innovate-issue-005

24th August 1853Away! A day late due to a brawl in one of the dockside taverns, Captain Frobisher insisted on gettinghis men, but agreed to my request to observe city law. The men were bailed this morning and confinedto the brig. We sail a day late and several hands short, in effect, but we s ail! ToLondon... To home... It could be another life, or a story told from the Brothers Grimm for how real itseems to be not.15th October 1853We put into Gibraltar this morning! Europe! At last, and not just in name for we all play at thepretence that Boma is Belgium, and that the king and court who live out their play thereabouts are aEuropean nation, just removed. But this is Europe proper, Britain's naval fastness beneath the rock, andit is amazing to be here!I had hoped to spy great men of war and steam-powered raiders, but the port is deserted of warships,other than ourselves. Two dozen sail of a mercantile nature are to be found, but Boma can be as busyas that some days. But to step ashore, and feel the ground of Europe beneath my feet.. After all thistime. It is not yet a home-coming, but it comes closer all the time.26th October 1853We sailed from Gibraltar an hour ago, after ten days of refreshment and relaxation. One day I evencrossed the Spanish border for a tour, my guide a one-eyed veteran of the Lengeh war who was aswilling as they come to discuss the ins and outs of what to everyone else is already just history.19th November 1853London! We put into Southampton this morning and after a fair send off from Captain Frobisher Icaught the train to London. We have such things in Boma, though there they run from the dockside tothe river docks, or from the new factories to the works outside the city. In Britain, the trains run fromcity to city, crossing hundreds of miles, and do so in a luxury that would be unimaginable back inBelgium.I shared my compartment with a remarkable young woman of no more than sixteen. She said her namewas Hermione but would not tell me of what family, but she insisted on regaling me with mathematicaltheory of a most intensive nature, and of talk of powerful calculating machines thatshe is hired to work upon. One might have thought it a jape apart from her seriousness and that I fail tosee how it could in any wise amuse her to dupe someone like me. She cannot have any idea who I am,and yet she talked so eagerly and yes, earnestly. I would make he acquaintance again, but she wasgone in a trice, and I with not even her name to work with.Father has booked me into the Savoy. His terse little note says that I should find it adequate! If only hehad been able to manage a journey to Boma, then he would truly understand the word, and see justhow far beyond mere adequate this place is!25th December 1853Christmas at the old House, with Mother and Father and the tenants! Katy is huge, but there is nodenying she is healthy and has a brood now numbered at seven with never a fatality among them.