| Show WAKEMANS wanderings LONDON dec I 1 pray all of you who are to fol follow bif w after in european jaunts never to cross the english channel between dover and calais save by day it has always been my grew some fortune to make the passage by night and in storm it is pleasant surely from the time our train leaves th the grim london housetops house tops all the way in in the eveni evening gloaming loaming through the lovely shire anif 0 of If kent ent but the roar of the sea is always louder upon the great stone quays than the din of our fast night mail as we rush in upon quaint old dover town A moment at the station and then we creep along the docks and come along side the royal mail steamer hustled out of our wheeled half lighted cells and driven like unwilling cattle down the slippery descent and up over the gangway which seesaws with desperate suggestions gest ions of danger and are finally hauled aboard the rocking craft like the fainthearted faint hearted land lubbers we are first class afta second class ford sorting us like sheep we are at last huddled aboard the foam most appropriate prop name for even here at the docks the sea is so wild that its spume is is dashed over us the luggage and continental tin mail are somehow taken on and with a great lurch from which the steel ribbed though diminutive and shell like craft only recovers to be hurled violently in another direction our steamer fairly began its ricocheting across the channel behind us nestled in one of the most charming ravines in all england is ancient dover town with its rights lights winding away to the westward and blinking from the sides of the cliff while the great dover lighthouse light house flames out upon the channel and brings into weird outlines the stupendous castellated fortifications upon mighty dover heights you are instantly plunged into the plain old fashioned misery of seasick sea sick ness you do not go indoors in doors fot fog all those nice nice people who must be quite as used to a channel boat as a ferry would surely notice you were becoming ill on the other hand all the terrors of the deep and of approaching physical helplessness are resultant from your enforced acrobatic feats upon deck between humiliation and possible death in sheer desperation you choose disgrace your hand is upon the cabin door but seems palsied no you will seek the second class cabin ford they will be less critical there its door is but fifty feet away but where is is braver pilgrimage than this it seems an age until you have been able to throw yourself down the winding stairway into the strange triangular cabin below ugh the odor of the place I 1 its subtle dread and subtler qualms will a always possess you whenever your crossing of the english channel returns as a hateful blot upon your memory Und under erthe the stairway from behind a crescent shaped bar two tom thumb like tiny old boys attired like men of wars men are dispensing liquors and ales at a lively rate every male in the cabin is smoking some at the same time munching food at the sloppy lunch table where the dishes click and slip with a greasy grind with the lurching of the vessel through the noxious vapors and as if lar far away and in an oppressive dream vou see at either side of the cabin and in tires each beyond and slightly higher than another in form of arrangement capacious bunks each is provided with a leather encased cushion a s serge er g e covered pillow and a sunken casid cusp idore 0 r e and nearly all of these bunks are occupied by men and women in every im imaginable agi attitude of human suffering or of preparation against torturing experience peri ence over there is a party of americans evidently an entire family they are cursing everything outside of america and struggling with each other as their physical convulsions increase beyond are several friars in brown and gray pe perhaps rh a ps from some ot the french cloisters s beyond amiens akiens sober and grave in in their rough habit and cowls bearing their misery with wonderful fortitude opposite are stolid commercial travelers silent jews and frenchmen full of antics in their torture with french women graceful and pretty even in in this remorselessly leveling of all human ills an english cl channel annel seasickness sea sickness the horrible air and scenes of this cabin force you with others back upon deck where the steamers rail at one side catches you in its banging baggin grip t to 0 hurl you to the iron netting e embrace race of the other there is no escape all bravery resolution and supreme will power are of no avail you recall in an ecstacy of hopelessness that no channel steamer was ever lost with this thought all possibility of relief is abandoned for a good hour every aspiration pi ration and ambition of life is swept away you grovel and slide and slop as limp as a strand of cold mac maccaroni carom upon the night mail steamers deck for utter exhaustion has come but at last the bracing storm which has whipped the channel into foam pounds new life into you I 1 ou the salt spray dashes into your face and revives you to wheelmen wheelman elmen are for in the cutting wind there is a faint odor of the land the chief wheelman comforts you with coant mind it mon the best there be coant be able to stand on their legs hereabout i away to the n right is is now seen the light at the french cape of griz nez soon your steamer begins skirting the coast here and there are glin tings and glimmerings glimme rings of light from the coastwise villages where the late revel or vigil is being kept the pier head light at calais grows and glows over the looming quay where the sea plays mad havoc is a continuous wreathing of flashing phosphorescence speedily now your steamer literally gallops into port here at one side are the fantastic fish in ing craft and the bellying lighters As tt the e other as the bedraggled passengers pass engere crowd to the gangway opening ard rows of french porters bowing ane scraping and chattering glibly the weird cres sets flare over the strangely and a flavor ol of decaying salof things of half digested cognac and ot penetrating garlic is is over all and what a din is there with a swash and a bump the storm is finally made fast then the perilous midnight ascent to the docks the keen eyed customs officers the skirmishes and more serious engagements with porters the cries of the guards the miserable entanglements entangle ments and wild eyed sorties corties sor ties and finally the mad haste to the different trains for paris for vienna and for berlin in half an hour everything has come to rights you h have a ve with a hundred pardons and been hustled into one carriage only to be hustled out of this into another and at last you ou are locked tightly within one which tas has got you safely for a little time then certain of still being all wrong the train moves away from the docksy weaving and swaying past where red shifted french boys play through long summer days on golden sands past frowning battlements past quaint old rookeries rook eries of the seaport town underneath the shadows of the great calais lighthouse past out jutting roofs and underneath overreaching balconies and hood like arches until at last with a 8 bump that brings