The Excursion

“ An excursion is always resented by the regular occupants of a summer resort, who look down upon the excursionists, while they condescend to be amused by them. It is perhaps only the common attitude of the wholesale to the retail dealer, although it is undeniable that a person seems temporarily to change his nature when he becomes part of an excursion ”

“ Though intended as an introduction to “The Excursion,” it has not its sustained richness of diction and imagery; and there is little of that easy yielding of the mind to the inspiration of objects, and that ecstatic utterance of the emotions they excite, which characterize passages selected at random from the latter poem—as in that grand rushing forth of poetic impulse, in the Fourth Book:
Oh! ”

“ So the day wore on and presently the sun came through the trees on a slant and the steamer whistle blew with a great puff of white steam and all the people came straggling down to the wharf and pretty soon the Mariposa Belle had floated out on to the lake again and headed for the town, twenty miles away.
I suppose you have often noticed the contrast there is between an excursion on its way out in the morning and what it looks like on the way home.
In the morning everybody is so restless and animated and moves to and fro all over the boat and asks questions. ”

“ An excursion round the island, sailing in a westerly direction, is one of most delightful amusement to a lover of the picturesque; the circuit is nearly eighty miles, every where presenting new features of the most beautiful variety and romantic scenery, a voyage we made in the Rover in about eight hours. ”

“ The steamer Quaker City has accomplished at last her extraordinary voyage and returned to her old pier at the foot of Wall street. The expedition was a success in some respects, in some it was not. Originally it was advertised as a “pleasure excursion.” Well, perhaps, it was a pleasure excursion, but certainly it did not look like one; certainly it did not act like one. Any body’s and every body’s notion of a pleasure excursion is that the parties to it will of a necessity be young and giddy and somewhat boisterous. ”

“ The passage of the steamer occupies an hour and a half, which affords ample time for the voyagers to see the falls. The party immediately landed, and were promptly beset by a dozen ragged boys, who desired to act as guides, where no such persons are needed. Not one of them spoke a word of English; but they led the way to the path, each one selecting his own victims, and trusting to the magnanimity of the passengers for their pay. A walk, covered with saw-dust, has been made by some public-spirited persons, and the excursion is a very pleasant one. ”

“ It utterly spoils an excursion if you have folk in the boat who are thinking all the time a good deal more of their dress than of the trip. It was my misfortune once to go for a water picnic with two ladies of this kind. ”

“ In behalf of visitors from the Raymond Excursion, it gives me great pleasure to express to the officers and students of Straight University our thanks for the interesting reception we have received at their hands. We have come from a long way off, for sight-seeing, and the study of the country, but here we find something more than the wild mountains, and desolate plains, and border towns, that are to make up so much of the interest of our journey. Through institutions like this, a problem suggested to me in one of your streets will find solution. ”

“ It is evident from this that excursions are as necessary in the country as in the town, where instead of the "fields and forests" perhaps only a park is possible, but there is no virtue in an excursion taken without preparation. ”

“ She was collected by the official leader of this particular Dent's Excursion at Charing Cross the next morning and swept into a second-class carriage with nine other excursionists, and next door there were more—she counted eighteen of them at one time crowding round the leader asking him questions—and besides these there was a crowd of ordinary passengers bustling about with holiday expressions, and several runaway couples, and every single person seemed like herself eager to be off. ”

“ I said, this is a good pleasure excursion. I like it. The passengers are not garrulous, but still they are sociable. I like those old people, but somehow they all seem to have the “Oh, my” rather bad.
I knew what was the matter with them. They were seasick. And I was glad of it. We all like to see people seasick when we are not, ourselves. Playing whist by the cabin lamps when it is storming outside is pleasant; walking the quarterdeck in the moonlight is pleasant; smoking in the breezy foretop is pleasant when one is not afraid to go up there ”

“ I had no inducement to proceed further into the interior. I had been sufficiently disappointed in the termination of this excursion, and the track before me was still less inviting. ”

“ An expedition is fitted out by a rich young man who loves the ocean, and with him goes the hero of the tale, a lad who has some knowledge of a treasure ship said to be cast away in the land of ice. On the way the expedition is stopped by enemies, and the heroes land among the wild Indians of Patagonia. ”

“ HITTING THE TRAIL WALKING tours are popularly supposed to be feasible chiefly for those to whom this method of travel is incidental to their occupation—timber cruisers, landlookers, prospectors, game wardens and trappers of the North—men who daily match themselves against the forces of Nature. ”

“ The joy of pilgrimage—of going, not there and back, but on, and on, and yet on—is a joy by itself. The thought that each night brings sleep in a new and unforeseen spot, with a new journey on the morrow, gives special flavor to the journeying.
Not the least among the pleasures of the cruise were the night-camps. When the shore looked inviting, and harborage at an inn seemed doubtful, we pulled our boat above tide-water, turned her over and tilted her up on her side for a wind-break, and there we spent the night. The half-emptied dunnage bags were our pillows, the sand was our bed. ”

“ There is something charming in the simple thought of an expedition such as the one undertaken by Captain Glazier. Imagine long, silent days of absolutely unbroken communion with Nature! Slipping along in a frail canoe, without the sound of an uncongenial human speech, of clanging bells or grating wheels, through circling hours of unbroken calm, with only the swish of bending reeds and lapping waters to break the hush and remind one of a sentient world. ”

“ Then there began a strange feeling of freedom and novelty which lasted to the end of the tour.
Something like it is felt when you first march off with a knapsack ready to walk anywhere, or when you start alone in a sailing-boat for a long cruise. ”

