Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1903-08-25
FROM ACROSS THE POND.
Events of Sea Voyage Kept in 'Lsig
Form and Printed for Pilot
Readers.

The following is a letter received
from Louis A. Pradt, who recently
landed at Antwerp, after trip across
the Atlantic from New York. The
reader will note that some of the words
are purposely misspelled, and the letter
runs in the hum orous vein character
istic of its writer.
This is landsman's log of the voyage
of the good S. S. Finland from New
York to Antwerp, begun July IS and
ending July 2S. The FINLAND" is good
not because S. S. means that she is a
Sunday School, but because, by every
just tradition, all ships are good and
because moreover the Finland" is
good in her own right she is SO long
and lofty and strong and safe and dig
nified and impressive and-Ameracdsa.
AS she Law at the dock in New York on
the morning of sailing we found her
two blocks long in pacing alongside
from bow to stern, and her gigantic
black sides crowned with her snow
white upper decks loomed far above US
although about three stories lay below
the water-line.
Her decks were crowded that morn
ing with passengers and their friends,
chatting and laughing and weeping and
y.
Shortly before 10 the bugle, which so
often thereafter gave welcome Tor
OtherWiSe) announcement of meals,
warned the visitors to leave and soon
after the Finland" I" with the incest ac-
curacy, backed ont of her narrow slip
and pointed for the MARQUIS through a
crowd of craft of all sizes and sorts,
with a throng on the wharf waving
farew ellis.
For YOU they CALL the swayipg mass,
their eager faces turning"
Iquoted to myself, but | may have
been in error.
As we passed Sandy Hook the two
"Shdmr0cks' rode at anchor within its
protecting arm looking very tit and dan
gerous, each with "the mast of some
tall Admiral" Not long after the pilot
boat danced up and our pilot rowed out
to it and we were at sea.
If this were the log it should be, It
would contain each event chronology
cally. The methodical man would add
statistics of the dimensions of the ship,
the number of passengers, the amount
of coal burned daily, of bread con-
cast upon the waters, sub
sequently-and much else worth know
ing. The pastor upon his vacation
would make timely quotations of texts
relating to those that go down to the
sea in ships. The poet would doubtless
in keeping. But this voyage was to me
a delicious, lazy holiday and this will be
a lazy mans log.
1t takes the first day of an ocean voy-
age to find your seats in the dining
Sfn crn
your berth and elsewhere in such wise
as to provoke the least amount of OBJ
jurgation in getting at it afterwards; to
get your steamer chair; to learn to dis
tinguish the lee-scuppers from the poop
deck; to decide upon the advisability,
in passing the Marconi station at Cape
Cod, of sending home a telegram to
smash the gas meter and put out the
cat; and in Finding your sea legs" as
we seamen say in our naughtytickle
way. And so it was on this voyage; in
that everyone was busy and all,
but few impossible ones, were happy
and crowded the dining tables, gay
with flowers, at dinner-which was at
bells in the second Dog Watch; "dnd
you may lay TO that" But during the
night there arose a great commotion
upon the waters and a most unhappy
crowd awoke to misery next morning
Very few were they who were able to
view their meals with equanimity that
day or to retain them and their COM
posure. [ trust that | was not filled
with sinful pride at being one of that
select number, and yet there is just
C ause for self complacency in being
able to walk about with certainty
amidst crowd of pale, disconsolate
creatures, collapsed in steamer chairs or
feebly festooning the rail. But he
would be base man indeed who could
find additional satisfaction in the fact
that his wife was gazing at him in wan,
incredulous envy The dining saloon
might have been church that Sunday
evening, so empty was it, But the
morning brought quiet sea and a
sweet south wind and it was not long
until even the most abject emerged from
their lost condition. From that time
to the end of the voyage the weather
was fine with just enough bracing cool
ness in the air to make one thankful
that he was not ashore to walk on bis
tering pavements between suffocating
walls. Instead, we were out on the
vast Atlantic, our only boundary a
great, far-off, eyer-advancing circle of
sea and cloud and sky filled in with
tumbling waves of the darkest blue.
And this grand monotony of immensity
was unbroken from day to day except
at times by white sail flashing up on
the horizon to grow into stately ship
or a steamer with sometimes only
plume of smoke visible and sometimes
coming so near that we could spy out
with our glasses the markings of her
tunnels and so find food for later hours
of discussion of her identity Once
whale spouted half mile to starboard
and showed for few moments a great
black fin and occasionally the dolphins
sported or the porpoises rolled about
us But at all other times there was
only the spreading ocean with our
mighty ship plowing steadily through
it, a curling wave of foam at her bow
running alongside in white lace work
overlaylng a surface of delicate green
and merging in the broad wake churned
up by the monster twin screws. A most
delectable monotony it is, whose SAVIOR
is the salt sea air blowing over hun
dreds of leagues of ocean. And you
have only to gaze out to the cool, gray
horizon to see the ice bergs floating
down from the Arctics; strange sea
monsters in the quiet, tremendous
depths; the waving palms and curving
beaches of sand and the Spy Glass
peak of Treasure Island;" sheltered
inlets on the coast of the South Seas
where lurk the swift pirate craft to
dart out with Flint and Morgan mot
Pierpont) and Sharkey and Billy Bones
upon their quarter decks to seize stately
galleoRs, rich with treasure of plate
and jewels and pieces -of-eight; or to
hear the believing guns and the clash
of pixies and cutlasses in glorious sea
fights. All this and whatsoever else
you desire the genie of your imagina-
ton will bring to you in your solitude.
unvexed by newspapers or kilograms
or business, sitting at ease on the for
ward deck at the foot of the foremast
or in the shadow of the massive hoist
ing machinery of the monstrous an
chors which hang at the bow.
There is pouch fixed at the cross
trees of the main mast in which the
lookout is snugly slowed and at night
whenever the hour is belled, the watch
on deck cries. alTs irell, and the look
out from his perch repeats the refrain.
Md with these comforting words in