Towards evening the drunken miners down the forward hatch began to sober up and gradually come on deck. With their appearance there was a demand for heavy socks, boots, underwear, shirts, wind-proof coats and trousers. As the handling of these articles belonged to my department I was kept busy for several hours, assisted by my Norwegian clerks, dealing out wearing apparel to the men. The upper deck of the ship was transformed into a temporary store, and as each man filed by he was given what articles he needed, together with a store tag, a duplicate of which was retained in order to charge the amount of the purchase against his account—to be deducted from his first pay-check.

The second morning we sighted Bear Island, a lonely, uninhabited piece of land rising abruptly out of the ocean about midway between Norway and Spitzbergen. We saw an occasional chunk of float ice which had broken loose from the ice pack farther north and was drifting carelessly towards the south only to melt away when it came in contact with the Gulf Stream. We were awakened the next morning by the crashing of the bow of the ship against the ice. I went up on the bridge and as far as my eye could reach I could see nothing but countless pieces of float ice, varying in area from a few feet to the size of an acre lot. It was an inspiring sight—both fore and aft an endless expanse of white broken here and there by the irregular streaks of the blue water. For two days the patient ship ploughed her way through this creaking and cracking mass. Occasionally she would sail into a space of open sea, and in a few minutes would again be completely surrounded by an ocean of ice which rubbed and knocked against her sides with the wheezing sound of the ice-man's saw.

ice

land

We were now about twenty miles from shore. The little black ship was nestled in a bed of snowy down. Ice Fjord was a solid mass of ice. The steep and snow-clad mountains of Spitzbergen surrounded us like a cluster of marble cathedral spires, and the glacier-choked valleys looked like frozen and motionless rivers. It was a dream in snow. At first there appeared to be no signs of life, and the death-like silence made one sure that it was a new world. In the midst of this dreary expanse of ice and snow the little veteran ship of the Arctic, hugging its frozen wharf, stood like a messenger from another planet, bearing greetings to the bleak and uninhabited land around us. The first signs of life shortly came into sight. Here and there, at irregular intervals, we saw seals and sea lions dotting the ice like flies on a white ceiling. A flock of geese flew overhead and as soon as our advent had been heralded to the inhabitants of the air, droves of reaper hovered about the ship to welcome us to their frigid home. Thousands of these fearless birds, to whom the report of a gun was unknown, gathered about us and formed a sea of blackness in the open space at the stern of the ship.

There was no time to lose, and once the ship was made fast two men were detailed to proceed to the mine and notify the winter superintendent of our arrival. The hundred and fifty men were getting their belongings together for their march to the camp. In a short time one could see this small army of men creeping like a huge caterpillar over the twenty-mile stretch of ice to the mine. Superintendent Gilson and I remained with the ship, making preparations for the unloading of the cargo and awaiting the arrival of the sleds from the camp.

We couldn't resist the temptation, and towards evening we went hunting. From the deck of the ship we landed a goodly bag of reaper for our evening meal. We would shoot into the black mass of these trim little ducks that clustered about the boat, and with each shot the innocent creatures would momentarily flutter and then close up the gap. Every time we fired we killed half-a-dozen birds and shortly we had a sufficient number to feed the ship's crew. It was like slaying little babes, and as soon as we had enough for dinner we stopped the heartless slaughter.

There are no barbers on Spitzbergen. Seated on a stool on the stern of the ship I allowed Superintendent Gilson to shingle my rustry locks with a pair of clippers provided by the company. I didn't realise how intensely cold it was until the sharp currents of the Arctic began to circulate around my ears in the paths made by the moving hand of the superintendent. One complete run of the clippers up the back of my head was all I could stand at one time, and in I would run to warm myself by the stove in the mess-room. In a minute I would return to let the work continue, only to speed back to the stove again. Dinner was on the table and the little mess-room could not be turned into a barber-shop. After half an hour the job was finished. It was Gilson's first attempt at anything in the tonsorial line. On gazing into the mirror to inspect the work I concluded that he should have been a winding stair-maker. The most skilled mechanic could not have made a more perfect set of steps.

