Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/121

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

to go to bed in a room with two others and snore all night. The Doctor and Mr. A. were at first quite friendly, but lately they quarrel most of the time. "That man," the Doctor said to me today, and referring to Mr. A., "is getting on my nerves." The Doctor frequently comes up to my room to smoke a cigar, and sometimes I send out for a second cigar, that I may enjoy the aroma of the tobacco, but this is the only weak thing I do, so far as my resolution to quit tobacco is concerned. I no longer temporize; I do not chew toothpicks, or gum, or plug tobacco; I have quit off short, and find it easier. If you are trying to quit tobacco, quit entirely, and do not aggravate yourself with cardamon seed, cloves, no-tobac, or anything else. . . . I am going away tomorrow, but Mr. A. and the Doctor will remain another week, and after I am gone, and no longer able to keep them apart, I expect them to have a fight, about snoring. . . . The Doctor is going home by way of South America direct, and will round Cape Horn. He said last evening, while smoking in my room: "Well, I now have absolutely nothing to do for forty-eight days, except to send one cablegram at Buenos Aires." His statement was a very good illustration of the idleness of travelers. He does not like traveling by sea, but says it does him good, although he does not observe the good effect until he has been at home some time. He will be nineteen days at sea, without sight of land; an experience I will have between Australia and South Africa. . . . An Englishman I met here today was laughing at Americans because they call one horse a "team." He was also amused because Americans eat