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CHAPTER LVII.
It was worth a kingdom to be at sea again. It was a relief to drop all
anxiety whatsoever--all questions as to where we should go; how long we
should stay; whether it were worth while to go or not; all anxieties
about the condition of the horses; all such questions as "Shall we ever
get to water?" "Shall we ever lunch?" "Ferguson, how many more million
miles have we got to creep under this awful sun before we camp?" It was
a relief to cast all these torturing little anxieties far away--ropes of
steel they were, and every one with a separate and distinct strain on it
--and feel the temporary contentment that is born of the banishment of
all care and responsibility. We did not look at the compass: we did not
care, now, where the ship went to, so that she went out of sight of land
as quickly as possible. When I travel again, I wish to go in a pleasure
ship. No amount of money could have purchased for us, in a strange
vessel and among unfamiliar faces, the perfect satisfaction and the sense
of being at home again which we experienced when we stepped on board the
"Quaker City,"--our own ship--after this wearisome pilgrimage. It is a
something we have felt always when we returned to her, and a something we
had no desire to sell.
We took off our blue woollen shirts, our spurs, and heavy boots, our
sanguinary revolvers and our buckskin-seated pantaloons, and got shaved
and came out in Christian costume once more. All but Jack, who changed
all other articles of his dress, but clung to his traveling pantaloons.
They still preserved their ample buckskin seat intact; and so his short
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