In the morning half-a-dozen sleds drawn by horses could be seen making their way towards the ship. Occasionally one of the horses would step on a soft or melted spot in the ice and sink in for several feet. Finally one of the poor animals disappeared beneath the ice and was completely submerged in the freezing water. After a twenty-minute struggle, aided by its team-mate which had been hitched in such a manner as to render assistance, the brave beast was brought to the surface of the ice.

The sleds reached the ship and the place became a scene of great activity, discharging the cargo and loading it again for transportation across the ice to the mine.

Gilson and I left the work in charge of the captain and about noon set out across the ice to the camp. Gilson went in the lead a few paces to select the way and avoid the soft and treacherous-looking water holes. Distance on the ice was very deceiving. We had walked for two hours, and the mountains seemed to be as far away as ever. We proceeded on for two hours more and still our destination seemed no nearer. However, we knew we were making progress, for the Munroe, in the rear, looked like a small row boat and became smaller and smaller as we continued until she disappeared from view. We tramped on over this vast expanse of ice. At eight o'clock in the evening we reached the shore. We walked over the hill about a mile, and in a few minutes were in the little camp. Turner and the other members of the American staff had arrived the day before and had prepared a big dinner for us. Gilson and I sat down at the table in the little cottage which served as headquarters for the Americans, and ate one of the finest meals of our lives. Roast reindeer, killed by a member of the camp the day before, made a great filling for two hungry and frozen men.

The Spitzbergen archipelago is another "No-Man's Land." It belongs to no country. The Arctic Coal Company, incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts, owns about forty-five thousand acres on the island of West Spitzbergen, which it acquired by staking out claims and which it holds by the moral protection of the United States. A British company has several thousand acres of coal lands on the same island which it abandoned a number of years ago. There is a marble quarry on the east coast operated by an English concern. At Green Harbour, near the entrance of Ice Fjord, the Norwegian government conducts a wireless plant, and near by there is a Swedish whaling station. There are no native inhabitants of Spitzbergen, and its population, numbering about three hundred and fifty in the summer season and two hundred in the winter, is made up of those engaged at the several places I have enumerated.

The islands of Spitzbergen are coveted by the three Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Russia is also desirous of adding them to her vast domain. Each year a council, made up of representatives from each of these nations, meets in Stockholm, Christiania or Copenhagen and discusses ways and means to settle the question of their disposal. Nothing definite has ever been accomplished, and without the approval of Great Britain and America, whose properties make them big factors, the problem bids fair to remain undecided for some time. As a result of this situation Spitzbergen does not possess a local government of any kind. It is a land where might is right. There are no laws, no police and no means to enforce order. Manager Turner was the ruler and executive in our part of the island, and any regulations that existed had been instituted by him.

Eight months of the year the islands are entirely frozen in; their steep mountains are covered with snow, their valleys filled with immense glaciers and their interior is one endless waste of ice. During the summer months the fjords and bays of the southern part are freed of ice, the mountains shed their white mantles and the hillsides burst forth with the bloom of millions of little wild flowers of many varieties, which, with the abundant fresh green grass, present a most beautiful picture. I once read a booklet descriptive of Spitzbergen in which the trees were stated to be only two inches high. This is literally true. None of the vegetation attains a greater height than two inches, but it is doubtful whether these miniature plants should be dignified to the extent of being called trees.

load

Advent Bay, on whose shores the camp of the company is situated, is a small body of water and is on the northeastern side of Ice Fjord, of which it is a part. The company has a wharf with coal bunkers which is not accessible for steamers until the ice breaks and flows out—about the first of July each year. The camp consists of a store, a mess pavilion, a power plant, four warehouses, the manager's cottage and about a dozen bunk-houses for the men. This little settlement is called Longyear City, being named after the president of the company, and its inhabitants proudly boast that it is the most northerly city in the world, thus cold-heartedly snatching this distinction from Hammerfest, on the northern coast of Norway. Hammerfest is a town of five thousand people and is described in tourist literature as being the nearest municipality to the North Pole. Longyear City is seven hundred and twenty-five miles from the Pole, and therefore has Hammerfest beaten for the honour by nearly a thousand miles!

