The Involuntary Chaperon
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: time was just after Clark died. And to think of his being an ambassador! Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it ? Off Salaverry, Peru, March gth. Well, my dear, I have learned why the gentleman who represents this steamship company in Panama could not tell us the exact date of our arrival in Callao. Guayaquil, where we lay twelve idle hours because the customs people didn't send out our clearance papers, showed us one reason?and now we have another. There are two companies on this coast, and apparently they cannot arrive at any agreement about anything, the result being that no steamer will leave any port as long as there is a pound of freight? I was going to say in sight, but it isn't even necessary for it to be in sight. It need only be rumored! In witness whereof we arrived at a place called Pacasmayof ni
...ght before last, expecting to sail again immediately, but the agent came aboard and announced that he had accepted for shipment two hundred and fifty head of cattle that were being driven down to the coast! The Captain used some nautical language, I think, but he waited. Of course, no merely human intelligence can understand why, since there is always freight enough for both lines, they cannot agree to establish certain time schedules and keep to them; but that is notthe way business is done on the west coast. Consequently, a five-thousand-ton steamer, laden with passengers and fairly bulging with freight, lay for twenty-four hours off the little village of Pacasmayo, waiting for two hundred and fifty cattle, while the engines ate coal and the passengers ate food and an idle crew drew pay. Pronounced Cal-ydh-oh. t Pronounced Pacas-my'-oh. Pronounced Py'-ta. t Pronounced Ay-ten. We have been running along "the rainless coast," and, faith, it looks the part! G...
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