where she is now. And as I thought it out, I saw how I stood.
I saw I was not only an alien wherever I went, but I was alone. I began
to be afraid. I used to look ahead and tried to see myself in twenty
years' time, alone. It is not good for a man to be alone. That's how I
felt when we reached Genoa.

"Those who know best often say that sailormen know less about foreign
countries than many people who have never travelled. I daresay that is
true of many of us. It is very likely true of any uneducated people who
go abroad. Most men who go to sea have very little education. They have
no knowledge of their own country, let alone others. To a certain extent
I was different. I had always wanted to see Italy. Years before, when I
was in Victoria Street, I had read about her history and art. I had even
learned a little of the language. And so, when we came into Genoa, and I
saw that beautiful city, with her white palaces and green domes and
fort-crowned hills, when I remembered what she'd been, and saw what she
was, I could hardly wait till nightfall to go ashore and see it all at
once!

"Since then I've been to nearly every port in the Mediterranean, from
Gibraltar to Smyrna and from Marseilles to Tunis, but I never
experienced anything like that first night ashore in Genoa. The next day
the Chief asked me where I'd been, and I told him. 'Why,' he says,
'didn't you go into the "Isle o' Man" or the "American"?' No, I hadn't
been in any of those places. He said they'd have to show me round.

"That night I went with them, leaving the new Fourth in charge, and I
learned why sailormen know so little of foreign places. All along the
Front, as they call it, were scores of dirty little bars with English
names. I wouldn't mention them at all, only it is necessary in a way, as
you'll see. We went into several and had a drink, and the Chief was
known in them all. Finally the Chief says, 'Let's get on to the "Isle o'
Man,"' and we went out and walked along the Via Milano a little further.
The 'Isle o' Man' was rather bigger than most of these places, and had a
very comfortable room with plush settees and marble tables shut off from
the main cafe. It was kept by a big, heavy, red-haired woman, about
fifty years old, who came in and sat down by the Chief and talked about
old times. I found she was married to a steward in the Hamburg-American
Line, who ran this show on the side. It was a mixed company in there,
skippers of all nations sitt