Twenty small frame buildings comprised the total number of dwellings that the little snow-clad village could muster, and these were all the property of the Arctic Coal Company. On the sides of the small houses were nailed the hides of polar bears, killed by the miners during the winter, and the walls inside were decorated with the skins of the white fox, an animal whose fur is as white as snow and as soft as a baby's cheek. The mine was about fifteen hundred feet above the camp on the side of a hill and was connected from below by a zig-zag trail. The coal was conveyed to the stock pile on the shore of the bay by means of an aerial tramway about one mile in length. Supplies were transported from the store to the mine by an incline. The mine was simply a horizontal hole in the ground, about two thousand seven hundred feet long, and an elevator was an unknown device to this dark tunnel. The roofs of the drifts were frozen and numerous icicles hung down in such a manner that the huge cavern looked like a grotto in fairy land.

On the arrival of the summer crew the winter superintendent turned the direction of the camp over to Manager Turner. The one hundred men who had spent the eight months of the winter at the mine immediately started across the ice to the Munroe, which, the following day, was to take them back to Norway. There was no end of work to be done. I organised the office, instructed the German bookkeeper to open a set of accounts and started the "Mulligan" to feed the two hundred and fifty men. My biggest job was taking an inventory of all supplies in the camp. The stock in the store had to be listed first, and this task was begun and completed the night of my arrival; in the morning we were open for business. This little mercantile establishment was a grocery store, hardware store, butcher shop, dry goods store, boot shop and haberdashery all in one. Everything was displayed on its shelves, from a needle to a miner's drill. Hairpins and cheese, socks and salmon, nails and raisins, boots and bacon, leather vests and condensed milk, shovels and cold storage eggs, were all piled together like an assortment in an American junk shop. The morning its doors opened nearly the whole camp of two hundred and fifty men made a run on the place, crowding before its counter and scrambling to be waited on by the two Norwegian clerks. Each man wanted to outfit himself so that he could go to work the next day. Much confusion resulted because of the many duplications of names, and many accounts were charged to the wrong man. There were a score of Ole Olesens, a dozen Johan Jensens, a half-dozen Johan Johnsens and several each of Johnsons, Johannesens and what not. We finally had to rename each man whose customary designation caused confusion with those of his fellow workers.

The inventory of the supplies in the four warehouses was the big task. Before we could even get possession of the articles to tabulate and price them we were compelled to dig them out of the ice with picks and shovels. I had a crew working for nearly a week excavating dynamos, engines, barrels of oil, mine implements and so forth, before it was possible to know what we had in stock. Then there were supplies in the mine, transformer houses with electrical appliances, powder sheds and three dynamite houses, which all had to be listed and priced. The new supplies, as they arrived from Tromso, had to be inventoried and placed away. With the fresh fish and meat which the company's boats brought from Norway, the fifty mine cars from America, the hundreds of steel rails for new tracks about the camp, the thousands of feet of lumber for construction of buildings, the fixtures for the wireless plant the company was to install, the hundreds of packages of cheese, sacks of flour, beans, potatoes, canned goods and other provisions—my assistants and I were kept busy from six o'clock in the morning until eleven each evening. We were installing a new warehouse card system, and each article in the camp had to be entered and priced. We took no time off at noon except to eat; we worked Sundays, and only laid off for a half hour on the Fourth of July to play baseball.

The miners were paid six kroner a day, and from this amount a krone and a half was deducted for their board. One krone is equal to twenty-seven cents of American money. These wages were nearly double what they were accustomed to receiving in Norway for the same sort of work. However, this comparatively generous pay did not satisfy them, and at the end of the first week they all went on a strike. A walk-out was a serious thing. The company was under contract to deliver coal to several concerns in Norway, and it was paying one hundred and twenty-five dollars a day rental for each of its seven ships and could not afford to permit any of them to be idle. Advent Bay was now clear of ice, and there were three chartered steamers at anchor taking on coal for transportation to Norwegian ports.

The miners demanded that they be paid six kroner a day and free board. After a day's conference with two representatives from the men, the management agreed to the raise on the condition that they would be satisfied for the rest of the summer season. The men accepted these terms and returned to work.

