Page 297 - erewhon

CHAPTER XXIX:

CONCLUSION

he ship was the Principe Umberto, bound from Callao
Tto Genoa; she had carried a number of emigrants to Rio,
had gone thence to Callao, where she had taken in a cargo
of guano, and was now on her way home. The captain was
a certain Giovanni Gianni, a native of Sestri; he has kindly
allowed me to refer to him in case the truth of my story
should be disputed; but I grieve to say that I suffered him
to mislead himself in some important particulars. I should
add that when we were picked up we were a thousand miles
from land.
As soon as we were on board, the captain began ques-
tioning us about the siege of Paris, from which city he had
assumed that we must have come, notwithstanding our im-
mense distance from Europe. As may be supposed, I had
not heard a syllable about the war between France and Ger-
many, and was too ill to do more than assent to all that he
chose to put into my mouth. My knowledge of Italian is very
imperfect, and I gathered little from anything that he said;
but I was glad to conceal the true point of our departure,
and resolved to take any cue that he chose to give me.
The line that thus suggested itself was that there had been
ten or twelve others in the balloon, that I was an English

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