SEVEN LEGS
ACROSS THE SEAS
A PRINTER'S IMPRESSIONS
OF MANY LANDS

BY
SAMUEL MURRAY
Author of "From Clime to Clime"

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1918

Copyright, 1918, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

Published, February, 1918

INTRODUCTORY

I was early aboard the fastest ship that ever foamed the seas. Later, a long, strong whistle blast blew—the signal for starting—and soon she headed southward, the great vessel traveling through New York harbor to Sandy Hook as noiselessly as a bobsleigh drawn through two feet of unpacked snow.

I had secured a second class ticket to Buenos Aires, Argentina, by way of England, this marking the first of several legs of the world over which I had planned to travel. Thirteen hundred and fifty dollars, representing years of economical living, was the sum deemed as necessary to accomplish what I had purposed doing. By trade I am a printer and linotype operator.

In earlier years money for traveling expenses was of little concern, for the fascination that accompanies prowling about freight trains seeking an empty box car, or the open end door of a loaded one in which to steal a ride, or of turning one's back to the tender of a locomotive to protect the eyes from hot cinders coming from a snorting passenger engine while standing on the draughty platform of a "blind" baggage car—one without end doors—the train at the same time traveling at a speed of from 45 to 50 miles an hour—the "cinder days" during the catch-as-catch-can periods of traveling through coastwise tracts of country, across unbroken prairie stretches and over mountain fastnesses, are pleasant ones to recall, not forgetting the hungry, cold and wet spells that all men meet with who are enticed by the gritty allurements to beat their way about the country on railroad trains.

Since Benjamin Franklin's day it has been a custom with printers to travel from place to place, and, as some of the devotees of the "art preservative of all arts" had covered large territories of the world from time to time, I wished to be numbered among those at the top of the list. A union printer has little trouble in getting work in the United States, by reason of the large Sunday newspaper editions requiring extra men during the latter part of the week, and by vacancies taking place through the "moving spirit" of the workers, which has always characterized the printing trade.

This fascination, however, like other diversions of a rough nature, lost its charm in time, as it proved more comfortable traveling by passenger trains—inside the coach and sitting on a cushioned seat—than riding on the platform of a car that was being constantly pelted with red-hot cinders. I had graduated from the "free-ride" school.

On a trip through North America I had visited Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grove, Yellowstone Park, the Grand Canyon of Arizona, Mexico, Mammoth Cave, Niagara Falls, and the Thousand Islands after I had enrolled in the "Cushion College."

Later on, having saved $400, a trip to Europe was made, visiting in that part of the world most of the chief points of interest. I had gone as far East as Vienna, Austria, when my funds became so low that two meals a day was all they would allow of, and I resorted to traveling at night on railroad trains with one compulsory aim in view—to save lodging money. After I had bought my steamship ticket in Rome, Italy, for New York, two weeks before the ship was to sail from Naples, the best I could figure out of the surplus money I would have at the time of sailing—on a two meals a day basis—was four francs—eighty cents. My savings for years, in short, had passed over the office counters of railroad and steamship companies.

As the major portion of my travel was by water, the nautical word Leg has been chosen as a designating term for the different sections of the world visited, embracing South American cities, South Africa, Zululand, and Victoria Falls, in Rhodesia; Australia, New Zealand and principal South Sea Island groups; then back to Africa and up the East Coast to Zanzibar and Mombasa; next through British East Africa to and across Victoria Nyanza into Uganda. Leaving Africa, we sailed over the Indian Ocean to India, visiting, among other features in that country, the Himalaya Mountains, and afterwards Ceylon. From Colombo we traveled eastward to the Straits Settlements, Philippines, China and Japan, concluding observations at the Hawaiian Islands. The journey was from New York to New York over the territory briefly outlined in the foregoing itinerary.

From Sandy Hook we sail for England.

CONTENTS