The Innocents Abroad

What was there lacking about that program to make it perfectly irresistible? Nothing that any finite mind could discover. Paris, England, Scotland, Switzerland, Italy⁠—Garibaldi! The Grecian Archipelago! Vesuvius! Constantinople! Smyrna! The Holy Land! Egypt and “our friends the Bermudians”! People in Europe desiring to join the excursion⁠—contagious sickness to be avoided⁠—boating at the expense of the ship⁠—physician on board⁠—the circuit of the globe to be made if the passengers unanimously desired it⁠—the company to be rigidly selected by a pitiless “Committee on Applications”⁠—the vessel to be as rigidly selected by as pitiless a “Committee on Selecting Steamer.” Human nature could not withstand these bewildering temptations. I hurried to the treasurer’s office and deposited my ten percent. I rejoiced to know that a few vacant staterooms were still left. I did avoid a critical personal examination into my character by that bowelless committee, but I referred to all the people of high standing I could think of in the community who would be least likely to know anything about me.

Shortly a supplementary program was issued which set forth that the Plymouth Collection of Hymns would be used on board the ship. I then paid the balance of my passage money.

I was provided with a receipt and duly and officially accepted as an excursionist. There was happiness in that but it was tame compared to the novelty of being “select.”

One’s safest course that day was to clasp a railing and hang on; walking was too precarious a pastime.

By some happy fortune I was not seasick.⁠—That was a thing to be proud of. I had not always escaped before. If there is one thing in the world that will make a man peculiarly and insufferably self-conceited, it is to have his stomach behave itself, the first day at sea, when nearly all his comrades are seasick. Soon a venerable fossil, shawled to the chin and bandaged like a mummy, appeared at the door of the after deck-house, and the next lurch of the ship shot him into my arms. I said:

“Good morning, Sir. It is a fine day.”

He put his hand on his stomach and said, “Oh, my!” and then staggered away and fell over the coop of a skylight.

Presently another old gentleman was projected from the same door with great violence. I said:

“Calm yourself, Sir⁠—There is no hurry. It is a fine day, Sir.”

He, also, put his hand on his stomach and said “Oh, my!” and reeled away.

In a little while another veteran was discharged abruptly from the same door, clawing at the air for a saving support. I said:

“Good morning, Sir. It is a fine day for pleasuring. You were about to say⁠—”

“Oh, my!”

I thought so. I anticipated him, anyhow. I stayed there and was bombarded with old gentlemen for an hour, perhaps; and all I got out of any of them was “Oh, my!”

The Portuguese pennies, or reis (pronounced rays), are prodigious. It takes one thousand reis to make a dollar, and all financial estimates are made in reis. We did not know this until after we had found it out through Blucher. Blucher said he was so happy and so grateful to be on solid land once more that he wanted to give a feast⁠—said he had heard it was a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand banquet. He invited nine of us, and we ate an excellent dinner at the principal hotel. In the midst of the jollity produced by good cigars, good wine, and passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. He took another look to assure himself that his senses had not deceived him and then read the items aloud, in a faltering voice, while the roses in his cheeks turned to ashes:

“ ‘Ten dinners, at 600 reis, 6, reis!’ Ruin and desolation!

“ ‘Twenty-five cigars, at 100 reis, 2, reis!’ Oh, my sainted mother!

“ ‘Eleven bottles of wine, at 1, reis, 13, reis!’ Be with us all!

“ ‘Total, twenty-one thousand seven hundred reis!’ The suffering Moses! There ain’t money enough in the ship to pay that bill! Go⁠—leave me to my misery, boys, I am a ruined community.”

I think it was the blankest-looking party I ever saw. Nobody could say a word. It was as if every soul had been stricken dumb. Wine glasses descended slowly to the table, their contents untasted. Cigars dropped unnoticed from nerveless fingers. Each man sought his neighbor’s eye, but found in it no ray of hope, no encouragement. At last the fearful silence was broken. The shadow of a desperate resolve settled upon Blucher’s countenance like a cloud, and he rose up and said:

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party, because Americans so much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation⁠—full of impatience. He said:

“Come wis me, genteelmen!⁠—come! I show you ze letter writing by Christopher Colombo!⁠—write it himself!⁠—write it wis his own hand!⁠—come!”

He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged document was spread before us. The guide’s eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the parchment with his finger:

“What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! handwriting Christopher Colombo!⁠—write it himself!”

We looked indifferent⁠—unconcerned. The Doctor examined the document very deliberately, during a painful pause.⁠—Then he said, without any show of interest:

“Ah⁠—Ferguson⁠—what⁠—what did you say was the name of the party who wrote this?”

“Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!”

Another deliberate examination.

“Ah⁠—did he write it himself; or⁠—or how?”

“He write it himself!⁠—Christopher Colombo! He’s own handwriting, write by himself!”

Then the Doctor laid the document down and said:

“Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that.”

“But zis is ze great Christo⁠—”

You can not tell any of these parties apart, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, I know many of them.”

He put his finger on a skull. “This was Brother Anselmo⁠—dead three hundred years⁠—a good man.”

He touched another. “This was Brother Alexander⁠—dead two hundred and eighty years. This was Brother Carlo⁠—dead about as long.”

Then he took a skull and held it in his hand, and looked reflectively upon it, after the manner of the gravedigger when he discourses of Yorick.

“This,” he said, “was Brother Thomas. He was a young prince, the scion of a proud house that traced its lineage back to the grand old days of Rome well nigh two thousand years ago. He loved beneath his estate. His family persecuted him; persecuted the girl, as well. They drove her from Rome; he followed; he sought her far and wide; he found no trace of her. He came back and offered his broken heart at our altar and his weary life to the service of God. But look you. Shortly his father died, and likewise his mother. The girl returned, rejoicing. She sought everywhere for him whose eyes had used to look tenderly into hers out of this poor skull, but she could not find him. At last, in this coarse garb we wear, she recognized him in the street. He knew her. It was too late. He fell where he stood. They took him up and brought him here. He never spoke afterward. Within the week he died. You can see the color of his hair⁠—faded, somewhat⁠—by this thin shred that clings still to the temple.