Leaves - Being a Collection of Letters Written for a County Newspaper in America by a Missionary in India #244995

We left Boston for New York the day before we sailed. The editor of World Wide Missions invited us to his home for dinner the last evening we spent in America, and early the next morning we went to the ferry and were taken across to Hoboken, N. J., Where our steamer, the Koenig Albert, was being loaded for the journey. We found that our trunks and other baggage had arrived safely at the wharf, and friends from New Jersey and New York were there to see us off. We were tired from our journey and our sight seeing, but were happy until the very last good-byeshad to be said and we had to witness some very sad partings. Soon two little tugboats came up and towed our immense steamer with its sixteen hundred passengers out into the bay. The last bon voyage had been wafted from the shore, the last gong sounded, the great engines began to throb and we were out upon the boundless ocean. For nearly a week we saw no land. On the Mediterranean we see islands and passing steamers very often, but on the Atlantic we saw none, until we reached the Azores. But the time passed pleasantly, for we read, walked the deck, pitched quoits, told stories, listened to recitals, for we had a number of musicians on board who were going abroad to study, and watched the steerage passengers at their amusements.