The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-07-24
HIS FIRST SEA VOYAGE.
WALTER WELLMAN WRITES OF THE
TRIP TO NASSAU AND RETURN.

| WAL EH WGLlmAN WIKI rs Or lie
TRIP TO NASSAU AND RETURN.
What Sea Voyage Is-The Ocean Is
Really Sometimes as Smooth as Glass
seasickness-The Captains Patronage
Things 1t viii Be Wise to Do.
Especial Correspondence
WASHINGTON, July "a sea voyage
from New York to Nassau, the capital
of the Bahamas, and return is good
thing at this season of the year, and a
good thing at any season, l should think.
know it is good in June, because l have
tried it. In early summer the sea is a;
smooth as glass. Landsman that l am,
making my first sea voyage in June, the
present year of our Lord, never be
heved In the stories which | had heard
of the calmness Of the great ocean. Gas
smooth as glass" had to me always
seemed more than a poets license, which
is generally polite synonym for lie.
But the sea can be as smooth as glass, as
l discovered to my great astonishment
and delight-that is to say, its surface
in two or three days calm softens and
| quiets till not so much as ripple re-
mains, till a cork could float hour after
hour with its uppermost end as dry as
finder. OF course the swell Of the ocean
that gentle, undulatory motion-never
wholly ceases 1t is eternal
1t was in such a CLASSY, peaceful sea
as this that we made the voyage from
Nassau to New York few days ago.
What could be more delightful than
four or five days like these, with long,
cool nights to sleep through, with good
company by day, with ravenous appe-
titles and tempting cuisine, and with a
| right good novel to fall back upon when
| you tire of conversation? My advice to
| the readers Of this letter is to take such
a sea voyage if you ever get the chance
It will do you an immense lot of good,
mentally and physically. twill broaden
your ideas of men and things, give you
a new conception Of the majesty Of ma
ture and the vastnesS Of the world, and
no doubt add a couple of inches to your
! girth and as many years to your career.
There is another thing it will do, and
that is to fill you with d new love for
the land in which you are so fortunate
as to live. No matter how quaint and
interesting the foreign lands may be you
will sing hosannas of praise and thanks
when you return to the United States,
and forevermore be the more content
with your lot, whatever it may be.
Here l am writing away for all the
world like schoolgirl about my first
sea voyage, just as if a sea voyage was
something new or extraordinary, which
of course it is not. But the schoolgirl
heaven bless her-who goes into ecstacies
of expression and reams Of paper in re-
cOrding her impressions of things new
to her, though old to a majority of man
kind, often builds better than she knows.
So may |.
For [ confess that voyage at sea has
always been a mysterious, a romantic
thing to me. have read letters of
travel, Of voyages, Of personal expert
ences on the great ocean galore, and in
none of them did ever learn what a sea
voyage was. Perhaps it is because it is
one Of those things which cannot be de-
scribed; possibly it is because the writers
run over the little things as too trivial
for their attention, and look for adven-
lures and incidents which never come.
At any rate, | am going to tell you as
nearly as 1 can what a sea voyage-an
uneventful, commonplace, everyday sea
yOyage-is, for the benefit of country
boys like myself and country girls, too,
If | shall -6a fortunate enough to have
them for readers, to whom the sea is an
unexplored region.
To start, You buy your passage tickets
of course. IF perchance you should con-
clude to go from New York to Nassau
and return, the round trip will cost you
seventy dollars. What do you get for
this? Well, eight days board and lodg-
ing, and good board and lodging they
are, too, and nearly 1900 miles travel.
Of course you will readily perceive that
this is cheaper than railway travel,
where you pay from two to three cents
a mile for transportation and extra for
your meals and beds.
When You take your first ocean voy-
age do not fail to have some friends at
the dock to see you off. If you have no
friends handy hire messenger boy or
somebody as substitute. That was a
mistake which l made-both my friend
and l. Every other passenger had a
friend on the dock to wave a handker-
chief or something at him till the
steamer had swung far out into the
North river and was out of sight down
the harbor. We-the artist and I-were
like two orphans sailing southwark into
the hot, hot world without single hand
kerchief waving in our honor, without
one tear falling over our departure. We
envied the lucky passengers who had
such attention paid than, till we reached
the real, great, wide, deep ocean and
the steamer began to roll and pitch lit
tie, and our friends who had enjoyed the
great pleasure of waving and being
waved at began to waver. 1t was a
queer thing-how it came to be so
don't know-but the only passengers
who were not more or less seasick the
first evening out were the two orphans
the artist and myself. One by one the
heroes of the handkerchiefs began TO dis
to their staterooms, and finally
all who had turned their noses up at us /
and treated Us with proud disdain be-
cause no one had cried salt tears over rs /
as We embarked, were wishing them /
selves back on dry land, or even wet /
land, lust SD II was land that would sit 4
still How the artist and l gloated over