Beach, of the Sun, who was taking with him type and
press, whereby he would "skilfully utilize the brains of the company for
their mutual edification." Mr. Beecher and General Sherman would find
talent enough aboard to make the hours go pleasantly (evidently the
writer had not interested himself sufficiently to know that these
gentlemen were not along), and the paragraph closed by prophesying other
such excursions, and wishing the travelers "good speed, a happy voyage,
and a safe return."

That was handsome, especially for those days; only now, some fine day,
when an airship shall start with a band of happy argonauts to land beyond
the sunrise for the first time in history, we shall feature it and
emblazon it with pictures in the Sunday papers, and weeklies, and in the
magazines.--[The Quaker City idea was so unheard-of that in some of the
foreign ports visited, the officials could not believe that the vessel
was simply a pleasure-craft, and were suspicious of some dark, ulterior
purpose.]

That Henry Ward Beecher and General Sherman had concluded not to go was a
heavy disappointment at first; but it proved only a temporary disaster.
The inevitable amalgamation of all ship companies took place. The
sixty-seven travelers fell into congenial groups, or they mingled and
devised amusements, and gossiped and became a big family, as happy and as
free from contention as families of that size are likely to be.

The Quaker City was a good enough ship and sizable for her time. She was
registered eighteen hundred tons--about one-tenth the size of
Mediterranean excursion-steamers today--and when conditions were
favorable she could make ten knots an hour under steam--or, at least, she
could do it with the help of her auxiliary sails. Altogether she was a
cozy, satisfactory ship, and they were a fortunate company who had her
all to themselves and went out on her on that long-ago ocean gipsying.
She has grown since then, even to the proportions of the Mayflower. It
was necessary for her to grow to hold all of those who in later times
claimed to have sailed in her on that voyage with Mark Twain.--[The
Quaker City passenger list will be found under Appendix F, at the end of
last volume.]

They were not all ministers and deacons aboard the Quaker City. Clemens
found other congenial spirits be sides his room-mate Dan Slote--among
them the ship's surgeon, Dr. A. Reeve Jackson (the guide-destroying
"Doctor" of The Innocents); Jack Van N