“ Now, a sea voyage in an open boat is something to be attempted only as a last resource. A trip of a few hours’ duration in suitable weather is all very well; it is, indeed, a very enjoyable experience. But in a gale, when one is exposed hour after hour to the fury of the elements, is in momentary danger of being capsized, and has to bale for dear life! ”

“ These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven; for nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose,—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. ”

“ Here, then, is the final travel letter I shall write on this world-girdling tour.
It is a woeful ending for the "sparkling gems" of travel stuff which have gone before.
It will record the sad contrast between my start from my native land, gaily sailing out of the Golden Gate, a de luxe first-class passenger, and winding up my joy-ride around the world by coming through Hell Gate steerage, barely escaping being condemned as a criminal and executed on the high seas, chucked overboard and fed to the sharks.
The lights and shadows of this wicked world are something fierce. ”

“ It was the very luxury of travel—the very poetry of locomotion. Sometimes I would lie for hours on deck, breathing in the balmy air, watching the gulls and frigate-birds as they hovered in our wake, or gazing on far-off hill and mountain, as the shore opened up before us—losing all sense of thought and action, content solely with being. Even novel-reading sometimes seemed a task, and writing a great burden. ”

“ After a few tours on the Continent your first hour in a railway or diligence may be new and enjoyable, but you soon begin to wish for the end of the road, and after a short stay in the town you have come to you begin to talk (or think) of when you are to leave. Now a feature of the boating tour is that quiet progress can be enjoyed all the time, because you have personal exertion or engagement for every moment, and your observation of the scenery around is now most minute and interesting, because every bend and slope of it tells at once what you have to do. ”

“ A voyage on it is one of the most romantic entertainments offered to the traveller. The scenery is peaceful, and exceedingly pretty. There are few conspicuous plantations with mansions and sugar-stacks of any pretensions, but the panorama from the deck of the steamer is always pleasing. There is an air of leisure and “afternoon” about the expedition, which is heightened by the idle case of the inhabitants lounging at the rude wharves and landing-places, and the patience of the colored fishers, boys in scant raiment and women in sun-bonnets, seated on the banks. ”

“ Not so much as a pine branch, not even a willow
Shall swing in the air 'twixt us and our God.
Naked and lone we cross the wide ferry,
Bare to the cold, the dark and the rain.
For here the trail ends.
Here the trail ends. Here by the landing
I wait the last boat, the slow silent one.
We each go alone—no man with another,
Each into the gloom of the swift black flood—
Boys, it is hard, but here we must scatter;
The gray boatman waits, and I—I go first.
All is dark over there where the dim boat is rocking—
But that is no matter! No man need to fear ”

“ There is no other travel like river travel; it is the perfection of movement, and one might well desire never to arrive at one's destination. The abundance of room, the free, pure air, the constant delight of the eyes in the changing landscape, the soft tremor of the boat, so steady upon her keel, the variety of the little world on board,—all form a charm which no good heart in a sound body can resist. ”

“ Surely all other leisure is hurry compared with a sunny walk through the fields from "afternoon church,"—as such walks used to be in those old leisurely times, when the boat, gliding sleepily along the canal, was the newest locomotive wonder; when Sunday books had most of them old brown-leather covers, and opened with remarkable precision always in one place. Leisure is gone—gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the pedlars who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons. ”

“ They report us adrift. Wind, a gale from the northward and westward. An odd cruise this! The American expedition fast in a lump of ice about as big as Washington Square, and driving, like a shanty on a raft, before a howling gale. ”

“ The lands through which they sailed were remarkably beautiful and fertile; but their journey was not without its dangers; for they were often embarrassed by the sudden contractions and enlargements of the river, and often menaced by the natives, who wandered armed upon its banks. Such was the peculiar character of the navigation that they rose every morning with great doubts on their minds whether they were not thus early destined to witness the wreck and defeat of the expedition. The men generally placed themselves slowly and cautiously in the boat, so as to leave no part undefended. ”

“ So the boys presently ceased their anxious survey of each passing boat, their startled scrutiny of every Chinese face that might be Chun Lon's. This was new adventure now, adventure exciting, perilous, and uncertain enough without the added apprehension of pursuit.
It was not so bad, there in the boat, Mark reflected. If you looked at in the light of an exploring expedition, or of roughing it on the water, it was a pretty good sort of adventure, in fact. The lamp being out, it was impossible to see the strange, many-legged things which crept and crawled and clambered in the boat. ”

“ Bill, now quite able to walk, but with arms still smothered in bandages, was helped down the trail.
Mary thrilled anew as she approached the small blue and gray plane. “A ticket to adventure,” she whispered for the hundredth time. Then her face sobered. Was this to be the end of adventure or only its beginning? An hour’s safe flying would bring them to the cabin where there awaited dishes to wash, beds to make, paths to shovel, all the daily round. “Yes,” she told herself with renewed interest, “yes, and Madam Chicaski to wonder about. Where adventure ends, mystery begins.” ”

“ But in every such trip one may discover a deeply hidden kernel of the voyages of the old Vikings. Every journey is a tour of conquest. Here at home we have found our level; our neighbours know us and have passed their irrevocable judgment on our person. To travel means to conquer the world anew, to make oneself respected and esteemed. Every new touring acquaintance must stand for a new conquest. ”

“ A voyage especially undertaken for discovery in an open boat, and in which six hundred miles of coast, mostly in a boisterous climate, was explored, has not, perhaps, its equal in the annals of maritime history. The public will award to its high-spirited and able conductor—alas! now no more—an honourable place in the list of those whose ardour stands most conspicuous for the promotion of useful knowledge. ”