The ten letters which were sent to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ appeared also
in the _New York Times_.




PART I

OBSERVATIONS




LETTER I

The Straits of New York--When is a Ship not a Ship?--Nationality of
Passengers--A Dream Realized.


R.M.S. _Lucania_.

The Atlantic Ocean is geographically a misnomer, socially and
politically a dwindling superstition. That is the chief lesson one
learns--and one has barely time to take it in--between Queenstown and
Sandy Hook. Ocean forsooth! this little belt of blue water that we cross
before we know where we are, at a single hop-skip-and-jump! From north
to south, perhaps, it may still count as an ocean; from east to west we
have narrowed it into a strait. Why, even for the seasick (and on this
point I speak with melancholy authority) the Atlantic has not half the
terrors of the Straits of Dover; comfort at sea being a question, not of