To travel on the ships of this company costs on the average about twelve dollars a day (gold), inclusive of passage, room, and meals. Wine is charged extra, and the steward expects a financial remembrance when you bid him farewell. The servant who has attended you at table is likewise on hand when money is visible, and is generally more civil then than at other times.
During most of the day the mountains on the coast of the Sea of Marmora were in sight but too far away to be little more than outlines. We passed the Dardanelles at night, while all of us were in our bunks, which proved to be the happy hunting grounds of many members of the well-known sporting family, Cimex lectularius.
We were not greatly refreshed by our slumber, and passed a unanimous vote that the next time we were obliged to travel on that line we would seek passage on another steamer.
Morning found us running among the islands of the Greek Archipelago, and there was not an hour of the entire day when we did not have some of them in sight. They had a bleak, barren appearance, as they contained scarcely any trees on the sides visible to us, and the slopes of the rocky shores were very steep. There were not many indications of inhabitants, but now and then we could see villages near the water or perched high up the sides of the mountains, where it evidently required a great deal of glue to make them stick.
I am somewhat confused as to the names of the islands we passed and cannot attempt to give them all. I will only venture on Lemnos, Skyros, Andros, Tinos, and Kuthnos, and I won’t be very sure about these. There were Delos and Naxos, Melos and Kimolos, Mykonos and Paros and there were more ‘oses if anybody wants them. We were not a very large party and there were more islands than enough to go around. And then there were some other islands that like the lion in the boy’s picture book, couldn’t get any prophet Daniel.
The Greek Archipelago is scattered around promiscuously; it would have been vastly more convenient if the islands had been set up in rows like potato-hills, but I suppose they would not have been so picturesque as they are in their present arrangement.
I observed one geographical peculiarity and made a note of it, that every island, without regard to size or position, was surrounded by water.