The Munroe arrived on her second trip from Tromso, bringing the remainder of the summer crew. This lot of men consisted of about seventy-five Norwegians, several Russians, Laplanders and Finns. Among the Finns were three labour agitators. These men immediately set to work to stir up trouble and in a short time were successful in again causing dissatisfaction among the miners. The result was a second strike, in which the men demanded a raise of two kroner a day. This would bring their wages up to eight kroner and board. Such an advance was out of the question. The management absolutely refused the demands and discharged every striker in the camp. A complete walk-out followed.

The next three days were exciting ones. The manager instructed me to have the office prepare the accounts of all the men and issue them pay checks which they were to present to the Tromso office for their money. It was his plan to ship the whole crowd back to Norway. There was not a ship in the harbour, and it would be several days before one returned from Norway. In the meantime the work of the accounts went on. The German bookkeeper and I, assisted by two Americans, worked forty-eight hours without a wink of sleep.

Manager Turner expected violence, and each one of the eight Americans was provided with a pistol. There being no policemen on the island, each man had to become an officer. Watches were formed and two men remained up all night to see that no trouble was started. One man was assigned to guard a batch of supplies down the coast about five miles, where they had been unloaded from the Munroe, and another was delegated to keep an eye on the several dynamite houses. The two hundred and fifty Norwegians, Swedes, Russians, Laplanders and Finns gathered in groups about the camp or paraded up and down the main road carrying red flags, shouting and jeering. The little camp was in a state of high tension, and we eight Americans didn't know when the minute might arrive that would force us to battle for our lives.

The company each year took precautions for such an uprising, and it was a regulation that no firearms be allowed on the island. The men were searched as they boarded the steamer at Tromso. But in spite of this inspection a number of pistols were always smuggled in by the miners. It was not the fear of the guns that caused the Americans so much apprehension, but the thought that the strikers might storm the dynamite sheds. With each man armed with a twenty-five pound box of nitro-glycerine, they could attack the staff house and blow us all into eternity in one minute, swear themselves to secrecy and the world would never know a thing about it.

The strikers would gather about the manager's cottage, and it would seem that the crisis was about to take place. From a staff on the cottage an American flag was flying, and this was a continual source of temptation to the miners. Turner had decided, in case they pulled down the Stars and Stripes, to go quietly out in their midst and calmly hoist it up again. In the event of their insulting it the second time he would instruct the Americans to fight—and it would have been a fight to the death.

Three days under such circumstances seemed like three years. All day the demonstrations on the part of the men kept our little band ready for any emergency. The wives of two of the Americans were in camp on a short visit from Tromso, and they confined themselves to the staff house, where they no doubt served as an element restraining the strikers from violence.

One night I stood at the door of the office along towards twelve o'clock, and by the misty light of the midnight sun I could see several pairs of the miners skulking up the valley towards the giant glacier; others were sneaking quietly along in the vicinity of the mine, and still others were walking slowly along the docks. The strikers were organised and had their night watches as well as the Americans.

The third morning of the strike the accounts were completed. Each man came into the office for his pay-check. In this way we had an opportunity to talk to them apart from their fellow workmen. Fully two-thirds of them stated that they were not in sympathy with the strike, but were afraid to rebel for fear of being injured or killed by the leaders. The strikers kept two men at the office door checking each man as he went in and out. Several of the miners had not worked long enough for their wages to offset their purchases at the store and owed the company money. This, of course, was lost.

Late in the afternoon of the third day of the strike two of the chartered ships arrived in the bay from Norway. Orders were issued for them to get in readiness to transport the whole gang of miners back to Tromso that evening. The crews built bunks in the hatchways and supplies were put on board. By dusk the ships were ready for their unruly passengers.

Before going aboard the strikers paraded about the camp, scouring the place for deserters. They were determined to make a clean-up of every labourer of any kind, and in this way tie us up completely. They threatened to kill one man who attempted to hide himself in the power house. To save this man's life the captain of one of the ships locked him up in a cabin. The strikers finally boarded the two boats. The whistles blew and they were off for Tromso. The camp was almost deserted. Under my instructions the cooks had hidden up the valley in the vicinity of the glacier, and thus the culinary department was kept intact—which was something.

