78 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



sit down to write you. All the first niglit we had lit- 

 tle or no wind, and we poked along slowly, making four 

 knots an hour. The next morning, however, it blew 

 a little from N. W., and freshening rapidly, I put the 

 ship under canvas and steam, and headed her off so 

 that our sail would draw. As the wind freshened the 

 sea got up, and as we w^ere so deeply loaded it broke 

 over us in all directions. For three days we had a 

 very uncomfortable time. Seas were breaking over 

 her rail all the time, and the ship rolled and wallowed 

 like a pig. Mist and rain made it damp inside as well 

 as outside, and she was more uncomfortable than at 

 any time in our bad weather in the Pacihc just outside 

 of the Straits of Magellan. Collins and Newcomb 

 promptly went under with sea-sickness, and for three 

 days they were as miserable men as you ever saw. 

 Then the cook got sea-sick, and we had to scratch 

 around for something to eat. The boy seemed to dis- 

 appear from everybody's gaze for three days, when the 

 doctor found him in the port chart-room, hugging the 

 lockers, and such a specimen. He was just a shadow 

 of his former self, his long pig-tail all in a confused 

 mass of hair flying to the wind, and looking like a 

 corpse resurrected. We gave him some chloroform 

 which straightened him up, and then made him take 

 the lee wheel to keep him in the air, for I really feared 

 he might die. If you could have seen him clutch that 

 wheel frantically whenever she rolled or a sea came on 

 board, with his eyes starting out of his head, and his 

 tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, you w^ould 

 understand the amount of anguish he was enduring. 

 Yesterday, however, when the weather moderated and 

 the sea went down everybody brightened up ; and as 

 to-day we are having heavenly weather, a bright sky, 



