Countries once distant and little known are at this day near and
familiar. Railways on land and steamships on the ocean, will transport
us, at frequent and regular intervals, around the entire globe. From
New York to San Francisco and thence to our antipodes in Japan and
China, one may travel in defiance of propitious breezes formerly so
essential to an ocean voyage. The same untiring power that bears us
thither will bring us home again by way of Suez and Gibraltar to any
desired port on the Atlantic coast. Scarcely more than a hundred days
will be required for such a voyage, a dozen changes of conveyance and
a land travel of less than a single week.

The tour of the world thus performed might be found monotonous. Its
most salient features beyond the overland journey from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, would be the study of the ocean in breeze or gale or
storm, a knowledge of steamship life, and a revelation of the
peculiarities of men and women when cribbed, cabined, and confined in
a floating prison. Next to matrimony there is nothing better than a
few months at sea for developing the realities of human character in
either sex. I have sometimes fancied that the Greek temple over whose
door "Know thyself" was written, was really the passage office of some
Black Ball clipper line of ancient days. Man is generally desirous of
the company of his fellow man or woman, but on a long sea voyage he is
in danger of having too much of it. He has the alternative of shutting
himself in his room and appearing only at meal times, but as solitude
has few charms, and cabins are badly ventilated, seclusion is
accompanied by _ennui_ and headache in about equal proportions.

[Illustration: CHARACTER DEVELOPED.]

Wishing to make a journey round the world, I did not look favorably