This was on a Saturday, and I told Sugden to stand by and wait for word to go on board. I saw that our equipment was stowed in the forward hold of the ship, and then went up to Fairfield, Connecticut, where some friends of my Harvard days were living. They invited me to stay until I had to sail, and I settled down to have a pleasant visit. They have a fine farm and a barbecue was arranged in my honor. This barbecue was held in the woods, and we were in the midst of it when a servant came from the house with a telegram from the captain of the ship. He said that he would sail at eleven o'clock the next morning!
At once commenced a mad rush. I got Sugden's hotel on the long distance telephone, but they only knew that he had gone somewhere in the country to spend the week-end. I hurried back to New York and looked up every address where I might get information about him, but was unable to locate him. I kept trying up to the last moment, but finally could only leave word at his hotel that I was sailing. I went aboard very low in mind because his duties with my proposed expedition were of great importance.
But Sugden is one of those mortals who seldom gets left. As we swung down the bay past the Statue of Liberty, I spied a tug coming after us with great speed. In addition, she was whistling and generally acting as though she was trying to catch our freighter. We were going slowly, so that in a short time the little craft fussed up alongside--and there was Sugden waving his hand from her forward deck! A rope-ladder was lowered, and a moment later I was gleefully shaking hands with him.
Now this was to be one of the most memorable voyages of my life--and I have traveled a good deal. To begin with, we had the worst accommodations I have ever endured on any vessel. Our ship was only a cargo boat and there were no passenger-cabins whatever. We slept in a sort of steerage in the hold, in company with twelve of the crew. It was the most filthy hole I was ever in and reeked with vermin, including rats of the largest and most ferocious kind. The crew were the usual scum found on such boats and were the dirtiest human beings I have ever seen. They disapproved of us--and we of them--to such a degree that I often expected they would try to do us harm. Sugden, however, took all this as part of the game, and his sporting spirit made it possible for us to exist. His experiences in the Far North had made him familiar with all sorts of white men, but I had never seen such as these. People now and then speak slightingly of the kaffir, but the Swazi, with his daily ablutions, is a very superior person when compared with these so-called "white men."