The Sailor: "Kore wa second class. [This is second class.]" This was like treading on sacred ground to these lowly born mites.
The Sailor: "Kore wa kitsu en shitsu. [This is the smoking-room.]" Why a special room for so simple a service—and why men only?
He led them above to the hospital. He never made any comments, they asked him no questions, but followed, single file, as is proper for Japanese girls, agape with curiosity. They passed the life-saving equipment. A tiny voice ventured a question. An amazed member of the Japanese Government (it was a government subsidized vessel) said, with semi-scorn:
"Kore wa? Boat. [This? Boat.]" And they went below.
2
All of that forenoon, waiting for the Katori-maru to slip away from the pier, I watched for Fujiyama, that exquisite pyramid (to the summit of which I had climbed twice), but it was veiled in mist. I wanted to see what it looked like from the sea, just as I had seen what the sea and the universe looked like from its peak. All afternoon, as Japan was receding into the past, I tried to distinguish old Fuji, but there was only a glittering edge, like a sword, beneath the low, bright sun. After dinner I went on deck and there in all that simple splendor which has made it the wonder of the world, stood Fujiyama, with a soft, sunset glow beneath its peak. The symbolic sword had vanished. And I felt that in all those years and miles and space which gather in my memory as that single thing—the Pacific Ocean—nothing transcends in loveliness the last view of Fuji from the sea.
Then for two days the world seemed to swoon in mist. The fog-horn kept blowing drearily every two minutes; yet the steamer never slackened its speed for a moment; in fact, we made more miles those two days than during the clear days that followed. We had taken the extreme northern route and were soon in a cold latitude. The fog became crisp, as though threatening to crystallize, and when I stood on the forward deck it was almost like being out in a blizzard. The siren continued to emit its melancholy wail across a wilderness of waves lost in mist. One could not see the length of the ship. At midnight I woke, startled by the sudden cessation of the propellers. For three hours we were stationary, owing to engine trouble. The steamer barely rocked, giving me the sensation of the deep as nothing ever did before. It was at once weird and lovely, and in the darkness I could imagine our vessel as lone and isolated, a thing lost in an open wilderness of space. The siren continued moaning like the wail of a child in the night, and once I thought I heard another siren off in the distance. We started off again and from then on didn't once slacken our speed in the least, so large, so spacious, so unfrequented is the Pacific in these days.
The fog hung close for so many days that a rumor went round that the captain was unable to get his bearings. With neither sun nor stars to rely on men's best instruments are altogether inadequate. At half-past nine o'clock one evening, however, the steel blinds were closed over the port-holes. The ship began to pitch and roll. The waves rushed at us and broke against the iron cheek of the vessel. The fittings on deck rolled back and forth, and those passengers unused to the sea clung to their berths.
Only when we were within three days of the American coast did the sun come out. For over a week we had been in a dull-gray world which was becoming terribly depressing. We were considerably farther north than I had expected to be.
Five days after our departure, I was again at the 180th meridian, and enjoyed what only a very eager, active person could enjoy,—a forty-eight-hour day. This time, going eastward, we gained a day. I also had the pleasure of being within fifty degrees of the north pole just as three years before I had been within fifty degrees of the south pole. In other words, I had touched two points along the 180th meridian which were six thousand miles away from each other, or twice the distance from New York to San Francisco.