A Cold Summer Voyage.

Southampton, England, June 28, 1902.

An American traveller says that a sea voyage, compared with land travel, is a good deal like matrimony compared with single blessedness: either decidedly better or decidedly worse. With me, on my first voyage to Europe a few years ago, it was, like my own venture in matrimony, decidedly better. We sailed from New York on a brilliant day, and nearly all the way over the weather was bright, bracing, buoyant, with blue sky above, blue sea beneath, and just enough motion of the water to give it all the fascination of changing beauty. Only once or twice did even our least seasoned passengers need "some visible means of support," on account of the rolling of the ship, and when we struck the Gulf Stream, deep blue and warm, it was pleasant on deck even without wraps, and I remember the captain's telling me he had seen the temperature of the water change thirty-one degrees in two minutes, when he would pass from the Gulf Stream into a colder current, though we ourselves had no such experience then. Day after day we lounged on deck restfully, or walked about comfortably, taking deep and leisurely inhalations of the pure ocean air, and having frequent opportunity to learn the meaning of "Cat's Paw" as applied to winds, when, under the gentle dips of air, the placid ocean took on a pitted appearance exactly like the tracks made by cats' feet in soft snow.

Our present voyage has been very different, and I fear that some of the young people with me, who are familiar with my impressions of the former passage, have felt some disappointment with the ocean. The circumstances of our start were depressing, notwithstanding the animation of the scene at the North German Lloyd Pier, with its throng of carriages, baggage wagons, trucks, trunks, tourists' agents, passengers, and friends who had come to see them off, and who waved their handkerchiefs and shouted farewells and sang German songs, while the band on the Bremen played inspiring airs, and her own hoarse whistles capped the climax of the din, as the tugs pulled the great ship out into the river, and turned her prow towards the ocean, and her ponderous engines began to throb. It was all in vain. Nothing could make it seem cheerful. The rain was pouring steadily and heavily from leaden skies, and just outside the harbor we ran into an opaque fog that shrouded all the beauty of the sea, and made it necessary for the fog horn to sound its prolonged, mournful, ominous, and nerve-racking blast every minute through the rest of the day and night, to avoid collision with other vessels groping through the deep. It was a comfort to recall the hymn we had used in the family circle the morning we started from home—

and to commit ourselves to the care of him who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and to whom the darkness and the light are both alike, and to whom the night shineth as the day.

For several days the sea was "a gray and melancholy waste," and, when at length the weather cleared, a cold wind—very cold and cutting and persistent—blew hard from the northwest, making our side of the deck intolerable, even with our heaviest winter clothing and a great profusion of wraps, so that it was hardly a surprise to us, when about half way over, to see in the distance what we took to be an iceberg glistening cold against the horizon—very interesting, of course, as compared with the steamships, sailing vessels, and schools of porpoises, which are the usual variations of the monotony of the waterscape—but also very uncomfortable. Moreover, the wind made the sea so rough at times that the tables in the dining saloon were more than once quite "sparsely settled," not a few people "wanted the earth," and longed for terra firma—less terror and more firmer, as a friend of mine once put it. One or two even of our own party, who, though good "tar heels," are not equally good "tars," paid reluctant tribute to Neptune. Reluctant, did I say? Yet it was done eagerly, as though the persons in question "could not contain themselves" for joy, or novelty, or some other emotion. I find it difficult to write of this curious little malady, which baffles the skill of all physicians, with sufficient plainness, and, at the same time, with sufficient reserve. The most delicate reference to it on record was that of a Frenchman, who, pale and miserable, was greeted by a blooming Englishman with "Good morning, monsieur, have you breakfasted?" and replied, "No, monsieur, I have not breakfasted. On the contrary." Three or four of our immediate party, however, did not miss a meal on the whole voyage, but "held their own" throughout, and were able to "navigate" every day. Moreover, while the rude seas robbed us of the exhilaration which I had always heretofore associated with an ocean voyage, we had on board many bright and attractive things which went far to counterbalance the effect of the chilly and depressing weather.

