CHAPTER XVII.
THE GREATER RHINE.
The Return Homeward.—On the Terrace,—Quebec.
THE Class made their return voyage by the way of Liverpool to Quebec, one of the shortest of the ocean ferries, and one of the most delightful in midsummer and early autumn, when the Atlantic is usually calm, and the icebergs have melted away.
As the steamer was passing down the Mersey, and Liverpool with her thousands of ships, and Birkenhead with its airy cottages, were disappearing from view, Mr. Beal remarked to the boys,—
“We shall return through the Straits, and so shall be probably only four and a half days out of sight of land.”
“I did not suppose it was possible to cross the Atlantic from land to land in four days and a half,” said Charlie Leland.