With the strikers shipped out, a feeling of relief descended upon us. The manager had a tremendous burden taken from his shoulders and each man displayed a tired but smiling face instead of the worried expression of the three past days. All the office hands turned to and became miners, rushing the work to load the incoming ships.

ice

Two Norwegian clerks were despatched to Norway to go into the country villages and engage another crew of miners. In two weeks a new set of men began to arrive at the mine, and at the end of a month a complete force was on hand and the work was proceeding as though nothing had happened.

The company's little store occasionally had distinguished customers. I found the Norwegian clerk selling a large consignment of goods one afternoon to two Englishmen. They engaged me in conversation and asked me many questions about the mine and the camp. They were curious to know what brought me to this far-away land, and our talk naturally drifted around to my world trip. They became interested at once.

They were out on a hunting expedition in the vicinity of Spitzbergen. One of the blades of the propeller of their steam yacht had been broken on a piece of float ice and they had come into Advent Bay to get it repaired at the company's machine shop. I invited them to dinner at the staff house. They declined, as the repairs to their boat were nearly complete and they wanted to get under way as soon as possible. They valued my invitation, and as they took their leave asked me to be their guest in England on my return trip to America. They presented me with their cards. "Sir Philip L. Brocklehurst, Swythamley Park, Macclesfield, The Bath Club," was the inscription on one and Sir Something Mitford on the other. I was mingling with two of England's noblemen, young fellows who had acquired their titles by inheritance. The rest of my stay on the island I was known as the "King."

I had now been with the Arctic Coal Company four months and had four hundred dollars saved. I hoped to meet my father in Toronto, Canada, in a few weeks and go with him to California. One morning about four o'clock I boarded one of the company's coal freighters and started for Norway.

CHAPTER XX

TO AMERICA AS AN IMMIGRANT

The company's coal steamer brought me safely to Tromso. What a wonderful transformation had taken place during my two months' absence. Tromso had discarded her dreary winter garments and was now arrayed in a mantle of summer gladness. Her gentle slopes were covered with green grass and myriads of little wild flowers literally danced as they thrust their tiny faces towards the deep blue sky. Trees were in leaf, the air was crisp and clear and birds were singing. The atmosphere rang with the joy of summer time and the snow-bound village of the winter was a glorious symphony of beauty and happiness. I wanted to remain there the rest of my life.

But I was now homeward bound. My whole object was to reach Toronto, where I was to meet my father, by the quickest and cheapest route.

It was my plan to go by train through Sweden to Stockholm. My steamer for Narvik, the beginning of the railroad, did not leave for a day, during which I remained in Tromso. That evening I spent with several of my Norwegian friends at the Grand Hotel eating, drinking and making merry. In the midst of our good time, about ten o'clock, one of the bell boys presented me with a note. This little communication was from one of Norway's many Mr. Ole Olesens. This particular Ole Olesen was one of Tromso's butchers, from whom the company had purchased most of the meat for the mine. He was showing me a courtesy by asking me to go fishing with him about midnight. To engage in such a pastime at such an hour struck me as an odd thing to do. With the assistance of one of my native friends I wrote Mr. Olesen a cordial note—declining.

Anyway, I had another engagement for the rest of the evening. I called on the wife of a Norwegian army captain and a woman companion of hers. Her husband was in Christiania, two thousands miles away. On a previous occasion the captain's wife had told me through an interpreter that I was the finest man she ever knew. This sort of flummery was new stuff to me. Making love through an interpreter is a very unsatisfactory process, even if it is to another man's wife.

Whatever admiration this woman may have had for me was completely dispelled, I thought, by the displeasure she manifested on the occasion of this call. I had some difficulty in ascertaining what her grievance was, but finally learned that she was provoked at the method I had pursued in entering her house. I couldn't find the gate in front of her residence, so I climbed over the fence. My object was to get in and I had no time to spend searching for gates if such entrances were not in the places they should be. To climb over a fence at eleven o'clock at night in the light of the midnight sun was a fearful breach of Norwegian good form. What would the neighbours say to see a man entering her house in this strange manner at such an hour, when her husband was away? I left her house, disgraced.