The Bremen is a staunch and comfortable ship; not one of the Atlantic greyhounds, which are built slender and comparatively light in order to great speed—but all the better for that, as her vast bulk and heavy cargo give her a degree of steadiness unknown to the express steamers, and her appointments are in every way equal to those of the fastest ships afloat. She takes nine days for the trip from New York to Southampton, and in ordinary weather that is none too long for the average passenger. It was no fault of hers that our journey was not a comfortable one throughout. It could not have been so in any ship with such weather as we had the misfortune to encounter. Of course, everything on board is German. The stewards can speak enough English for all necessary purposes, though one of them, when asked a question by a member of our party, made the naive reply, "I do not hear well in English." One is soon initiated into the mysteries of marks and pfennigs, and begins to pick up sundry guttural German words and phrases. Being German, of course the ship has plenty of music, a cornet band discoursing lively airs on deck about the middle of every forenoon, and a string band playing during the dinner hour in the saloon, while the passengers munch in unison. The catering department is organized on the assumption that the chief occupation of people on shipboard is eating, sandwiches and hot beef tea being served on deck in the forenoon, and tea and biscuits of various kinds in the afternoon, in addition to the three very elaborate set meals in the saloon, the lavish abundance of which is provoking to the squeamish passenger. A Teutonic bugler, with fully developed lungs, gives the signals for the meals. On Sunday morning the passengers are wakened by the strains of Luther's "Ein feste burg ist unser Gott." The management of the ship throughout is characterized by German thoroughness, and the organization and discipline are perfect.

Shuffle board, ring pitching, and other deck games, and letter-writing, chess, and other amusements indoors, more or less innocent, serve to while away part of the time. Ordinarily, reading is my main resource in this way, but the cold weather and searching draughts, making it impossible to find a reasonably comfortable spot to sit down in with a book, reduced my reading on this trip to a minimum.

Various nationalities were represented in our ship's company, the Anglo-Saxon predominating. This reminds me of the fact that the ocean has played no small part in the unification of the world as thus far accomplished. Nothing, perhaps, distinguishes the modern world more sharply from the ancient than its views of the ocean. To the ancients the sea was a mystery and a terror; it was a barrier, it separated men. To the moderns the sea is a highway, a means of communication, it unites men. The nearest approach to a unification of the race in ancient times was effected by the law of the Roman and the language of the Greek. The unifying force to-day is the Anglo-Saxon, who to the genius of the Roman for conquest and government, and to the genius of the Greek for letters and art, has added the genius of the Phoenician for commerce and the genius of the Hebrew for religion. Here we touch the secret of his ascendancy. The Anglo-Saxon civilization is Christian. His language is becoming the universal language. His institutions are becoming the universal institutions. His ships carry the passengers and produce of the world. His capital dominates commerce. London is the clearing-house of the world. Will this unification continue? Will it endure? It will if the religion to which the Anglo-Saxon owes his preËminence remains preËminent in his civilization. The brotherhood of man—how else shall it ever be fully and permanently brought about, except through men's knowledge of the Fatherhood of God? And how can the Fatherhood of God ever be known except through him who taught us to say, "Our Father," and of whom the Father said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him?" It is no accident that the nations which have most reverently heeded this divine command, the nations which are most truly Christian, are the nations which have hitherto stood in the forefront of the foremost civilizations of mankind, and are the nations which now hold the future.

The force which will bind all men in a real and permanent union is no mere knowledge of navigation, nor is it Anglo-Saxon commerce, laws, or language; it is the Christian religion.

The latter part of our voyage was less trying than the earlier, and the days were generally brighter, though still cold. Yet all were glad when one night, about nine o'clock, the intermittent gleam of the lighthouse on the Scilly Islands came into view, assuring us that the voyage would soon be ended. Next morning we were steaming along the picturesque south coast of England, with the white chalk cliffs and velvety green downs in plain view through the tender blue haze, the water was quieter and the weather warmer, and in a few hours more we entered The Solent, passing on our right, almost within a stone's throw, "The Needles," three white, pointed rocks of chalk, at the western extremity of the Isle of Wight, which rest on dark colored bases and spring abruptly from the sea to a height of a hundred feet, and which are in striking contrast with the vertically striped cliffs of red, yellow, green, and grey sandstone behind them.

At last the great engines cease their throbbing for the first time in nine days, the tender comes alongside for the passengers bound for Great Britain, and in another half hour we set foot on the soil of England, in the ancient city of Southampton.