cabling. I explained matters,
but they had no faith. Nobody had.

I began to think I would have to work my passage, for I was determined
to get away inside of two weeks or perish. I looked up the vessels in
port in case I might know some of them. They were all strangers. In such
cases, unless one is in a hurry such as I was, for my return was urgent,
it is best to tackle some cargo boat. It is often possible to get a
passage for a quarter the mail-boat fare, for the tramp steamer's
captain looks on the fare as his own and never mentions passengers to
the owner. But I couldn't wait for a good old tramp, and at last, in
despair, my friend and a friend of his and I clubbed everything together
that was valuable and raised a fare to Naples on the proceeds. I left
Melbourne after ten days' stay there. We lay at Adelaide two days, and
got to Albany in a howling gale of wind. Leaving it we got a worse
snorter round Cape Leeuwin. But after that things improved till we
caught the south-west monsoon, which blew half a gale, and was like the
breath of a furnace. We reached Colombo, and I had no money to spend. I
raised five pounds on a cheque with the steward and spent the whole of
it in rickshaws and carriages. I saw what one could in the time, for I
breakfasted at one place, lunched at another, dined at a third. I mean
one of these days to spend a week or two at the Galle Face Hotel,
Colombo. At Mount Lavinia I got the one dinner of my life. I cordially
recommend the cooking.

We ran to Cape Guardafui in a gale, a sticky hot gale which made life
unendurable. The Red Sea was a relief and not too hot, but how we pitied
the poor devils quartered at Perim, and the lighthouses seen at the Two
Brothers. I would as soon camp for ever on the lee side of Tophet. But
my first trip through the Canal was charming. At night, when the
vessel's search-light threw its glare on the banks, the white sand
looked like snow-drifts. In the day the far-off deserts were a dream of
red sands, and red sand mingled with the horizon. At last we came to the
Mediterranean and I landed at Naples. The driver of my carrozzella took
my last money, so I put up at a good hotel and wired to England at the
hotel-keeper's expense. I went overland to London, and was back there in
four days under four months from the time I started from New York.

There are scores of people--I meet them every day--who are in a constant
state of yearn to do a bit of travelling. They s