The Argosy — page 57: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

47 ON BOARD THE “BATAVIA.” By Cuar_es W. Woon, F.R.G.S., AUTHOR oF “ LETTERS FROM Majorca,” ETC. ETC. E left the Albert Dock on Thursday morning. There had not been a gleam of sunshine for many days, and on this particular Thursday morning the rain chose to come down in a fine and persistent Scotch mist, which is said to be more insidious than the heaviest shower. For my own part, if I were out unaccom- panied by an umbrella, I con- fess that I should prefer the Scotch mist to the proverbial good old English “cats and dogs.” But it was depressing and provoking. It had rained nearly all the summer. Did it intend to rain all through the next month? If so, better re- main at home and endure the ills we knew of, as Shakespeare says; for we cannot do wrong in following his advice. Rain day after day at sea is one of those ills that give rise to suicidal tendencies. To begin with, we were rather late in starting. This was possibly due to the aforementioned depression, which lowers one’s principle of action ; but more probably due to the innumerable small obstruc- tions which rise up at the last moment, causing one for at least the sixth time to unstrap and reopen one’s luggage, with a growing irritability that at last verges upon dementia. “Where to, sir?” said the head porter of the Hotel Métropole, where we had been staying for a few days, in sight and sound of the classical old Thames on one side and the lions of Trafalgar Square on the other. *¢ Liverpool onl was the reply, almost inaudible from exhaustion and suppressed rag “What! For T ihe P. and O. steamer? Sharp work, that, sir! You are at least twenty-five minutes late in starting.” A MODERN RUTH. conmiicbooks.com