and thought him well worth the price of admission. In many respects his disposition was kindly and generous; but oh, my! how he could and did talk!

There were two men with us who represented a type known to the _Cork's_ other passengers as "the Impressionists." When they came on board orders were given in a loud voice as to the disposal of their luggage, the chauffeurs were asked whether everything had been taken from the cars, and the travelers then made their way to the chief steward. After receiving a tip, that personage became satisfied that they were deep enough in dry goods to entitle them to seats at an officer's table, which were given them. Their opportunity came next day when they had donned their "glad rags," and stood in the centre of the smoking-room. A few minutes before the dinner gong sounded they drank a Martini, and looked over the heads of the crowd with an air of conscious superiority. Dinner started, they surrounded themselves with table waters and Rhine wines, ostentatiously popping corks and making a great show of "bottlage" for very little money. When they left their seats they were _the_ men of the ship--in their own estimation; but they had shot their bolt and could go no further, so they settled down in a condition of social decay that became very distressing. This recalls an incident of Thackeray's: he once saw an unimportant looking man strutting along the deck of a steamer. Stepping up to him he said:

"Excuse me, sir, but are you any person in particular?"