That Big Slack-Water
Coated With The Drift And Rubbish Of A Thousand Men's Thoughts Esteems
Itself The Open Sea Because The Waves Of All The Oceans Break On Her
Borders.
To those in her midst she is terribly imposing, but they forget
that there is more than one kind of imposition.
Look back upon her from
ten thousand miles, when the mail is just in at the Overseas Club, and
she is wondrous tiny. Nine-tenths of her news - so vital, so epoch-making
over there - loses its significance, and the rest is as the scuffling of
ghosts in a back-attic.
Here in Yokohama the Overseas Club has two mails and four sets of
papers - English, French, German, and American, as suits the variety of
its constitution - and the verandah by the sea, where the big telescope
stands, is a perpetual feast of the Pentecost. The population of the
club changes with each steamer in harbour, for the sea-captains swing
in, are met with 'Hello! where did you come from?' and mix at the bar
and billiard-tables for their appointed time and go to sea again. The
white-painted warships supply their contingent of members also, and
there are wonderful men, mines of most fascinating adventure, who have
an interest in sealing-brigs that go to the Kurile Islands, and somehow
get into trouble with the Russian authorities. Consuls and judges of the
Consular Courts meet men over on leave from the China ports, or it may
be Manila, and they all talk tea, silk, banking, and exchange with its
fixed residents.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 46 of 264
Words from 12424 to 12690
of 71314
