Chapter 2

When in doubt, tell the truth.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

About four days out from Victoria we plunged into hot weather, and all
the male passengers put on white linen clothes. One or two days later we
crossed the 25th parallel of north latitude, and then, by order, the
officers of the ship laid away their blue uniforms and came out in white
linen ones. All the ladies were in white by this time. This prevalence
of snowy costumes gave the promenade deck an invitingly cool, and
cheerful and picnicky aspect.

From my diary:

There are several sorts of ills in the world from which a person can
never escape altogether, let him journey as far as he will. One escapes
from one breed of an ill only to encounter another breed of it. We have
come far from the snake liar and the fish liar, and there was rest and
peace in the thought; but now we have reached the realm of the boomerang
liar, and sorrow is with us once more. The first officer has seen a man
try to escape from his enemy by getting behind a tree; but the enemy sent
his boomerang sailing into the sky far above and beyond the tree; then it
turned, descended, and killed the man. The Australian passenger has seen
this thing done to two men, behind two trees--and by the one arrow. This
being received with a large silence that suggested doubt, he buttressed
it with the statement that his brother once saw the boomerang kill a bird
away off a hundred yards and bring it to the thrower. But these are ills
which must be borne. There is no other way.

The talk passed from the boomerang to dreams--usually a fruitful subject,
afloat or ashore--but this time the output was poor. Then it passed to
instances of extraordinary memory--with better results. Blind Tom, the
negro pianist, was spoken of, and it was said that he could accurately
play any piece of music, howsoever long and difficult, after hearing it
once; and that six months later he could accurately play it again,
without having touched it in the interval. One of the most striking of
the stories told was furnished by a gentleman who had served on the staff
of the Viceroy of India. He read the details from his note-book, and
explained that he had written them down, right after the consummation of
the incident which they described, because he thought that if he did not
put them down in black and white he might presently come to think he had
dreamed them or invented them.

The Viceroy was making a progress, and among the shows offered by the
Maharajah of Mysore for his entertainment was a memory-exhibition.
The Viceroy and thirty gentlemen of his suite sat in a row, and the
memory-expert, a high-caste Brahmin, was brought in and seated on the
floor in front of them. He said he knew