You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.

Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast.

I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world.

These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Vigllan, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark,

and so many other famous and not so famous adventures from throughout history.

Go to Explorerspodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app.

That's the Explorers Podcast.

Hey there, everybody.

Quick explanation. I promised you a short episode about 20th century medicine shows to round out the series, and you'll get that in two weeks.

For today, I've rewritten, re-recorded, and reproduced an early episode of this show, one of the episodes I'm most proud of,

but one that needed a good bit of scrubbing,

and one that I've spent the last week or so thinking about.

So, here goes.

It's January of 1867 when you first catch sight of her, and you love her as quick as that.

Eliza.

You are a 17-year-old boy from Cornwall, and although you know there are prettier out there and richer and younger,

Eliza's got something none of them have. She's yours.

Some of the other men laugh at her. Some of them scoff.

Some of them turn away in disgust. But not you. You walk right up to her, and one of the older men

puts a hand on your shoulder. She's no good boy. You brush by him, and on to the ship.

You've been waiting your whole life to sail these waters, and Eliza, old but freshly painted,

her three masts, gently teetering back and forth against the Cornish sky, is your way to the ocean,

...