over again for two or three more till they wear them
out, and after that for days together they eat and
drink and sleep, and ride out over the same old road,
and see the same old tiresome things that even decades
of centuries have scarcely changed, and say never
a single word! They have literally nothing whatever
to talk about. The arrival of an American man-of-war
is a godsend to them. “O Solitude, where
are the charms which sages have seen in thy face?”
It is the completest exile that I can conceive of.
I would seriously recommend to the government of the
United States that when a man commits a crime so heinous
that the law provides no adequate punishment for it,
they make him Consul General to Tangier.
I am glad to have seen Tangier—the second-oldest
town in the world. But I am ready to bid it
good-bye, I believe.
We shall go hence to Gibraltar this evening or in
the morning, and doubtless the Quaker City will sail
from that port within the next forty-eight hours.
We passed the Fourth of July on board the Quaker City,
in mid-ocean. It was in all respects a characteristic
Mediterranean day—faultlessly beautiful.
A cloudless sky; a refreshing summer wind; a radiant
sunshine that glinted cheerily from dancing wavelets
instead of crested mountains of water; a sea beneath
us that was so wonderfully blue, so richly, brilliantly
blue, that it overcame the dullest sensibilities with
the spell of its fascination.
They even have fine sunsets on the Mediterranean—a
thing that is certainly rare in most quarters of the
globe. The evening we sailed away from Gibraltar,
that hard-featured rock was swimming in a creamy mist
so rich, so soft, so enchantingly vague and dreamy,
that even the Oracle, that serene, that inspired,
that overpowering humbug, scorned the dinner gong
and tarried to worship!
He said: “Well, that’s gorgis, ain’t
it! They don’t have none of them things
in our parts, do they? I consider that them effects
is on account of the superior refragability, as you
may say, of the sun’s diramic combination with
the lymphatic forces of the perihelion of Jubiter.
What should you think?”
“Oh, go to bed!” Dan said that, and went
away.
“Oh, yes, it’s all very well to say go
to bed when a man makes an argument which another
man can’t answer. Dan don’t never
stand any chance in an argument with me. And
he knows it, too. What should you say, Jack?”
“Now, Doctor, don’t you come bothering
around me with that dictionary bosh. I don’t
do you any harm, do I? Then you let me alone.”
“He’s gone, too. Well, them fellows
have all tackled the old Oracle, as they say, but
the old man’s most too many for ’em.
Maybe the Poet Lariat ain’t satisfied with
them deductions?”
The poet replied with a barbarous rhyme and went below.
