38 THE BRITON AS A SEA-DOG. 



outset of a voyage, to see how a comparatively moderate 

 breeze will clear the tables at meal times. At the 

 end of a week however, it takes a pretty considerable 

 blow to upset the nerves of the great majority, of the male 

 passengers at all events; and at the end of a long 

 voyage, a storm at sea causing the plates and dishes 

 to rush violently backwards and forwards among the 

 "fiddles,"* has no other effect than to produce general 

 hilarity among British passengers. 



Nowhere is the superiority of the Briton as a sea- 

 dog more conspicuous than in bad weather at sea. 

 The foreigner, as a rule, is nowhere, in it. Nearly 

 all the people belonging to the continental nations are 

 as poor sailors as can well be imagined ; f whereas the 

 sea comes like second nature to the children of Great 

 Britain, in the majority of cases. We have made it 

 our business to take particular note of these things, 

 and can say that this fact is neither imaginary nor 

 the result of insular prejudice. In it lies one of the 

 secrets of our naval pre-eminence. 



When persons are really very bad sailors, wherever 

 the weather admits of it, the sufferer should be got up 

 and kept in the open air as much as possible, and in 

 a reclining position, on deck. They should not attempt 

 to come down to meals, but have their food brought 

 to them there; and it should be borne in mind that 

 if the sea-sick person feels cold, or is in any way 

 allowed to become chilly, it will always make him worse. 



* Wooden frames, laid across dining tables, made in compartments 

 to prevent things flying off the surface during rough weather. 



j- For fear these observations should give umbrage to our American 

 cousins, we may just say that most of them are of our own race and 

 lineage our own people in fact, whom in this respect we do not number 

 among the foreigners. 



