On board the "City of Cairo,"
Between Gibraltar & Algiers,
September 15, 1921.Dear Miss Turner,
When I opened the steamer packet for Tuesday, Sept. 13, I found your card addressed to me at Wellesley, and also your very nice note sent to Julia. I am mighty cross at the Wellesley Post Office for bungling my mail so. I had left Onset as the forwarding address and they sent your card to the Home, after holding it a week in Wellesley. Evidently there was no one at the Home who knew where I was for it stayed there until Julia got hold of it. It doesn't make much difference, for I'm afraid we couldn't possibly have made connections, since you didn't plan to leave Pemaquid until after I sailed, only I should have liked to get the card, and to let you know what I was doing. On Aug. 1st, on my way to Onset, I sat behind Miss Hinsdale and Miss Bacon on the train and learned that you had gone to Pemaquid. And the day I left Wellesley, July 29th I saw Miss Smith get off of my train at Huntington Avenue, and was very sad that I hadn't known she was aboard. But the two coincidences made me feel as though I had seen you for a second by proxy!
Thank you for writing me this steamer note. I wanted awfully to see you before I left - but, - you'll remember that I love you and that it's mighty nice to know that I have you for a friend, no matter where I am or where you are.
I hope you had a good vacation, and that your back and your eyes are better, very much. Do you still ahve the same rooms in Faculty House? And is the new science building started and where? I'll miss D. Elizabeth's frequent news of Holyoke doings.
You may have heard from Mrs. Hunt of my hasty and hectic departure. Miss McDougall wrote me from Madras urging me to reach there by Oct. 1st if possible, when the new term begins and the woman who has been substituting, leaves. The board left the decision to me, they feeling, I think, that I ought to stay at home (meaning somewhere in the U.S.A!) that extra month and rest. Rest was a distinctly important item, but, to my mind, it was much overbalanced by the tought of the need at the college and my own difficulty if I should arrive in November. So the Board took steps to get passage for me earlier and the first week in August was a hectic period of uncertainty. From Wellesley I went to Ruth Crosby's in Arlington for the week-end, then direct to Onset. Wednesday I went to Hyannis & stayed with D. Elizabeth until Friday when we went to Woods Hole and saw Dr. Clapp and the Holyoke folks and some of my good Wellesley friends. I was very glad for that trip. By Saturday noon I had no news of sailing & since there was still the possibility that I might have to sail on the 10th there was nothing to do but go on to N.Y. on Sunday. Sat. night I spent at Miriam Keeler's with my sister Julia. I missed Newton Center and South Hadley and my two sisters who were near Greenfield but there was nothing else to do.
On Monday the 8th I learned by telegram that I was to sail the 20th leaving me almost two weeks in N.Y.! My pocket-book prevented my going back, and I think perhaps it was best after all, that things turned out as they did. I was dog tired when I left Wellesley and so much visiitng and goodbye saying was awfully nerve-wearing. I stayed in Brooklyn with Ruth Addams, my Wellesley friend, and rested a lot and got much sewing done. I'll not soon forget how good she and her mother were to me. Ruth is now trying her hand at high school Botany in Valparaiso, Indiana. I wish you might meet her sometime.
Well, I didn't mean to go through all that recital when there are so many, many interesting things to wirte about. On the "Albania" I was with a Baptist missionary crowd and we had a fine trip all the way. Three different times, entirely without warning I lost a meal, and proceeded to eat another at once, but that was all there was to the tale. I had a good dose the first two days in the Bay of Biscay, however and 'twasn't much fun. I have a funny and polite Indian cabin steward who kept giving me "Ox-o" some beef-tea concoction) assuring me in his halting English and with much elaborate demonstration, "You feel much bet-ter take something, no matter come right up again"! It did come right up again, every time, but he was right - it felt much better!
We anchored in the river at Liverpool Monday night, the 29th. It was a queer sensation when the steward shouted, "All British subjects in the smoking room, all aliens in the dining saloon!" to realize that we were aliens. We're quite hardened now, however.
We had about 10 days in England, which we spent sight-seeing. Did you go to England when you went abroad? I can't remember. I'm very glad for the stop there, especially since I'll be working with English women in Madras. I like England immensely and wish much that I might have stayed longer. We Americans got very impatient when we learned that we couldn't possibly have any laundry done in less than a week, nor any films developed & printed in less than a week, and various other things in the same leisurely time. We always had to call for water at meals, and the waiter would look at us in horror and repeat, "Cold water?" I always thought we ate fairly heartily but we can't hold a candle to the English. They eat much meat. Almost always a dinner goes like this:
Hors d'oeuvres (which may consist of anything under heaven they please to use up - a scrap of beet, potato, olive, onion - mixed or alone).
2. Then Soup.
3. Then Fish.
4. An entreé of meat with which you may have vegetables or not as you choose.
5. The meat course with vegetables.
6. Dessert - a pudding, or icecream (they usually take both) (which is not as good as ours).
7. Tea or coffee.On this shop, for dessert, almost everyone takes pudding, then icecream, and then nuts and fruit with their coffee! If we spend as much time in Madras eating as we have so far, I'm wondering how we'll do any work at all.
