These hotels do not impress one as being quite
suitable monuments for one who naturally considers his labors
about over when he builds, as they are apt apparently to prove
rather lively for comfort to the owners, and we have decided when
our building time comes that it shall not be in the hotel line. We
got to bed at last, but who could sleep after such a day--after
such a week! The ceaseless motion, with the click, click, click of
the wheels--our sweet lullaby apparently this had become--was
wanting; and then the telegrams from home, which bade us Godspeed,
the warm, balmy air of Italy, when we had left winter behind--all
this drove sleep away; and when drowsiness came, what apparitions
of Japanese, Chinese, Indians, elephants, camels, josses! passed
through our brain in endless procession. We were at the Golden
Gate; we had just reached the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and
before us lay
... "the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.
To every blink the livelong night there came this refrain, which
seemed to close each scene of Oriental magnificence that haunted
the imagination:
"And our gude ship sails ye morn,
And our gude ship sails ye morn."
Do what I would, the words of the old Scotch ballad would not
down.
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