This statement was received with applause and I was allowed to finish what little I had to say in peace. The meeting adjourned after unanimously passing a resolution protesting against the Dreadnaughts. Meetings of this character were held continuously all day.
THE BATHS OF CARACALLA, ROME, WHERE THE ROMANS HAD THE BEST TIMES OF THEIR LIVES AND WERE ALWAYS IN THE PICTURE WHILE IT LASTED
Then we took a new steamer to New York, and the cruise of the Cork was a thing of the past.
Retrospectively I might add that we suffered from a kind of artistic and historical dyspepsia, brought about by our inability to digest the immensity of the things we had seen and their variety. After leaving Madeira the stopping places came so fast that our sightseeing was indeed hard work, each new place blotting out the one that had preceded it. Undoubtedly we would after a while remember the scenes and places visited, and we would surely do so if we read the standard writers on these subjects.
Of the management it may be said that it had a Herculean task to perform, and its work was well done. If the amount of detail it had to face and arrange had been placed in less skilful hands or neglected, it would have been fatal to our comfort and progress.
My companions were on the whole a bright, alert and sympathetic company. Here and there, of course, there was some friction; human nature, under the strain put upon it by the length of the cruise and the number of people, could not be expected by the most exacting critic to behave better. The unimportant differences of opinion and misunderstandings that arose under trying circumstances will fade with the years as they fly by, and leave only bright, pleasant, interesting memories of all the wonderful things it was our privilege to see on this remarkable trip.
I offer a humble apology for the slang I have used in these pages, but it has seemed almost impossible to describe the scenes in connection with Jerusalem and Cairo without it—in fact, I couldn't help it!
I regret exceedingly that the anonymous character of this little effort will not permit me to mention the names of many men and women who, by their good-fellowship, sincerity and helpfulness, assisted one another to pass the time and make things "go," when sometimes the going was far from good.