The steamers of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, leaving Liverpool, touch at Bordeaux, Santander and Lisbon, then are off 6,000 miles away to Rio, never slowing the engines for a moment during the voyage. Two days at Rio to discharge cargo and take in coal, then off again to Montevideo, discharge cargo, and coal again, then away round the Horn, and thousands of miles up the west coast, touching everywhere to land mails and passengers; finally after 14,000 miles of sea travel they reach Callao, then take the home track for Liverpool.
Modern buccaneers, indeed, were we, engaged in a nineteenth century piratical descent upon the shores of South America. Instead of the burly, much-beweaponed pirate of other years, we were mild-mannered, soft-spoken, courteous youngsters, yet our steel pen and bottle of ink were more deadly instruments or at least of surer fire and of better aim, than the long toms and horse pistols of the piratical braves of the seventeenth century. Our hopes of gain were high, and we counted on an ample return for the trouble of our adventure. I say trouble, for danger we feared none, so confident were we of our ability to carry off everything with a high hand, and so complete was our faith in each other that we had no anxiety as to the result, but simply regarded our trip as a pleasant voyage into tropic seas—a happy change from the March wind and sombre skies of England to the bright skies and balmy air of the tropical world in the Winter months.
I had a balance in the bank of £2,335, and we, as a matter of policy, wanted to have our capital ready at hand. The bank has a rule that a depositor must never have less than £300 to his credit. My friends were somewhat skeptical as to whether the bank did not regard their new customer, F.A. Warren, with some suspicion and as a depositor to be watched. My personal relations with the bank people convinced me everything was all right, but to convince my friends I determined to give them a proof that the bank would break their rule on my account.
The Monday before we sailed for Brazil I called at the bank and told the sub-manager that I was going to St. Petersburg and on to Southern Russia for a time to inspect some work I was doing there, and I purposed to withdraw my account. He begged me not to do so, said many flattering things to me, and urged that it would be convenient to have an open account in London.
"Well," I said, looking at my passbook, "I see I have £2,335 to my credit. I will leave the odd £35 with you." He instantly acquiesced. Had he said: "No, you must leave at least £300, as our rules require," I should have said "All right," and made it five hundred. I drew out the £2,300 at once, intending to deposit £300 before leaving London, but in the haste of our preparations I neglected it, and my balance at the bank stood £35 for all the weeks I was on our piratical cruise to the Spanish Main.
Storing most of our baggage in London, we took the train to Liverpool, and, purchasing tickets for Rio, we went on board the good ship Lusitania, but not the "good" ship, for her first trip, this being her second, had won for her the name of being unlucky, and Liverpool insurance men, no less than Liverpool sailors, do not bank on an unlucky ship—their faith of ill luck following an unlucky ship has been justified in thousands of instances, as it was in the case of the Lusitania. But I am not going to relate the after history of the ship.
From the hour of our arrival in Liverpool we were outwardly strangers, and during the voyage no one ever suspected that we were anything else. We soon discovered we had a pleasant company of fellow voyagers, and as we steamed out of the Mersey and headed southward we settled down to have a good time. Boreas was friendly, and away we sped across the Bay of Biscay, rapidly neared the mouth of the Garonne, on an estuary of which is situated the old city of Bordeaux. Arriving there, the ship lay at anchor for some hours, taking in and discharging freight, and receiving emigrants for various parts of South America. When the steamer was about to leave, it was a strange and rather comical sight to witness the farewells and leave-takings from the crowds of friends who had come to see them off. The customary performance appeared to me so peculiar that I will describe it as well as I can after so many years: Two men standing face to face, one clasps the other round the body, the other passive, then leaning back lifts the party clear off the ground once, twice or thrice, probably according to the degree of relationship or amount of affection; then the operation is reversed, the embraced becoming the embracer. In some cases the ceremonial is repeated the second or third time, neither kissing nor crying being the fashion there.
The next morning we were off the coast of Spain, watching the silvery gleam from the ice-clad peaks of the Pyrenees—at least those of us who were not engaged in the more disagreeable employment of discharging their debt to Father Neptune. However, by the time the ship arrived at the small port of Santander the passengers were mostly recovering from the mal de mer occasioned by the rough water in the Bay of Biscay. While leaving this tiny landlocked harbor, one of the propeller blades touched the rocky bottom, and broke short off, but our ship continued her voyage with undiminished speed, and within three days was steaming up the Tagus to Lisbon. Here the passengers who wished to avail themselves of the opportunity had a few hours on shore; then we were off for the long diagonal run across the Atlantic.
"The Lady of the Lusitania," as she was called, because there was no other lady among the saloon passengers, was the wife of a captain in the British army, who was going out for a few months' hunting on the pampas of Buenos Ayres, and, of course, accompanied by many dogs, with an assortment of guns. There was also a chaplain in the British navy who was going out to join his ship at Valparaiso. A strange character was he; a big, burly man, about 28 years of age, the most inveterate champagne drinker on board, and that is saying a good deal. Whenever he met any of the "jolly" ones of the saloon passengers it was "Come, old fellow, will you toss me for a bottle of fizz?" as he called his favorite wine, and he had no lack of accepters. The majority in the saloon consisted of a party of fifteen young Englishmen, civil engineers, who were going under the leadership of a Swedish colonel to survey, for the Brazilian Government, a railway line across the southern part of Brazil, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In all there were twenty-five young men, full of frolic and fun, who made things rather lively about the ship. They went in for everything from which any fun could be extracted. At the equinoctial line they roped in the "greenhorns" to look through the field glasses at the line, and having fastened a hair across the field of view, of course, we could all see it plainly. Father Neptune came on board and those of the crew who had never crossed the Equator were hunted out of their hiding places, dragged on deck, lathered with a whitewash brush dipped in old grease, shaved with a lath-razor, and then tumbled unceremoniously backward into a cask of water.
After a prosperous voyage of three weeks we arrived within sight of the famous "Sugar Loaf," and were duly disembarked at the Custom House, our baggage passed, and were off to our hotels, each going to a different one, and each registering the name our letters of credit and introduction bore. While in Rio we went by day in the parks or cafes, and spent our evenings together, having a most enjoyable time.