PART I 

 THE WAY THERE 



I 



ACROSS THE ATLANTIC 



At Euston, the usual crowd, the usual dim eyes, 

 hand-grips, waving hats ; and the long train writhes 

 slowly away from the platform like a great, hissing 

 serpent roused from its lethargy. Some of the 

 passengers are seen off by tearful relatives and have 

 to respond in kind. Others see themselves off, 

 with an early eye to a corner on the shady side of 

 the carriage and a vacancy at the first lunch, so 

 that those who until the last moment hang out of 

 the window for another glimpse of those they leave 

 behind, may have to pay the price of friendship by 

 four hours of sun, never very powerful in April, yet 

 giving even then a foretaste of the coming summer. 

 The rush of two or three hundred when lunch is 

 served is a form of digestive insurance by appetites 

 still unspoilt by wind or wave, for some know not 

 when they may take their next hearty meal, and 

 some of the ladies eat with a zest which recalls the 

 heroine of one of Mr Chevalier's songs. For the 

 gliding landscape few have any eye, and their loss 

 is slight, for the scenery is so homely as to rob the 

 emigrant of his regrets and inspire the returning 