While in London we took in as many things as possible. Westminster Abbey was magnificent, but spoiled by the steady tread of a mob of sightseers at my first visit, and by the presence at my side at the service Sunday afternoon of one of the young men missionaries whom I despised and who kept interrupting the service. Someday I'm going to the Abbey early in the morning when there is no one there, and just sit, and then maybe I can get the feel of it. I made sure, however, to see where Darwin lay, and Browing [sic] and Tennyson.
From London we went to Oxford, which was heavenly. each of the 22 colleges forming the University centers around a green quadrangle lined by gray, stately towers and cloisters whose dulness [sic] is brightened by the green of the grass and the ivy and a comfortable tree or corner plot of gay flowers. I could sit for hours in the quadrangle of New College or of Magdalen (pronounced Maudlin). An American does feel young and green in England! New College, we were informed, was in reality one of the very newest, having been built as recently as 1752! We were there in the late afternoon, just in time to catch the sun through the beautiful Sir Joshua Reynolds window in the chapel of New College, and through the window called the "Last Judgment" at Magdalen. I don't know when I've felt such a spirit of peace and dignity as I did at Oxford. There's nothing like it at home that I know of. I took a lot of pictures there which have been developed but not printed and if they're good I'll send you some. It's the bit of England I'll remember most, I'm sure.
We went to Warwick Castle and Kenilworth and Straford-on-Avon. All were lovely, but in different ways. Warwick was very grand, inside the old castle which teemed with paintings and belongings of the nobility from before Cromwell's time, and outside in the magnificent gardens where any number of peacocks strutted serenely. Kenilworth ruins looked very lovely in the late afternoon sunlight, and Stratford, in the bright of a glorious day in early September, was altogether charming. I love the little old English houses, all of stone, each with its little plot of gay flowers, or when there was not room for a garden as was usually the case, a couple of window boxes with cheery geraniums. I never saw such geraniums as I did in England!
Do you know about the English robin? It's a wee bird, about the size of a myrtle warbler, grayish on top with distinct white wing bars, white underneath except for a bright patch of baycolor on the throat and upper breast, has a bill like a warbler's, sings beautifully, and is very friendly. I saw it often and puzzled over it, believing it to be a warbler except for its friendliness. But I asked two different folks there about it, and they both replied without question, "That? That's a robin!" They're very fond of the little birds and I don't wonder. But I wonder if it really is related to ours.
We saw the little church where Shakspeare [sic] is buried; the Avon; the house where he lived, and Anne Hathaway's cottage. That was the quaintest and most inviting of all. I talked with such nice English ladies along the road, and quite fell in love with the town and its dwellers.
On the 9th we parted in Liverpool. All the rest of the party went on the "Martaban" bound for Rangoon, while I came alone on the "City of Cairo" bound for Colombo and Calcutta. Do you know, I'm the only American aboard? I wouldn't believe it at first, but it certainly is true. It's a bit of a queer feeling, and I don't mind saying that I'll be mighty glad to hear some Yankee lingo again! The English are nice, and the Scotch are nicer, but they all lack a little something - spontaneity, perhaps - that folks at home have. This I'm not quite so sure of, but I think it is true, that I am the only woman aboard who doesn't smoke. One nice looking lady after another has startled me, until I'm quite beyond startling! I guess they think I'm a bit queer because I don't smoke and I very often don't bother to go down to the saloon for afternoon tea! But I should worry. I'm making the most of the opportunity for rest which I much need and spend a great deal of time on deck just "setting." I've made some very pleasant acquaitances with some I can pass the time of day and a little more, and I'm not putting myself out a great deal to make more. It's selfish, I expect, but I'm tired and excuse myself with the thought that I'll have plenty of time in the next five years to get acquainted with many folks. And my Wellesley year & New York year have convinced me that I can adapt myself easily - so all excused I sit alone much and laze. I'm reading "Kim" & love it.
Reallly I'm a lot more sociable than this sounds. My friends are quite numerous!
Oh, Miss Turner, you don't know how scared I am about my new job - the Botany end of it! I'll tell you frankly that if the offer had come to me nearer the end of my Wellesley year instead of at the beginning I wouldn't have taken it. But things had gone too far then to think of changing. I've no business to be teaching Botany, - and I wish I weren't so tired. But here goes - and wish me the best! Have you put out a new edition of your physiology manual for I and II since I took it? And have you a spare copy of your advanced one? Physiology comes into my Zoo work, for which I'm glad, & I'd be very grateful for those.
A great deal of love to you, Miss Turner, and hopes that you'll have a satisfying year.
Eleanor.Will you please give my love to Miss Morgan and Miss Martin? I hope to write them both before we reach Colombo, but I may not before Port Said. My new address is:
Women's Christian College, College Road, Madras, S.W., India.