fairy tale
who, starting out humble and unnoticed, wins his way through a hundred
adventures and returns with gifts and honors.

The homeward voyage was a notable one. It began with a tempest a little
way out of San Francisco--a storm terrible but brief, that brought
the passengers from their berths to the deck, and for a time set them
praying. Then there was Captain Ned Wakeman, a big, burly, fearless
sailor, who had visited the edges of all continents and archipelagos;
who had been born at sea, and never had a day's schooling in his life,
but knew the Bible by heart; who was full of human nature and profanity,
and believed he was the only man on the globe who knew the secret of
the Bible miracles. He became a distinct personality in Mark Twain's
work--the memory of him was an unfailing delight. Captain "Ned Blakely,"
in 'Roughing It', who with his own hands hanged Bill Noakes, after
reading him promiscuous chapters from the Bible, was Captain Wakeman.
Captain "Stormfield," who had the marvelous visit to heaven, was
likewise Captain Wakeman; and he appears in the "Idle Excursion" and
elsewhere.

Another event of the voyage was crossing the Nicaragua Isthmus--the trip
across the lake and down the San Juan River--a brand-new experience,
between shores of splendid tropic tangle, gleaming with vivid life. The
luxuriance got into his note-book.

Dark grottos, fairy festoons, tunnels, temples, columns, pillars,
towers, pilasters, terraces, pyramids, mounds, domes, walls, in endless
confusion of vine-work--no shape known to architecture unimitated--and
all so webbed together that short distances within are only gained by
glimpses. Monkeys here and there; birds warbling; gorgeous plumaged
birds on the wing; Paradise itself, the imperial realm of beauty-nothing
to wish for to make it perfect.

But it was beyond the isthmus that the voyage loomed into proportions
somber and terrible. The vessel they took there, the San Francisco,
sailed from Greytown January 1, 1867, the beginning of a memorable
year in Mark Twain's life. Next day two cases of Asiatic cholera were
reported in the steerage. There had been a rumor of it in Nicaragua, but
no one expected it on the ship.

The nature of the disease was not hinted at until evening, when one of
the men died. Soon after midnight, the other followed. A minister making
the voyage home, Rev. J. G. Fackler, read the burial service. The gaiety
of the passengers, who had become well ac