All Aboard for Europe
Some Humble Advice for Travellers
Every summer thousands and thousands of our people in America go across to Europe. They say that about fifty thousand people leave on the steamers every week. It's either fifty thousand or five hundred thousand, or five thousand--I forget which. Anyway, there are a great many people travelling every year.
Some of them go because they need a change of air; some to improve their minds; some because they were tired of making money, and others because they were tired of not making money. And some again go to see Europe, before it all falls to pieces: and others go simply and plainly for a vacation because they want for a few weeks to be really happy.
It is especially for this last class that these few words of advice are written. If you want to be happy when you start off on a sea voyage you have got to be prepared to face a lot of disillusionment. You are going to find all through the trip the most striking difference between travel as it is pictured in the Guide Book and travel as it is in fact.
The difference begins at the very moment of embarkation. Here is what is said in the attractive Steamship Guide Book--done up in colors with a picture of two girls walking on a promenade deck, and swaying in the wind like rushes, while a young man goes past in flannels and a straw hat.
"What," asks the Guide Book, "is more delightful than the embarkation on an Atlantic voyage? The size of the great steamer, its spotless decks, its commodious cabins, its luxurious saloon and its cozy library, thrill us with a sense of pleasure to come. As we step on board and look about us at the dancing waters of the harbor ruffled under the breeze from the open sea beyond, we feel that now at least we are entering on the realization of our dreams."
Yes. Exactly. Only unfortunately, my dear reader, it is just at the very moment of embarkation that you are certain to discover that your black valise is missing. Your steamer trunk is there all right in your stateroom and the brown valise and the paper parcel that your aunt has asked you to deliver in Aberdeen when you land at Liverpool. But the black valise apparently is clean gone.
You certainly had it in the Pullman car and your sister remembers seeing it in the taxicab--but where is it? Talk about embarkation on the ruffled harbor and the unrealized dream! Who can think of these things with a valise missing and the huge whistle of the steamer booming out the time of departure?
No use asking that man in uniform; apparently he's only one of the officers. Don't try to fight your way up to the bridge and challenge the captain. He doesn't know. Round the purser there are twenty people in the same condition as yourself, over one thing or another, all trying to get at him and bite him. There seem to be lots of stewards running up and down, but all they can do is ask you what number is your stateroom and say that the valise ought to be there. A conspiracy, evidently, the whole thing.
The result is that you are fussing up and down for half an hour and when at last the valise is found (in the next stateroom, owing to the simple fact that you wrote the wrong number on it), you are already far out at sea and have never seen the embarkation at all.
Never mind, there's lots of the trip left yet. After all, listen to what the Guide Book says about our first morning at sea--
"There is an extraordinary exhilaration," it prattles on, "about the first day at sea. From the lofty deck of the great liner our eye sweeps the limitless expanse. All about is the blue of the Atlantic, ruffled with the zephyrs of a summer morning. We walk the deck with a sense of resilience, a fullness of life unknown to the dweller upon terra firma, or stand gazing in dreamy reverie at the eternal ocean."
Oh, we do, do we? But I guess not. On our first morning at sea we have too much else to think of, even in the calmest weather, than mere reverie on the ocean. What is troubling us, is the question of deck chairs--how do we get one?--are they free, or do we have to pay?--and if we pay now, do we have to tip the man?--and which man is it that gives out our chairs?--and if we want to get our chairs next to Mr. Snyder from Pittsburgh, whom do we see about it?
There is room enough in this problem to keep us busy all morning; and even when we have got it straight, we start all over again with the question of what we do to get the seat that we want at the table. We would like to get ourselves and Mr. Snyder and Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins from Alberta all at the same table. Somebody has said to somebody that there's a steward giving out seats or going to give out seats somewhere in one of the saloons or somewhere. That's enough for us. That keeps us hot and busy all morning.