201 

 BRANDY AND SEA SICKNESS. 



I ROSE and looked round on my fellow passengers, who were 

 all on the deck. We were eighteen in number, videlicet, five 

 Englishmen, an English lady, a French gentleman and his ser- 

 vant, an Hanoverian and his servant, a Prussian, a Swede, two 

 Danes, and a Mulatto boy, a German tailor and his wife (the 

 smallest couple I ever beheld) and a Jew. We were all on the 

 deck ; but in a short time I observed marks of dismay. The 

 lady retired to the cabin in some confusion, and many of the faces 

 round me assumed a very doleful and frog-coloured appearance; 

 and within an hour the number of those on the deck was less- 

 ened by one half. I was giddy, but not sick, and the giddiness 

 soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of appetite, 

 which I attributed, in great measure, to the sosva Mephitis of the 

 bilge-water ; and it was certainly not decreased by the expor- 

 tations from the cabin. However, I was well enough to join the 

 able-bodied passengers, one of whom observed not inaptly, that 

 Momus might have discovered an easier way to see a man's inside, 

 than by placing a window in his breast. He needed only have 

 taken a salt-water trip in a packet-boat. 



I am inclined to believe, that a packet is far superior to a 

 stage-coach, as a means of making men open out to each other. 

 In the latter the uniformity of posture disposes to dozing, and 

 the definiteness of the period at which the company will separate, 

 makes each individual think more of those, to whom he is going, 

 than of those with whom he is going. But at sea, more curiosity 

 is excited, if only on this account, that the pleasant or unpleasant 

 qualities of your companions are of greater importance to you, 

 from the uncertainty how long you may be obliged to house with 

 them. Besides, if you are countrymen, that now begins to form 

 a distinction and a bond of brotherhood ; and if of different coun- 

 tries, there are new incitements of conversation, more to ask and 

 more to communicate. I found that I had interested the Danes 

 in no common degree. I had crept into the boat on the deck 

 and fallen asleep ; but was awaked by one of them about three 

 o' clock in the afternoon, who told me that they had been seek- 

 ing me in every hole and corner, and insisted that I should 

 join their party and drink with them. He talked English with 

 such fluency, as left me wholly unable to account for the singular 

 and even ludicrous incorrectness with which he spoke it. I went, 

 and found some excellent wines and a desert of grapes with a 



VOL. IV. — 1834. BB 



