At lunch on Nov. 21, someone called out that they were in sight of land. As Nellie put it, “the way everyone rushed on deck was surely not surpassed by the companions of Columbus when they discovered America.” A festive dinner was prepared that night for the passengers departing for Southampton, and at 2:30 in the morning a tugboat pulled alongside to take them ashore.
Once on land Nellie was met by a correspondent for the World with some unexpected news: Mr. and Mrs. Jules Verne would like to see her in Amiens if that was at all possible. This would mean rearranging her itinerary — Amiens was almost 100 miles from Paris — and going without sleep for two nights, but she could not turn down such an invitation. She rode a mail train from Southampton to London, arriving before dawn, then hurriedly took in the local sights – Westminster Abbey and Parliament and the Thames – before filling out the paperwork for a trip to the continent. That afternoon she was on the train to Dover and managed to catnap for her first sleep in forty hours. The boat ride across the Channel was freezing, but Nellie felt like an old sailor – everyone around her was seasick, while she just stared at the seagulls — and looked forward to her meeting with Verne.