you to your feet you are within another raging din where train are made up for all parts of the continent here porters with blue blouses and red rimmed caps guards with gold lace and itching palms and gens d da armes with bow legs and quixotic stateliness again hustle you tear your tickets from yu you throw your baggage after you boucom botu mis you wheedled you take your pourboire pour boire and hurl burl you as from a catapult into a carnage compartments compartment where sick in body and demented in mind you sink exhausted into perturbed I 1 sleep as the hour of one is tolled from the ghostly towers of the calais churches haunted by dreams of dign agian gaudily dressed guards continuing infinite nite tortures through compartment windows supplemented by invisible choruses of je femer te mercier cief moil moi M fitted to the staccato of the wheels upon the rails ever after carried in the mern mem ory like some infernal realization of a witch wailed night there is a great distinction between british tipping and american tipping i ng in great reat britain your true W riton briton tips with something like unconscious kindliness we americans who travel in europe bestow our gratuities largely loosely loo loosely seli loudly as though we were either de defying ying criticism or resenting petty brigandage quite as striking a difference will be found in the disposition of all british serving people in in their acceptance of tips from briton or foreigner they often seem bullies to us uh because our manner arouses their antagonism or cupidity or both but they are veritable lambs to their own folk and the englishman who is the greatest of travelers in his own country will leave a chinin shinin shining trail of gratitude and good will behina behind him by the judicious use of copper only when we perforce follow in perturbation and discomfort though we spangle our way with silver I 1 have seen the english side of this fact illustrated on countless occasions only recently while waiting for a london train at the great rugby station a handsome portly venerable gentleman alighted from the carriage of a train from coventry A porter hastened to his assistance and conducted him to a comfortable for seat next the door where I 1 stood then he struggled with the luggage there were altogether sixteen parcels four were huge leather handbags each of the size and weight of a marketable limerick pig they were all finally tidily piled alfongs de the distinguished traveler the batters lat hand went into his pocket where there was apparently much coin and surely I 1 thought it will reappear with at least a shilling possibly with a half crown I 1 could not help seeing it was only a hapenny but the bland and perfect grace with th t which it was bestowed and the momentary half conscious look of attention and sympathy which accompanied it were what filled me with amazement amazement and admiration the porter still blowing from exertion touched his cap with a i glad sort of humility and said sirl sir in atone a tone of positive gratitude in response to my own thre penny bit and an inquiry who the gentleman that tipped with half halppen pennies might be the porter answered heartily iff imf wy ees the th eEarl earl of an a worry werry fine man ee is sir what an excellent courier he would make 1 I could not help thinking and saying coant know as to that sir replied the porter admiringly but bu teesa eels a werry fine man sir werry good un to ees eels people one of the sweetest lassies classies in all scotland one of the best mothers and one of tl ane murdiest sturdiest aur diest of fathers are dear friends of mine at dumfries scotland the lassie is jean armour burns bums brown her mother is the daughter of the oldest and best beloved of robert burns bums sons robert t burns jr who was himself a true poet and a man of profound intellectual attain attainment men t this thi is mother and daughter are the immortal bards nearest liv living ing rel relatives active i s the home is modest and plain but rich in love sentiment an and I 1 the most priceless of human sympathies and I 1 have long since come to love this tuly truly lovable scottish home for the manhood womanhood and purity that dwell within it they are not rich people these not even folk of moderate means but there is a true nobility in their ever fine and lofty independence which honors the memory of the bard whose fame bestowed no little honor upon them some one conceived the idea of constructing ting in a duplicate of the burns cottage fl at ayer in which the poet was born for exhibit exhibition ln at the worlds fair tins was all well enough then some fertile mind devoid of sensitive sensitiveness nes or sentiment further conceived this little family must be corallee coral led lasso oed and herded in the burns cottage to be catalogued cataloguer catalo gued labeled and gaz gazed edat at like a kaffir band a two headed calf or the wild australian children by millions of worlds fair visitors A united states consul in scotland has just broken the hilarious news of what was expected of them to these reputable descendants of robert burns in dumfries and the gentle but dignified reply he haare has received will undoubtedly be omitted from his forthcoming consulate memoirs to be entitled rifts drifts in the mists of audd aad reekie while on the subject of burns and his descendants it is also an interesting fact that the EU Ell island farm home of robert burns has just been thrown open to the public this house on the banks of the nith about six miles north of dumfries is standing as sturdily today as when its strong walls were completed by robes t burns own hands if there is 39 to be a burns bums cottage at the worlds fair this is the one which should be copied or at least those having the matter in charge should recognize the truth that its representation would infinitely more emphatically memorize fair chilas bard than a prototype of the ayer cottage wherein he was born this nith side cottage is hallowed by a myriad sacred memories of burns bums he built it while singing many a lusty song to his absent love and wife when done it was to his honest eyes fairer than any palace in britain to it he brought his adored jean preceded by a peasant girl girl carrying the family bible and a owl bowl of salt the most of his children were born within its walls it was the one eden of labor love and song that the poet and his wife ever knew there are hundreds of visible relics still at the Ell island cottage of the poets own handiwork he was the great the immortal burns more for his life within this humble home than for all else of earthly accomplishment for here were produced among scores of minor minor poems his most ecstatic achievement tarn tam 0 written in a day and denominated by alexander smith since bruce fought bannockburn the best single days work done in scotland his piece the song of death his wonderful satire the kirks alarm his matchless embodiment of connubial affection john anderson I 1 my jo 0 blaw ye winds his address to the nith on seeing a wounded hare that grand address to the shade oi of thomson I 1 ofa of a the aarts the winds can blaw and that diviness div inest of all his odes to my mary in heaven EDGAR L WAKEMAN |
