CHAPTER II
OUR VOYAGE TO THE RIVER PLATE
We had laughed at the story of some Englishmen in Lisbon, told us by a friend there. He overheard a group of typical John Bull tourists, who had been “doing” a fortnight in Portugal, discussing their experiences on their way to the boat. The weather had been superb all the time; they had been steeped in sunshine; yet the reflection which seemed to find most favour was the remark of a burly Yorkshireman: “Thank ’eaven, boys, no more of this damned glare for a while!”
But we were seekers of sunshine, prepared to accept all that came our way, so it was with light hearts we heard the engines throb and felt the vessel resume her voyage. The Franco-Portuguese couple with the little girl and ourselves were all who came aboard at Lisbon, which looked a veritable city of dream as we steamed out through the wide waters of the Tagus. Seen from the river, there are few finer prospects than the long and diversified coast line of Lisbon, culminating in the castled height of Cintra. A soft haze of heat blurred the outlines of the hills and touched them much in the manner of those feathery old landscape engravings that used to adorn the art books of fifty years ago.
There was a fairly large number of passengers aboard, but we soon discovered that the majority were only bound for Las Palmas, excluding the second class and some three hundred Spanish and Portuguese emigrants herded like cattle in the steerage. The dinner bell rang soon after we had settled in our new quarters, and for two weeks or so our days now slipped away, punctuated by the ship’s bells. This orderly division of time speedily produces a mental condition that makes for calm and good health. With nothing to do but engage in an occasional game of deck golf, or lounge in your canvas chair reading a novel, and be prompt to answer the summons of the bells that ring you to your meals, the days fade into each other, like the old-fashioned dissolving views, and with never a suggestion of weariness. Indeed, I often wondered if it might not be that a term of imprisonment would be almost as efficacious in bringing calm to the troubled spirit and health to the wearied body. Certainly a spell of monastic life would be as good a “rest cure.” But, on the whole, I felt the steamer chair had its advantages and although I had taken with me the notes for a book I had had in hand for years, intent on advancing that in my days of idleness, it was with a great content that I found it impossible to fix my mind on any thought of work in those serene days of sailing over sunny seas. Nothing seemed to matter, even the frequent ticking of the “wireless” was somewhat of an intrusion on our ocean peace.
In a voyage of so little incident, when the chief excitement is contrived by arranging sweepstakes on the day’s mileage of the vessel, there is plenty of time to study one’s fellow passengers, and for this a small company, such as we were after leaving Las Palmas, is probably more interesting than a large one. There were only some thirty saloon passengers and naturally there was much interchange of gossip, the ship’s officers proving especially companionable. A small company has the disadvantage, however, that the chronicler cannot well describe his companion voyagers with that easy frankness he may safely bestow upon a crowd. The possibilities of mutual identification are enormously increased.
Yet in the little handful of voyagers with whom we sailed there was a remarkable mingling of character: potentialities of tragedy and comedy, a microcosm of the social world. One could find much to say of them. I must content myself, however, with a few vague touches.
I found that one of the passengers who had made himself most eminent in the companionship of the saloon was an intimate of one of my oldest friends in a far-distant city—so tiny is this great world of ours. He was a gentleman in whom there survived something of the spirit of Mr. Pleydell in his Saturday evening “high jinks,” and maintained that character in the smoking room (where every night was Saturday) with a small but admiring audience whom he addressed as “my loyal subjects.” “Tell me,” he would say, “what thou would that we, of our royal will, might do this evening for our own and thy diversion.” And with varying qualities of the lamely jocular they would give their suggestions. It was all very pathetic to an onlooker: the frank and insatiable egotism of “Uncle” (as we dubbed this worthy of the ruddy visage), his determination to hear the beloved sound of his own voice in hoary anecdote and threadbare jest. I was very patient with him, as I shall ever be with one who has passed many years of his life in South America—he should be allowed a large charter of liberty for all that he has suffered of social hunger and intellectual thirst. At first I resented somewhat the obtrusive nature of this worthy Scot’s companionship, but, somehow, before the journey’s end we were good friends. I think a voyage of this kind teaches one tolerance, and it is surprising how the most apparently incompatible units may draw together by the practice of even a little toleration. As “Uncle” observed in his soft Scots voice: “Mun, I was even beginning to like Brixton,” naming a young man who joined us at Pernambuco, and who, by reason of a most pronounced tendency to “swank,” made a bad first impression.
Mention of this passenger, by the way, reminds me that his unfortunate habit of capping every story, going one better than everybody else, kept most of us at arm’s length for a day or two. If one said he had yellow fever, Brixton had had it twice; if another had made two voyages to Africa, Brixton had made five or six; if a third had shot a hare, Brixton had shot an elephant. Everywhere he had been he had met with hair-raising adventures. In Pernambuco, he had to use his revolver every night to scare away the burglars. How many had he killed? “I winged one of the devils anyhow!” And in proof he passed round his revolver. Yellow Jack was raging in the town when he left, he assured us; but somehow he had been allowed to come on board quietly and make us shiver with recital of the horrors he had escaped. Of course, we doubted every word that Brixton said and yet on many points I have since had occasion to test his statements and never once have I found that he lied. He told the truth as he saw it, and he was an entertaining and good-hearted Englishman, who had forgot in growing up to cast off certain habits of thought and talk which are delightful in Tom Sawyers and Huck Finns, but are apt to convey wrong impressions of handsome, well-groomed Mr. Brixtons!
Perhaps our quaintest voyager was an ugly Frenchman, who had been christened “Dr. Crippen,” before the ship had reached Lisbon. He certainly bore some resemblance to that misguided gentleman who stood so eminently in the world’s eye for a time, and the humour of the situation was that he had never heard of Crippen, and rather thought it was some sort of dimly conceived English compliment to him. He spoke no word of our barbaric tongue, and when “Uncle” presided at a mock trial of “Dr. Crippen” the prisoner was vastly amused, until he found himself condemned to an hour’s solitary confinement in a bathroom. He was much given to patronising the bar and passed the most of his days in a state of happy fuddle; yet I afterwards learned that his was one of the clearest brains that control a great and world-famous organisation in France and when he left us, it was a new and extremely sober “Dr. Crippen” who stepped ashore to carry out a very delicate and difficult business mission.
There was no American or English lady among the saloon passengers, but we had Scots, Irish, Danish, French, Spanish, and Peruvian. Of none that were ladies shall I speak, but two who were something else deserve a note. ’Tis ever thus; virtue is so lacking in the picturesque. As a connoisseur of dancing, I was interested to discover that we had aboard a famous danseuse, most charming of all the pupils of the great Loïe Fuller, who was on her way to the Casino at Buenos Ayres—a resort of dubious fame, according to current belief among our music-hall performers. But as I had many a time been charmed by the exquisite art of the said pupil of Loïe Fuller (whose name is as widely known as that of her teacher) I had no difficulty in deciding that the plain and vulgar Spanish contortionist who was going to stamp her heavy feet and twist her decidedly shapely body before the jovenes distinguidos of the Casino was merely trading in the name of a celebrity. Her luggage bore the famous name in huge letters, and I afterwards saw it “billed” widely in Buenos Ayres.