THE VOYAGE OUT

It seems extraordinary to me that every day throughout the winter, crowds
of people should throng the railway stations whence they can hurry south
in search of warmth and sunshine, and yet London remains apparently as
full as ever! We plunged into a seething mass of outward-bound humanity at
Victoria Station on the 22nd of February, and, having wrestled our way
into the Continental express, were whirled across the sad and sodden
country to Dover amidst hundreds of our shivering fellow-countrymen.

Truly we are beyond measure conservative in our railway discomforts. With
a bitter easterly wind searching out the chinks of door and window, we sat
shivering in our unwarmed compartment--unwarmed, I say, in spite of the
clumsy tin of quickly-cooled hot water procured by favour--and a
gratuity--from a porter!

The Channel showed even more disagreeable than usual. A grey, cold sky,
with swift-flying clouds from the east hung over a grey, cold sea, the
waves showing their wicked white teeth under the lash of the strong wind.
The patient lightship off the pier was swinging drearily as we throbbed
past into the gust-swept open and set our bows for the unseen coast of
France.

The tumult of passengers was speedily reduced to a limp and inert swarm of
cold, wet, and sea-sick humanity.

The cold and miserable weather clung to us long. In Paris it snowed
heavily, and I was constrained to betake myself in a cab--"chauffé," it is
needless to remark--to seek out a kindly dentist, the bitter east wind
having sought out and found a weak spot wherein to implant an abscess.