Breaking Away
Steamship Potsdam, July 11.
The sailing of an ocean steamer is always a scene of delightful confusion and excitement. Thousands of people throng the pier and the ship, saying goodbyes to the hundreds who are about to leave. The journey across the ocean, though no longer a matter of danger or hardship, is yet enough of an event to start the emotions and make the emoters forget everything but the watery way and the long absence.
The crowd is anxious, expectant, sad, and unrestrained. Men who rarely show personal feeling look with glistening eyes on the friends to be left behind. Women, who are always seeing disaster to their loved ones, strive with pats, caresses and fond phrases to say the consoling words or to express the terror in their hearts. The timid girl, off for a year’s study, wishes she had not been so venturesome. The father rubs his eyes and talks loudly about the baggage. The mother clingsto her son’s arm and whispers to him how she will pray for him every night, and hopes he will change his underclothes when the days are cool. Young folks hold hands and tell each other of the constant remembrance that they will have. Big bouquets of flowers are brought on by stewards, the trunks go sliding up the plank and into the ship, the officers strut up and down, conscious of the admiring glances of the curious, orders are shouted, sailors go about tying and untying ropes, the rich family parades on with servants and boxes, the whistle blows for the visitors to leave, and the final goodbyes and “write me” and “lock the back door” and “tell Aunt Mary” and such phrases fill the air while handkerchiefs alternately wipe and wave.
Slowly the big boat backs into the stream amid a fog of cheers and sobs, then goes ahead down the harbor, past the pier still alive with fluttering handkerchiefs, the voices no longer to be heard, and the passengers feel that sinking of the heart that comes from the knowledge of the separation by time and distance coming to them for weeks and months, perhaps forever. Sorrowfully they strain fora last look at the crowd, now too far away to distinguish the wanted face, and then they turn around, look at their watches, and wonder how long it will be before lunch. Of course the Dutch band played the Star-Spangled Banner as the boat trembled and started; of course the last passenger arrived just a minute late and was prevented from making an effort to jump the twenty feet of water which then separated the ship from the pier. Of course the boys sold American flags and souvenir post cards. Of course the tourists wondered if they would be seasick and their friends rather hoped they would be, though they did not say so. The steamboats whistled salutes, and the band changed its tune to a Dutch version of “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” and with flags flying the Potsdam moved past the big skyscrapers, past the Battery, alongside the Statue of Liberty, and out toward the Atlantic like a swan in Riverside Park. The voyage has begun. The traveler has to look after his baggage, which is miraculously on board, find his deck chairs and his dining-room seats, and between times rush out occasionally to get one more glimpseof the New Jersey coast, which is never very pretty except when you are homeward bound, when even Oklahoma would look good.
This boat, the Potsdam, of the Holland-American line, is not one of the big and magnificent floating hotels which take travelers across the Atlantic so rapidly that they do not get acquainted with each other and in such style that they think they are at a summer resort. But it is a good-sized, easy-sailing, slow-going ship that will take about ten days across and has every comfort which the Dutch can think of, and they are long on having things comfortable. It has a reputation for steadiness and good meals which makes it popular with people who have traveled the Atlantic and who enjoy the ocean voyage as the best part of a trip abroad. It lands at Rotterdam, one of the best ports of Europe and right in the center of the most interesting part of the Old World.
The pilot left us at Sandy Hook, and now the Potsdam is sailing right out into the bigwater. A cool breeze has taken the place of the hot air of New York. The ocean is smooth; there is neither roll nor heave to the ship. Everybody is congratulating himself that this is to be a smooth voyage. A substantial luncheon is still staying where it belongs, and we are looking over the other passengers and being looked over by them. There is no chance to get off and go back if we wanted to do so. And we don’t want to—not yet.