CHAPTER I.
THE VOYAGE.
“So long
As he could make me with this eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of his mind
Could best express how slow his soul sail’d on,
How swift his ship.”
Shakespeare, Cymbeline.
The conditions under which we now plough the ocean or fly through continents present so remarkable a contrast to the state of affairs half a century back, that we who are in the autumn of life, with the signal of the “sere and yellow leaf” fluttering feebly at the masthead, can scarce realize the old coaching days, with their thirteen hours’ travel to every hundred miles, as more than an old dream.