The sky was lit up with rockets and fireworks, pandemonium reigned, and the whole city seemed to have gone mad.
The following day we filled up the vacancies in our crew, and in the company of five other clippers set sail for Liverpool. A good deal of speculation was rife as to who should reach the Channel first, and a good number of bets were laid amongst the various captains and officers.
The “Tonquin” as I said before, was a very smart sailer and Captain McLellan was just the man to get all the speed he could out of her.
The “City of Madrid,” “Khersonese,” and the “Mallowdale” all left San Francisco within a few hours of the “Tonquin,” but during the long run of fourteen thousand miles, we never got a sight of each other after the first day.
We arrived at Falmouth one hundred and seventeen days after leaving San Francisco, and got orders to proceed to Liverpool, this taking us seven days beating round to accomplish, and I arrived home just nine years from the day on which I sailed on the “John Kerr,” so here I part from my readers, as the stone has once more rolled home, not to settle, oh, no, but should this have interested my readers, I have no doubt that the further rollings of this restless stone will be found in another volume.
FINIS
Printed by the Devonshire Press, Ltd., Torquay
Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is public domain.
The publication used as the basis of this eBook contained several alternative and some now obsolete spellings that have been retained.