I was on board the steamer for Narvik. The boat was swinging away from the Tromso pier. My displeased friend of the night before came running down the street to bid me farewell. By the time she reached the wharf I was beyond speaking distance—my boat was out in the stream. We could do nothing but wave handkerchiefs. I waved until my arms were tired and the lady was out of sight. I borrowed a pair of field glasses, and as long as I could see the poor woman continued waving. She may be waving yet. She had forgiven me for the fence episode. Hers was the first broken heart I had left behind me on the whole trip.

A dreary journey in a third-class compartment of a Swedish train brought me from Narvik to Stockholm. I saw this beautiful city as a real tourist. I was a comparatively rich man with the money I had earned in Tromso and Spitzbergen, and I lavished it rather extravagantly in an effort to crowd the interesting points of Stockholm into a short time.

munroe

city

I sailed from Gottenborg for Hull as an honest passenger of the steerage. My fellow travellers were Swedish, Danish and Norwegian immigrants bound for America. Being the only member of the steerage without a through ticket to New York, I was called before the captain of the ship, the second day out, for a cross-examination. He asked me several personal questions. I feigned that I was not used to such humiliation, and the generous-looking skipper said that he would leave my case to the English authorities.

When the ship docked at Hull, the cattle of the steerage were instructed to congregate in the mess-room for inspection. Presently a group of five British immigration officials entered the room. They were all dressed in blue uniforms with brass buttons, and these brass buttons seemed the biggest thing about them to me.

"Where is the tramp from Sweden?" gruffly asked one of them, directing his question to the captain of the ship.

"I presume I am the man for whom you are looking," I volunteered in as excellent English as I could command. I was standing beside the officer and he seemed somewhat perplexed when a response to his question came in the words of his own language from an unshaved tramp. The Swedish authorities had cabled to the immigration headquarters at Hull that I was on the boat, and I was thus assured of a reception.

"Are you a Swede?" was the officer's next question as he turned his eyes on me.

"Do I look like one?" was my flippant reply.

"What nationality are you, then?" he enquired sternly.

"I am an American."

"Where are you going?"

"I am going to America as fast as I can get there."

"How much money have you in your possession?"

"I have enough."

"I want to know the actual amount," said the officer impatiently.

"About sixty pounds."

The officer conducted me into an adjoining cabin and there I had to dig into my pockets, pull out my money (which I had converted into English coin in Stockholm) and prove to his satisfaction that I had some real wealth in my possession.

"I think this thing has gone about far enough," I said. "I am not a pauper and am well able to take care of myself. There is no need to suspect that I will become a public charge. This sixty pounds is as much as any one of you makes in a whole year. I realise that you are simply carrying out the immigration regulations and doing your duty, but why can't you exercise a little discretion and let a man, who is well able to take care of himself, go on his way without all this nonsense?" This complaint of mine seemed to bring the Britisher to his senses and with a few remarks in conclusion I was allowed to land; not, however, until I had promised to go directly across to Liverpool and take the first steamer for America.

In five minutes I was going towards London at sixty miles an hour. The first boat from Liverpool to Quebec did not leave for a couple of days, and I decided to spend this time in the metropolis in spite of the instructions of the immigration officials.

Nearly three years of travel had reduced my wardrobe to a shabby lot of garments, and I was afraid of being arrested for vagrancy. I wandered into a men's furnishing store on Holborn Street and purchased a complete new outfit, including a Scotch tweed suit and two English caps. I was now equipped to travel to California with my father properly dressed.

That evening I put on all my new clothes, hopped into a taxicab and was off to make a call. I alighted at Fulham Palace and presented to the servant at the door a card of introduction to the Bishop of London, which I had received from the chaplain of the British legation in Peking. In a minute the servant informed me that Bishop Ingram was absent from the city and was not expected for two weeks. I was sorry. I wished to end up by interviewing a Lord Bishop.

I cabled my father in California that I would meet him in Toronto on August 17th, and left from Paddington station for Liverpool. I bought a through ticket from London to Liverpool by rail, thence to Quebec by steamer and finally to Toronto on a colonial train—all for six pounds.

