Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the originaldocument have been preserved.
SEVEN LEGS
ACROSS THE SEAS
A PRINTER'S IMPRESSIONS
OF MANY LANDS
BY
SAMUEL MURRAY
Author of "From Clime to Clime"
NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1918
Copyright, 1918, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
Published, February, 1918
INTRODUCTORY
I was early aboard the fastest ship that ever foamed the seas.Later, a long, strong whistle blast blew—the signal for starting—andsoon she headed southward, the great vessel travelingthrough New York harbor to Sandy Hook as noiselessly as abobsleigh drawn through two feet of unpacked snow.
I had secured a second class ticket to Buenos Aires, Argentina,by way of England, this marking the first of several legsof the world over which I had planned to travel. Thirteenhundred and fifty dollars, representing years of economical living,was the sum deemed as necessary to accomplish what I hadpurposed doing. By trade I am a printer and linotype operator.
In earlier years money for traveling expenses was of littleconcern, for the fascination that accompanies prowling aboutfreight trains seeking an empty box car, or the open end doorof a loaded one in which to steal a ride, or of turning one's backto the tender of a locomotive to protect the eyes from hot cinderscoming from a snorting passenger engine while standing onthe draughty platform of a "blind" baggage car—one withoutend doors—the train at the same time traveling at a speed offrom 45 to 50 miles an hour—the "cinder days" during thecatch-as-catch-can periods of traveling through coastwise tractsof country, across unbroken prairie stretches and over mountainfastnesses, are pleasant ones to recall, not forgetting the hungry,cold and wet spells that all men meet with who are enticedby the gritty allurements to beat their way about the country onrailroad trains.
Since Benjamin Franklin's day it has been a custom withprinters to travel from place to place, and, as some of the devoteesof the "art preservative of all arts" had covered largeterritories of the world from time to time, I wished to be numberedamong those at the top of the list. A union printer haslittle trouble in getting work in the United States, by reasonof the large Sunday newspaper editions requiring extra menduring the latter part of the week, and by vacancies taking placethrough the "moving spirit" of the workers, which has alwayscharacterized the printing trade.
This fascination, however, like other diversions of a roughnature, lost its charm in time, as it proved more comfortabletraveling by passenger trains—inside the coach and sitting ona cushioned seat—than riding on the platform of a car thatwas being consta