Nellie Bly
New York World/January 22, 1890
She Has Had a Good Time, but “There’s No Place Like Home”
Following is a dispatch penned by Nellie herself on the train and telegraphed from Fresno, Cal., to The World:
Sixty-eight days I’ve been flying around the world and am once more in America. Counted by hours and miles the trip has been long: counted by days filled with delightfully interested experiences, the trip has been brief enough. The saddest sounds that came to me were the farewells called from the Hoboken pier when I started on my trip. The sweetest sounds were the words of welcome and applause which greeted my arrival in San Francisco. Most of my journey has been by water and most of that has been very rough. I have travelled nearly sixteen thousand miles on the seas and am a pretty good sailor by this time. I think my transatlantic voyage will have the greenest spot in my memory for some time to come, and not because it was the roughest either. The roughness of the voyage simply annoys me. I like a rough sea, and nothing pleased me better than the violent rocking of the ship so long as it didn’t endanger the success of my trip.
Just think of it! I haven’t been seasick once, and am delighted to be able to say in this connection that I have enjoyed good health ever since I left New York. The weather has not been favorable for seafaring folk. It has been rough and squally in all waters through which I have passed. It would be difficult to say where the greatest turbulence prevailed. Probably halfway over on the Atlantic. I was fortunate in always being nicely circumstanced, and as I was always lucky enough to fall into the care of able and skillful mariners, the vessels in which I took passage instead of lagging behind invariably bore me into port ahead of the schedule time.
Probably the most enjoyable part of the tour was the voyage from China in the Occidental and Oriental steamship Oceanic. The officers treated me most kindly, doing their utmost to make me comfortable. I cabled from Yokohama that I would be in San Francisco Jan. 20. I confidently expected to arrive on that date. So did the officers of the Oceanic, but we had strong head-winds and a tossing sea against us. The head-winds lasted four or five days, and we were very fortunate in making this port as soon as we did. Chief Engineer Allen, of the ship, has been eleven years on the Pacific, between Hong Kong and San Francisco, and he told me he never had experienced such adverse weather before. He looked though the log of the vessel and could find nothing like it, hence our slight delay. Friends who have so kindly written to Yokohama have my sincere thanks for their interest. It is pleasant to be remembered. My first news from the New World in a direct way was not had until I got my letters at Yokohama. I read them eagerly.
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