the tall peaks of the architectural topography of
Manhattan Island, and yet the log of the _Black Prince_ makes it no
more than twenty days. Not that our day-to-day time has been dragging,
for it has done nothing of the sort.

All my life long I have dreamed of indulging in the joy of a really
long voyage, and now at last I've got it. New York to Cape Town, South
Africa, 6,900 miles, thirty days' straight-away run, and thence another
twenty-four days' sail to Mombasa, on a 7,000-ton cargo boat,
deliberate and stately rather than fast of pace, but otherwise as trim,
well groomed, and well found as a liner, with an official mess that
numbers as fine a set of fellows as ever trod a bridge. The Captain,
when not busy hunting up a stray planet to check his latitude, puts in
his spare time hunting kindly things to do for his two passengers--for
there are only two of us, the Doctor and myself. The Doctor signed on
the ship's articles as surgeon, I as purser.

Fancy it! Thirty days' clear respite from the daily papers, the
telephone, the subway crowds, and the constant wear and tear on one's
muscular system reaching for change, large and small! Thirty days free
of the daily struggle either for place on the ladder of ambition or for
the privilege to stay on earth and stand about and watch the others
mount, that saps metropolitan nerves and squeezes the humanities out of
metropolitan life until its hearts are arid and barren and cruel as
those of the cavemen! Thirty days' repose, practically alone amid one
of nature's greatest solitudes, awed by her silences, uplifted by the
majesty of her mighty forces, with naught to do but humble oneself
before the consciousness of his own littleness and unfitness, and study
how to right the wrongs he has done.

Indeed a voyage like this makes it certain one will come actually to
know one's own self so intimately that, unless well convinced that he
will esteem and enjoy the acquaintance, he had best stay at home. Of
my personal experience in this particular I beg to be excused from
writing.

Lonesome out here? Far from it. Behind, to be sure, are those so near
and dear, one would gladly give all the remaining years allotted him
for one blessed half-hour with them. Otherwise, time literally flies
aboard the _Black Prince_; the days slip by at puzzling speed. Roughly
speaking, I should say the meals consume about half one's waking hours,
for we are fed five times a day, and fed