At Liverpool I boarded the Tunisian of the Allan line and in a few minutes was lost in the hold of the ship among the two thousand English and Irish emigrants. My three cabin-mates were East End cockneys and they might as well have been Comanche Indians—for I was unable to understand their peculiar twang for a couple of days. The food was a substantial sort of stuff but was served as though the eaters were animals. And, as a matter of fact, the eaters were quite capable of playing the rôle of any trough-fed beast. "Pass the bloody jam" and "shoot the bleeding bread" were the customary phrases employed in asking for food. Profane and obscene expressions, which are not fit for print, although considered proper for the ears of the women of the steerage, were used at the table as so many platitudes. Seamstresses, Irish mill hands, English servants, cobblers, mechanics, barbers and an endless assortment of skilled and unskilled labourers of Great Britain were on their way to Canada to begin life over again.

After the first two days of sea-sickness were over, the fun on board ship began. Restraint and feminine modesty were cast to the winds, and the man who wasn't good enough to get a lover wasn't worth taking along. The women "fell" for anybody. "Down the bloody hatches" and on the "bleeding deck" and in every nook and corner were lovers. It was probably the most brazen exhibition of spooning I ever saw. It was a case of wrestle and osculate from morning until night regardless of how many curious and amused spectators were in the audience. The jesting and jeering of the onlookers seemed to act only as an incentive to the love-sick sea-farers, who were bent on having a big fling now that they were free from the restraint of home surroundings.

I spent most of the time as a spectator, frequently engaging in conversation with my fellow passengers to learn their ideas of this world and the next. I occasionally dropped into the first-class kitchen and made a friend of the chief cook, a good man to know when travelling steerage and living on its dessertless menu. I soon was the daily recipient of hand-outs and I very gratefully devoured the samples of cake, pudding and tarts which were prepared for the first-class passengers of the ship.

The Tunisian's schedule from Liverpool to Quebec was nine days but, owing to the dense fogs, we were compelled to anchor for three days off the Newfoundland coast to avoid any chance of colliding with an iceberg. When the fog lifted there was no end of these huge monsters of ice in our immediate vicinity. On one side of the ship I counted sixty-five icebergs, and there were as many on the other side.

The twelfth day we pulled into Quebec and the two thousand steerage passengers were quartered in the immigration sheds awaiting inspection by the Canadian officials. I again encountered difficulty in proving that I was not a Norwegian cut-throat or a Swedish crook but finally obtained my inspection card which permitted me to go on my way.

I took a colonist train to Toronto, where I met my father, who had come from California to meet me. He had wished me Godspeed three years before from San Francisco, and he was now to cross the continent with me and help me complete the circuit. Our meeting was a joyful one. He didn't shy at my travel-worn appearance. I was dressed in an old suit which was spotted and covered with dust; I had a two-weeks' growth on my face and I needed a hair-cut and a bath. While my father waited in the station I sought the first barber shop I could find, and after an hour of cleansing at an expense of $1.55, I was ready to travel with civilised people.

Toronto was my native city and I had not visited it since I was an infant. My father and I, therefore, spent several weeks looking up friends and relatives before starting west. En route to St. Louis, I took leave of my dad, and went to visit Richardson at his home in Fairmont, Minnesota. He had returned to America four months before and we had not seen one another for nearly nine months—since we separated in Constantinople.

During my two days' visit we each outlined where we had been since parting and related to one another our different experiences. Richardson remained in Constantinople two months holding down his job of electric wiring for Roberts College. In that time he made many trips about Constantinople and its environs and became very familiar with the Turkish capital. He made a journey into the country districts and got a glimpse of village life in Turkey.

His course through Europe was somewhat similar to mine and included Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, England and Scotland. He did not visit Austria-Hungary but spent several weeks in Germany, stopping at Munich, Nürnberg, Dresden, Leipsic and Berlin. From London he took a trip to Edinburgh, returning to Liverpool whence he crossed the Atlantic steerage to Boston. He arrived in America without a cent. Fortunately there was a letter for him at Thomas Cook and Son's office from his mother, in which was enclosed a money order for twenty-four dollars with which to buy tableclothes. He cashed the order and with the money bought a cheap ticket to Fairmont. Again broke, he arrived home after being away two years and eight months. At the time of my visit he had a position with the New York Life Insurance Company.

