The Portland daily press., 1895-06-18
MANY PoRTLAN0ERswERE A BOARD.
A Recent Voyage Described by Portland
Tourist,
On the Campania. June 1895.


On the Campania, June 1895.
I will send you word of what the old
ocean can be in June. 1t may be they
say, a calm. 1t is likely to be an environ
ment of ice-bergs and fog, but it really
is today chopping sea. The people for
the most part are driven in, to take shell
ter in this luxurious library and the mu-
sic room farther beyond, where our party
is taking life at it's best and thinking of
loved friends at home cling with one
hand to the desk at which 1 write and
with the other pen these words The
chairs on deck are tied to the rails and
the few courageous people who stay out
side are looking like bundles of rugs.
The dishes are dancing below and cabin
luggage is shifting about But what
good days we have had at first, what a
sweet solemn Sabbath with sounds of de-
votional music from services held in the
different parts of the ship
Old Neptune hid his head until the
third day and then he found almost all
armed against his sway An occasional
old man pays tribute to his rule but al
most everyone is gay and responds to
the reveille. For musical bugle or clari-
noon it is like the call to draw up in
| line of battle, while at night it's sweet
notes seem to give signal for an onward
march, instead of call to remind us 'of
the prosaic dinner hour. The dinner call
of years ago is "a thing of the past, moth
ing uncouth disturbs the peoples nerves
as the rolling, laundering gong. The
world is moving on.
| This is noble ship which "rides the
waves and dares the threatening storm"
with grandeur never before seen F.. What
would Columbus in his little craft have
said had he encountered floating, vibrat-
| ing world in the midst of the same ocean
in which his hope, SO weary with watch
ing, gave out. He would have mistaken
it for the land SO anxiously sought, and
prematrrely would have said ''You are
diseoveged:' -,
The last score of years has added more
to the luxury and comfort of navigating
the seas than all the four centuries since
Columbus time What a wonderful
thing it is that two thousand souls are
brought together in one ship, for five
hundred Of whom every appurtenance of
refined and cultivated civilized life is
| furnished with nothing lacking that our
| big cities afford. This multitude of men
and women each with his own thoughts,
his own expectations, his own past sorrows
and individual regrets What total of
commonplaces, what sum of lofty am
bitions, what wealth of personal devo
tion, what an amount of practical COM
mon sense exists here What probable
successes, what inevitable failures what
possibilities of good andssill such a float
ing palace bears to its safe haven.
The embarking of what they call the
ocean greyhound" is unique. Although
so many ships leave the docks at New
| York and Brooklyn the same day the
whole of America is seemingly in this
one spot. The whole vicinity is one dense
crowd, a black, moving mass. Even the
| two thousand souls about to embark are
| swallowed up in the vast incorrigibe
| throngb 1t is simply terrible ordeal for
any one to meet The rush and roar, the
hurrying to and fro, the motley throng of
people which fills every corner of this
great, trembling vibrating world so soon
to shoot forth into space.
Who hates a crowd, let him beware;
who breads to be enclosed in huge mov-
ing mass of humanity, bent on purposes
of it's own, let him be an absent spectator
Fat the sailing of these mighty ships. Let
all hysterlcally people, apoplectlc ones and
those Of weak nerves shun this eager Curl
Gus crowd and suffocating scene
Military rule has taken the place of the
moral suasion of a few years ago. This
way up and that way down. this for
egress that for entrance must be enforced.
Keys to cabins, though absent in the
voyage are for the moment in vogue and
instead of personal surveillance of effects,
one finds even himself locked out For
not long since some daring burglar mixed
with the joyous crowd and bore away,
not the wealth of an English estate massed
in floral ships of state in crescents, horse
shoes, pillows and funeral designs which
choke the saloon, they took actual jewels
and soft raiment of the millionaire, and
costly belongings of the princes of the
earth going forth. AS usual the Cunard
Line now makes everything sure
The percentage of safety on one of these
ships in midocean is said to be greater
than in any other situation in the Uni
verse Of God For where are the horses
to run away, the plate glass windows to
be shattered in their course, the wild
pedestrians to be over come in their
course, the panicstricken women to be
trampled down? There is no misplaced
switch, no excursion train running out
of time, no overloaded craft, no tiny row
boat decoyed away, no spreading rail, no
electric road, nothing but mid-ocean and
the well defined paths which wise and
sturdy mariners have laid out. In this
glorious solitude this optional compan-
ionship, this calm and steady every day
life, pulsing with hope and joyous antici-
pations and always serene we are peace
full monarchs or private citizens, as we
wish, in a kingdom of our own.
A. H. 6.
Maine Bra nch Meetings.