I joined my father in St. Louis, where I spent three days visiting a married sister, and we then continued our journey to California. My return to San Francisco was the occasion of the following article in the Examiner:

U. OF C. STUDENT GIRDLES GLOBE ON $3.85

Alfred C.B. Fletcher Travels Three Years as Teacher, Sailor and Adventurer

"Three years of adventure and 30,000 miles of travel through the seven seas ended yesterday when Alfred C.B. Fletcher, university graduate, journalist, school teacher, Government official, sailor and miner, returned to California with a Kiplingesque stock of personal experiences and jingling a silver surplus over the $3.85 with which he left San Francisco.

Fletcher was arrested as a spy in Japan, battled with pirates on a Chinese junk in the Chinese sea, visited Bethlehem on Christmas Day, attended the Durbar in India, toiled in a mine of Norway and has returned from the rough and tumble of world adventure to study theology for Orders in the Episcopal Church.

LEADER IN UNIVERSITY

In 1907 Fletcher graduated from the University of California, where he was a leading figure on the campus. He was editor of the Daily Californian, prominent in other affairs, and a member of the Golden Bear and Winged Helmet honour societies and the Psi Upsilon fraternity.

station

Norwegian Wireless Station in Ice Fjord

Three years ago he decided to take a graduate course in the school of hard knocks and see the world on his nerve and native hardihood. He bought a steamer ticket to Honolulu and waved good-bye to his friends at the pier with a promise that he would not return until he had swung around the belt of the Globe.

At Honolulu he halted for lack of funds to get him further transportation and entered the business of school teaching. Between school periods he took examinations for work as a Government official on the Pearl Harbour project, more from curiosity than a desire to quit school teaching. His examination marks were high and he was appointed.

TRAVELS ON EARNINGS

Several months of Pearl Harbour work got him money enough to go on, and he travelled for several months on the earnings. On this leg of the journey he was accompanied by a young Dartmouth graduate whose method of travel was akin to his own.

While in Japan they snapshotted pictures of Japanese fortifications and were arrested and thrown into prison. The services of the Secretary of State were secured before the two young college travellers were liberated. For the rest of their visit in Japan they were shadowed by agents of the Japanese Government, and they found the pursuit so uncomfortable that they shortened their stay.

In China Fletcher became instructor in a Peking school of engineering. He travelled leisurely down the coast to Hongkong, making inland trips and long stays in all the great ports of China.

By the time he reached Hongkong his finances were low and a trip across the China sea to Manila was made in a junk. On the voyage a typhoon struck the rickety craft, and the Chinese, believing they were lost, flocked around the images of their gods with shrieks of terror. Fletcher rushed to the deck, saw the danger to the unmanned ship, and compelled the Oriental sailors to return to their posts.

MORAL FORCE NECESSARY

For several months he remained in Manila, serving most of the time as an official of the Territorial Government in its department of education. From there he journeyed on to India and witnessed the Durbar spectacle.

His travel was broken by spells of work on land. Frequently he signed on steamers as sailor or deckhand. A long stay was made in Palestine. From the eastern Mediterranean he went up into France and England and, for the first time in years, looked into familiar faces. Many of his former college friends were travelling in Paris, London and studying at Oxford.

The experience in Europe took his last cent and he worked his way to Spitzbergen, Norway, where a friend of college days is superintendent of a mine. There he spent several months and gathered sufficient funds to insure his return to California.

Fletcher is visiting his brother, John D. Fletcher, at 2320 Le Conte Street, Berkeley. For a few days he will renew old associations around the university and after a visit to his home at Covina in the southern part of the state he will leave for New York to enter a theological seminary."

Three days in the vicinity of San Francisco, and I went to my home in Southern California. When in Toronto I had bought a ticket to Los Angeles and return, for I had planned to go to New York City to enter a theological seminary. I might state parenthetically that after six months of study for the ministry, I came to the conclusion I was in the wrong pew and gave it up. The change from a tramp to an embryo parson was too sudden, I suppose. The price of the round-trip ticket from Toronto and my expenses to California had taken the last of my Norwegian earnings and I arrived home broke. I had been away three years, had circled the globe and had travelled over sixty thousand miles.

THE END